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SXSW 2010: 10 questions for the Dandies
Band names don’t come much more misleading than the Dandies. This quartet out of Lucerne, Switzerland — led by brothers Adrian and Eric Weber, 22 and 20 respectively — play raucous, sweat-soaked, party-ready rock ‘n’ roll that owes a hefty debt to the feel-good hijinks of the Strokes. The brothers Weber sing in English and, according to their bio, have “roots in Baltimore.” Their debut album, out later this year, was produced by none other than Austin’s own Chris “Frenchie” Smith, member of Sixteen Deluxe and producer to such buzzed acts as the Dandy Warhols and Jet. Adrian spoke with the Statesman via Skype to discuss why they went with Frenchie, how two English-speaking brothers wound up playing in a Swiss band and just why they don’t sing in Switzerland’s native tongue.
Will this be your first time playing SXSW?
Yeah, it’s our first time playing outside of Switzerland in general, so we’re really excited for it. We feel really honored being able to play at a festival like that. Getting recognition and being able to play there is crazy. I’ve heard so much about it, and just looking at the bands is overwhelming.
Who in the lineup are you excited about?
There’s a couple of awesome bands that we’ve known or just started to check out, like for example We Are Scientists. We love those guys. We kind of like Miike Snow and we’re just starting to get into the Postelles from New York. They have that late 50s, early 60s kind of rock ‘n’ roll sound. We’re really digging them. And of course Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
So being from Austin I have to ask how you wound up working with Frenchie. He’s something of a local legend around here.
(Laughs). It’s not hard to believe that he’s a local legend. We wanted to record an album to get some interest from the industry, and our manager, who’s based in England, wrote some different producers that he knew, and Frenchie was one of them. And Jet is a big influence in our music, so that was exciting for us. And right from the outset Frenchie seemed like the coolest guy and the one who wanted to produce us the most. For the others producing just seemed like their job. But with him it was his passion.
What kind of strengths did he bring to the record?
We’re very young and, maybe at the point where we met Frenchie, inexperienced. So he taught us so many things from A to Z, from how you play guitar on a record to how to sing on a track. He shared all his experiences he had and just helped us so much. He taught us what rock music is all about. He changed the sound and made us a bit more edgy.
So the obvious question when talking to you guys is, how did two English-speaking brothers with roots in Baltimore wind up in Switzerland?
You should actually ask our parents! My mom’s American, born and raised in Baltimore, so that’s where those Baltimore roots come from. When my mom finished college, she traveled Europe with two of her best friends. And they were in the same train as my dad, who kept walking back and forth through the aisle until he finally worked up the courage to talk to my mom. So we were born in Switzerland, but our household has always spoken English. We’re kind of both American and Swiss as the same time.
What led you and your brother to decide you wanted to form a rock band together?
For my brother and I it was the bands that came out in the era of 2001 to 2003 that really blew us away and made us want to be a part of a band. The Strokes, the Libertines and especially the Kings of Leon. When bands like that came out, the White Stripes even, it was more than just listening to music for us. It started to become a passion to us. So we said we wanted to create a band, and that was 2005, and we started learning instruments. So we had a few years of being a crap band before we really got good at it.
Did anybody in your family have an influence on your music?
My dad was a major influence on us. He cannot sing to save his life, and he has no musical talent whatsoever. He can’t even whistle in pitch. But he’s passionate about music and loves listening to it. I remember being a kid going through all of his records from his room to find things to listen to, and he had a couple thousand of them. It went from Jimi Hendrix to every single Beatles vinyl to the Housemartins, to some Cuban Dutch crossover mixed jazz weird stuff you’ve never even heard of heard. We wouldn’t be playing music without my dad.
You and your brother kind of share front man duties in the Dandies. Lots of brothers grow up wanting to kill each other — why do you think the two of you get along so well as musicians?
Don’t get me wrong, we do want to kill each other every once in a while. That does happen. But we have a very close bond and we always were very protective of each other. That’s how brotherly love works. You have fights, but you move on. When I started high school, I didn’t get along with anyone and neither did my brother, so we were each other’s only friends for a good year or two and that really helped us bond. We’ve always done everything together.
Is it difficult being a band that writes and sings in English when you’re based in Switzerland?
Nah, I don’t think so. Because all of the bands here write and sing in English. What is frustrating is that, and no offense to Switzerland, but people over here really don’t care much about lyrics. They spend no time on them. Most of the bands sing “Sky is blue and I love you” or “I got drunk last night,” or something like that. There are no metaphors. In the USA or England lyrics are so important, which I think is good because it forces you to really express yourself or tell a story. It gives you a chance to say something that you couldn’t say in regular conversation.
Why don’t any of the bands sing in Swiss German? You’d think if they sang in their first language they’d probably have more elaborate lyricism.
Man, you do not want to hear Swiss German. It’s very different from German German. When people from Germany hear Swiss German they do not understand what we’re saying. It’s not like a differently accented version of German, it’s like a totally different language. And it’s a horrible language. A while ago Frenchie asked us why were fighting when he heard us talking to each other in Swiss German, because the language sounds very aggressive. It’s very direct. Someone who speaks Swiss German might almost seem a bit rude or offensive to you at first. When you speak Swiss German with someone it sounds like you’re hollering and cursing at each other. If somebody sang a love song in that language the audience, if they weren’t aware of, would probably assume they were singing a song about killing their wife.
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