Focus Darker My Love

Article by Colin

Tim Presley (guitar/vocals), Rob Barbato (bass/vocals), Jared Everett (guitar), Andy Granelli (drums) and Will Canzoneri (keyboards) make up Darker My Love. On the night of their fourth gig in London (at The Barfly, in Camden), Darker My Love sat down to speak with We7 about how their run of gigs in London has gone, their expieriences of touring with The Dandy Warhols and more...

The interview

How are you finding the audiences over here - a lot of people say the London audience is the hardest one to please.

Tim: They say the same thing about L.A. audiences.
Rob: Scottish audiences - they go nuts for the music up there.
Jared: It's almost like every other show is really good so far.
Rob: So we're due for a good one. The first show was kind of like "whatever..." We played Sonic Cathedral at The Social - they've been asking us to play one of their nights for a long time.

You've been supporting The Dandy Warhols recently...

Rob: Yeah, all summer, it was really, really cool.
Jared: Yeah it was really nice - they are really nice people, every night was fun.
Rob: The audience really received us well. We know that they are big over here, we weren't really sure how they were going to do in the States, cos they don't really tour over there that much. We played some nice theatres.

Who are your favourites - The Dandy Warhols, or The Brian Jonestown Massacre?

Tim: Dandy's fans.
Jared: I really like them; every time I saw them play live they were always really good.
Andy: Plus it's so "cool" to like the Brian Jonestown Massacre and it's not that cool to like the Dandy's.
Tim: It's like the Beach Boys - everyone thinks of them as being un-cool preppy geeks, but they made some great songs in the 60s.
Rob: The funny thing about BJM is everybody is attracted to his (front man Anton Newcombe's) bad boy, temperamental, self destructive attitude. And that kind of turns me off. With The Dandy's, we're "family".
Tim: They are both good bands, we happen to know the Dandy's better, that's all.
Will: Anton maybe the nicest dude on the face of the earth or whatever, it might be that he had a bad year (in the film "DIG")... we don't know.

You all come from different parts of the States. Where did you form the band?

Tim: Yeah, we all met up in L.A.
Jared: But that happens a lot. I think everyone from L.A. is not really from L.A.... it's like London, like who is really from London?
Rob: It's like that anywhere in the States, whether you move to Chicago, or New York, Baltimore... you don't necessarily stay where you grew up, you know? You kind of want to go and see different stuff... or at least we did.
Andy: We formed the band, with this line-up, I'd say four years ago.
Tim: 2005, or the end of 2004
Jared: And then like, we made that record (the debut album) in 2005. It just took a long time to come out, you know?

And you have the new record ("2") coming out over here next year.

Rob: Yeah, February. So we're pretty excited about that and we're looking forward to touring over here. It's been our main goal as a band to play over here and Europe. We care about the States to certain degree...
Andy: It's almost like there's more music fans in England and Europe. And Americans aren't fans of music, they're fans of t*** and a** and people getting f***** up.

Can you tell us a bit about your song, Talking Words?

Rob: Tim wrote that one...
Tim: Yeah, I was going for a 60s psychedelic vibe
Rob: It was even more of a pop song originally; it was like a minute and a half.
Tim: Yeah, it was just like a chorus, verse and a chorus...
Rob: A little nugget
Tim: It got longer. Dave Cody (producer) made us write some more on it and make it longer. Like add another verse and a chorus.

Another great new song is "Northern Soul"...

Rob: I wrote that one. I was home for Christmas and was in Rhode Island, New England, so I was there and we had just ... the term "Northern Soul" just always stuck with me, like Mark (E. Smith, of The Fall) was always talking about northern soul records... so it has just more to do with colder weather and a state of transcendence.

What is the best gig you ever played?

Tim: Best gig? Jesus and Mary Chain at the Fillmore?
Jared: Yeah, we did a two-nighter.
Tim: It's funny, we ran into their guitar tech last night... he got us knackered!

Are you big Jesus and Mary Chain fans?

Rob: Isn't everyone?
Andy: That one song with Hope Sandoval (Sometimes Always) was big. That was like a really big song. I was like a kid too when that came out, so I didn't know s***. But I remember that song. It was like that and The Cure, Morrissey... so yeah they were pretty big. When they came back they did two nights at the Fillmore in San Francisco, both shows were sold out.

Tim and Rob, What was working in The Fall like?

Tim: Yeah it was good... I don't know the stories, the rumours, about him (band leader Mark E. Smith), so I can't really say anything about that. He's a good friend.
Rob: He's a good friend, a hard worker and I think he expects people who are working with him to work hard, you know. You can get in the mind-set when you're in a band and you have a lot of free time to kind of slack off... we work hard a lot.
Andy: I think it's pretty amazing that he can exist for that long, and not become a parody of himself.
Tim: It's 'cos he's an artist, that's why... he would never play an old song, just to please the crowd. He would be like, "this is my new record, and this is what I am doing now, what I am touring on". He could probably do well, travelling the country and playing his hits... but who wants that?

What is your ambition for the band?

Tim: It would be nice to just have enough money to keep us touring and recording records you know, I don't really need a lot of money... just enough to be able to make records, ''Cos that's hard. We have a good label, though.
Andy: We are actually very lucky, it's kind of unheard of for bands like us to get the kind of support we get... Tim and I grew up in one of the most expensive areas in San Francisco - subsequently it makes it hard to be a drummer in a rock 'n' roll band. Ultimately, what I do best is play drums. I'm not a very good manager of a sporting goods store, you know? So I feel lucky that I am out here able to do this.