Shazam Meets… Chromeo
Canadian electro-pop duo Chromeo have been penning addictive, 80’s influenced tracks since 2004 when they burst onto the scene with their debut album ‘She’s In Control’; with its standout track ‘Needy Girl’ propelling the pair to the attentions of dance fans across the globe. At the time the band - with their brazen nods to Hall & Oates, Prince and Kraftwerk - were probably the only group around to wear their love for all things 80’s so brazenly on their sleeve. However, since then the likes of La Roux and Friendly Fires have propelled the sound firmly into the mainstream. Where Chromeo may have once seemed an unusual commodity, they have now established themselves firmly with their signature, vocoder aided, sound.
Their latest album ‘Business Casual’ – released this week – proves again their skill for crafting instantly catchy pop tracks. Singles ‘Night By Night’ and ‘Don’t Turn Lights Out’ are sure to cause contagious bouts of moonwalking and robot dancing amongst all listeners. The band are set to embark on their biggest ever UK tour later this year, including a headline show at London’s legendary Camden venue –The Roundhouse.
We spoke to P-Thug – the shorter, talk box wielding member of Chromeo – about their new album, their collaboration with Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koening and who, in his valued opinion, is the all time King of the vocoder.
Your latest album, Business Casual, is out this week. How would you compare it to your previous two?
I think we tried to make this album a bit more musical than the other ones; we were influenced by a bit more late 70’s soft rock and easy rock. So basically the album has more instrumentation and vocal harmonies, we added a string section on a few songs. You know, just trying to evolve without losing our sound.
Does the album’s title refer to the difference between your and Dave 1’s choice of outfits?
A little bit, the title makes sense in our own world. The Chrome, the Romeo; the Business, the Casual. It kind of all makes sense. But it started with Dave hearing on a restaurant’s answer machine that the dress code was “Business Casual”, we thought it was hilarious and chose it as the title. But it kinda makes sense.
The video for ‘Don’t Turn The Lights On’ is pretty weird. Who had the idea for the floating eyes concept?
That was the director – Keith Schofield. It was the first time we worked together; we wanted to give this song a video that kind of subverted it a little bit. It sounded like a song that was a bit more serious, but we didn’t want to go full on with a serious video. We kind of made it quirky and weird to balance out the seriousness of the track.
On the iTunes release of the album, you’re adding an exclusive track – a duet with Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koening. How did you guys end up working together?
Well, we know them pretty well. We did a remix for them a couple of years ago… And on top of that Ezra and Dave are pretty good friends, they both live in New York. It’s all from friendships.
Is it true that you’ll be working with Darryl Hall – he of Hall & Oates fame – on a project?
Well, we’re still trying to sort out each other’s equally busy schedules. There’s going to be more live with Darryl in the next year, as far as recording goes? I’m not sure yet. It has to happen naturally, but it’s probably going to happen.
You released your debut album ’She’s In Control’ back in 2004, since then a number of other 80’s influenced artists have come to prominence. In that respect, do you see yourselves in being slightly ahead of the curve?
Well I mean we weren’t ahead of the curve completely because before us was Les Rhythms Digitales and Daft Punk, we kind of incorporated that. But we definitely went no watered-down, straight up 80’s. We used to get a lot of slack for it, on our first album especially, like ‘are you a joking band’ and ‘are you ironic’. We had to fight for a couple of years before it became acceptable to have 80’s influences in your music. My guess is we did the groundwork for everybody (laughs), now everybody can do it!
You’re heading to the UK in November for the ‘Business Casual’ tour. You’re playing the Roundhouse in London, which is the largest venue you’ve played in the capital. How have you evolved your live show?
More lights, cooler props. Our legs (Chromeo’s signature keyboard stands, shaped like female legs) do cooler things now, they light up and change colour. We just try to make the show better each time, we have The Chromettes doing some shows with us – they’re our three backup singers dressed like girls from the Robert Palmer video (‘Addicted To Love’). We try to give a new show everytime – plus this time we’ll have new songs to perform.
We caught you guys at Lovebox over the summer. Was there any festival you played that sticks out being the best?
They’re all different, but I think what really surprised us was some of the European festivals. Exit Festival in Serbia, we had no idea what was going on there and had no idea of how great the festival was. Then there are all the classics – Glastonbury, Coachella and Bonaroo – that goes without saying.
You’re known in the band for your vocoder skills. Who first made you want to pick up the instrument?
It was a band called Zapp, more specifically Roger Troutman who was the all time master of the talkbox. I heard ‘Computer Love’ and ‘Bounce To The Ounce’ at 15 and I knew that it had to be my instrument. I was in love with the Golden Voice, I always wanted to be part of barber shop quartet, but I have a really bad singing voice. This allows me to sing, which is great.
You put out your DJ Kicks compilation last year. Are you gonna release anymore mixes?
Yeah, that’s gonna happen in-between albums. We always try to keep people’s attention between albums, so we’ll keep making mix cd’s and all other kinds of stuff.
‘Business Casual’ is now currently availble on iTunes.
