Danger Mouse:The Man Behind the Mask (Harp magazine interview)

[Elano]

Today it’s not business as usual in Los Angeles. There’s no traffic, no sun, and it’s raining. There’s not even any Top 40; instead, Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is being aired on national radio (it is MLK Day). But what’s even stranger is that the ever-elusive Danger Mouse will finally take off his mask. Not only will the mysterious super-producer give us a glimpse of Brian Burton (the name his mama gave him), he’ll do the unthinkable and let a journalist into his studio and play music for him that no one else has heard and few even know exists.
“I haven’t done an interview like this in the last couple of years,” he confesses. “I’ve kept everything [to myself] and there’s a lot.”
The man ain’t joking. As soon as he finished Gnarls Barkley’s multi-platinum 2006 debut St. Elsewhere, Danger Mouse began or continued working on projects with the following list of artists: The Black Keys (Attack & Release, available in April); Ike Turner (passed away in December; single may appear in near future); Beck (album in early stages of production); The Good, The Bad and The Queen (came out January of 2007); Sparklehorse (Dangerhorse, featuring Mark Linkous as well as the Flaming Lips, Iggy Pop, Stephen Malkmus, Gruff from Super Furry Animals, Vic Chesnutt, Frank Black, Susan Vega and more, should be available sometime in ‘08); Tricky’s gal pal Martina Topley-Bird (The Blue God, due this summer); The Shortwave Set (Replica Sun Machine, tentatively slated for May); and MF Doom (album may appear).
He’s also hard at work on a record with Italian composer Daniel Luppi. As of this writing the album is to be titled Rome and it took Danger Mouse to the city of the same name to record with the original session musicians and choirs from the Ennio Morricone film scores, and in the same studio Morricone cut them.
And then there’s that little follow-up thing with his buddy Cee-Lo on what just may be the most highly anticipated album of the year: Gnarls Barkley’s The Odd Couple, whose official release date has been frustratingly fluid of late (for fans at least), but for now it appears to be headed to stores in April.
Upon arriving at the top secret location at the specified time I am cautiously led through a drizzling rain to Danger Mouse’s inner sanctum. I step into his immaculate studio and am ushered into the control room where the magic truly happens. The producer is cagey at this point, shy, and barely acknowledging my presence as he messes with his iPhone. But the moment he sits down, surrounded by his mixing board and computer screens, a calm falls over the room and it quickly becomes apparent that Danger Mouse would rather play music than talk about it.
Before long he’s scrolling through his iTunes and the chest-rattling bass of a new Gnarls song is bouncing off our bodies. Over the course of the next few hours Danger Mouse will play several tracks off The Odd Couple, including one that features an Italian choir that was lifted from his Rome project, and “Run,” which was leaked over the Internet in late January, sending bloggers into hyper-freak-out mode. In addition to the new Gnarls, Danger Mouse offers up a psychedelic-shimmering, Flaming Lips-laden Dangerhorse selection, a Beatles-esque pop song off Shortwave Set’s upcoming album, the thickbeat of Topley-Bird’s forthcoming single “Carnies,” and eventually a few tracks off Attack & Release that sound like the Black Keys drinking copious amounts of electric Kool-Aid.
At this point Danger Mouse begins messing with his computer, “This is stuff I probably won’t show many people,” he says, bringing up behind the scenes video footage of him in Italy’s Forum Studio working on his Rome project.

HARP: Considering the wide range of artists you have collaborated with recently, how do you decide who to work with?
I work with people that I think I can learn something from, and that I’m a fan of their music. That’s my main criteria right there; I don’t know if that will ever go away. Stylistically I guess I’m all over the place, but I generally like the sadder side of music and the darker side of music, and I think everybody has that in them. They may have never put that all together on one record, but the way I look at it is, if I’m a fan of somebody it’s usually not 100 percent. It’s usually things about them that I like, and I try to make a whole record with them using the things that I like.

HARP: Something that seems key to how you operate is your philosophy. I’ve read where you discuss the influence of movie producers and the idea of being an auteur. Is that the best way to describe what you do?
I’d like to think so; that’s always what I was trying to do. I wanted to be a filmmaker before I wanted to make music but music kind of hit me first and I went with it and tried to approach it in that way. But in order to do that you can’t really come in and start stomping your foot down on everything that you do. I don’t want my augmentation to be too overbearing, but at the same time I do want it to be clearly me. I do like to think and hope that there is a sound to what I do. I think that there is.

HARP: As you said, you really like to imprint yourself on the work and have it be clearly you…
What I mean by that is I don’t adjust. I’m more of a collaborator than I am a producer. I really enjoy working with people; I don’t really work for people in that kind of way. And I don’t like to do songs that I don’t love.

HARP: Thinking about your skill set, some producers are very hands-on and use the mixing board as another instrument and some are facilitators who try to get the best, most relaxed performance out of a band. How do you physically operate?
I think it really depends, but I’m much more hands-on. Whether I’m using the people I’m with as human samples or whether I’m trying to get them to do something [musically], it’s not because I think it would be cool if I did something. It’s because I think it would be cool if they did something that I would like.
I look at myself as an artist first, and that’s part of it. I really only step in when I think I need to, and I guess there’s a whole science as far as that’s concerned. But at the same time, I’m joining people’s bands, which is good in that you’re being asked, and then you can leave. But I can still join in an objective way. There’s an overall vision I have for something, whether it’s a song or a chorus or a whole album, and it’s not so much premeditated when it comes down to the details. It’s just when they happen I feel like I know where things are supposed to go and how they’re supposed to sound. And I know when it’s wrong very quickly.

HARP: Did you grow up playing music?
I was around it a lot but I didn’t really play. I tried different instruments but I never really stuck with one.

HARP: Do you consider yourself naturally inclined toward music?
No, I don’t really believe in talent so much. I think you do what you do and people either respond and like it or don’t. You just do it and it either works out or it doesn’t. Some people can pick up an instrument quicker than somebody else but they may not play one thing that anybody cares about.

HARP: Can you take me back to the creation of the name and alter-ego Danger Mouse?
When I lived in Athens, Georgia, when I first started making music I didn’t want to do hip-hop. I refused. I was a big hip-hop kid, but then I got really into psychedelic music and that’s what made me want to make music. Hearing the Beatles and Pink Floyd and Hendrix and things like that, and I hadn’t heard any of that stuff until I was much older. My parents listened to a lot of Motown, ‘80s pop was on the radio, and when I lived in New York [before moving to Georgia] my older sister was bringing home all this hip-hop stuff and eventually I got really into hip-hop and then Miami bass stuff when I moved to Atlanta. And then when I got to college I got into psychedelic music because I met a lot of the Elephant 6 guys. So anyway, I started making music…

HARP: When you say “making music” what do you mean?
I went and got keyboards, drum machines, samplers and put them in my dorm room with a four-track and started making tracks for people to eventually sing on or for them to be instrumentals. So I made a record after not too long called Pelican City which I don’t really promote or anything; it was a soundtrack to a film that I had written this idea for. So I put that out and sent it to college radio and I got lucky because Neutral Milk Hotel let me put a remix I did of theirs on it and that helped get people to actually listen to it.
But the thing was, when I started making that record I didn’t have any money; I used all my loan money to get equipment and put it together. So I decided to start DJing in order to make money around town. I borrowed some turntables and started learning how to DJ and I started doing some remixes, which were kind of mash-ups of ‘80s pop songs with hip-hop and people liked them so I figured I should put out a CD for people to buy. But I wanted something that took itself a little less seriously than this dark, heavy soundtrack record I was doing. So I called it Danger Mouse, which was my favorite cartoon when I was a kid. It was just an alter-ego kind of thing because in Atlanta the biggest DJ was DJ Smurf and it was just something that would make me take myself a little less seriously.

HARP: Do you have a favorite project, one that you are most proud of?
I don’t know. Currently, like right this second, I’d say the latest Gnarls album I’m really, really proud of and really happy with. But I’m kind of delusional. I think that every record [I make] is gonna change the world, I really do. I felt like that back when I used to make my shit in my dorm room.

HARP: What is the creative process like with Gnarls?
With Gnarls I try to visualize him [Cee-Lo] and see where he would go and I kind of try to lead him. Even though he hasn’t written anything lyrically yet, I try to bring him where I want him to go. And sometimes he’ll jump right on it and other times he’ll go places I didn’t think he would and that’s good as well. That’s much more than two artists working together.

HARP: You started on the new Gnarls album right after you finished St. Elsewhere, and you’ve said that you wanted to make it “better.” Better how?
I understood a lot more. That first record took three years; I had made some of those tracks years before they came out. I hadn’t worked with Damon yet; I learned so much from Damon Albarn [working on the Gorillaz and The Good, The Bad and the Queen albums].

HARP: What was it about working with Damon that was so monumental for you?
He showed me the possibility that there were no limits to what I could do. I always thought it in my head, but he showed me how to put these ideas into play.

HARP: When you started the new Gnarls album, did you have a goal or a direction?
I look back on [St. Elsewhere] and I still think it’s a good record, I like it, I really do, but I learned more how to work with Cee-Lo, and also myself just musically. I knew what I was trying to do back then, but I didn’t really know how to get there. So after working with a lot of other artists I understood much more of what I was trying to do. Working with somebody like Cee-Lo, he’s one of the best voices of our time and being able to work with him is a big responsibility. So I just did everything I could to make it as good as possible and make sure I’m not blowing it.

HARP: I read where Cee-Lo said it was “bigger” and “more arena friendly.” Do you agree with that?
I don’t know. It’s at times bigger, it’s a heavy record

HARP: Throughout the album is there a lot of live playing?
It’s about half samples, half playing, just to get the right sound.

HARP: I was thinking about the costumes that you wear in Gnarls, and you clearly like your privacy. Is that a way for someone to be a star, to be in the limelight but not have it be Brian Burton?
I just don’t want to give anybody the wrong impression. You make good music with great people all day long; I’d rather make my mistakes in the music than make my mistakes in how I took my picture. It’s a necessary evil, I don’t like to do it, but I like seeing the way other artists look and what they’re trying to do. And I don’t want people to necessarily know what I look like when I dress in the street or when I hang with my friends. That’s not really anybody’s business; it’s completely different.

HARP: Moving to the Black Keys, from what I gathered you went to them first and wanted to do “The Return of Ike Turner” with them as the band, is that right?
Yeah, I’ve known Ike for years and I wanted to do something contemporary with him for a long time but I didn’t want to do a hip-hop record. I didn’t want to do something with his band; I wanted to do something different, but I didn’t know what, until it hit me, and when it hit me I knew it was perfect. I almost knew they [the Black Keys] would say yes— they had to! So we started doing some stuff with that, but another record started to happen. It started to veer more towards something with them. Also, we wanted to really change what we were going to do with Ike because his voice was different than we thought it was going to be, which was really good. It was a really deep, almost Screamin’ Jay Hawkins kind of sound, just really heavy. So we were just changing our approach to how we were going to do that when he passed.

HARP: Were you able to get anything down with Ike that you’ll be able to use in the future?
Yeah, I think so. I’m talking with his son next week about putting out a single with a few songs we did.

HARP: And when you started to approach the Black Keys’ record, did you have a direction?
I had no idea, I never do. Every time I go into a record I go, shit, I hope I’m not found out, because I don’t know what I’m doing for the most part. I definitely go in and things come, but I don’t plan. I never really can. I always think one day I’ll be good enough to be deliberate about certain things.

HARP: What instruments do you play on Attack & Release?
Organs, pianos, keyboards, some bass parts.

HARP: You wear a lot of hats—multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer—and work in lot of genres. What motivates you as an artist?
There are a lot of reasons that make me feel like I have to be doing what I’m doing, and they’re all very personal reasons. I grew up wanting to be the same as everybody else, even though you quickly realize that that’s not what you want. It takes a long time to undo that and music is something that helped me to see that. I’m in the process of figuring out my own way to get out of that.
And I’m pretty boring if there’s no music around. I do it so much that I find I have nothing else to talk about sometimes.

[k1000]

props; nice read