The Thousands

A lot of people think that we have a big interview budget but this is not true. People pay us to interview them. And we use the money to buy firewood. Anyway, Dappled Cities already spent their album promo budget on props for Lawrence Leung at the Zounds listening party, so they interviewed each other for us and sent through the transcript using the online internet. Thanks Tim and Dave.

Tim Derricourt: How are you?

Dave Rennick: Quite well, thank you for asking.  I’m at home and had just finished trawling through "funny cats" on Youtube when your email arrived, so yes… quite well.

TD: Are you finally happy with our record?

DR: Of course, it’s clearly the best thing we’ve ever created!  But it sure was a roller coaster ride wasn’t it?  Remember when we started writing the songs for Zounds and they were all fluffy and happy like funny cats, and then two years later they had transformed into gigantic wollups of sound and fury… what the hell happened? It’s certainly a nice feeling to remove whatever was on our chests from our chests. It’s also nice to have a picture of us all on the cover, surrounded by gold.

TD: What was your favourite moment from the recording?

DR: You could pick me up on a technicality here, Tim, but my some of my most joyous moments in the studio were during the early-demo sessions, with Burke Reid and Hugh Boyce in the control room, and us five fancy free and particularly productive.  There seemed to be something mystical in the air, alongside the odor-de-five-men-in-one-room, that spawned the first sounds of Zounds.

TD: What was your favourite moment in America?

DR: There were many. One was watching the sun rise over the desert peaks of New Mexico, during that 50 hour drive direct from Arizona to Minnesota.  I was driving, zenned out on Red Bull and chuffed with my recently purchased cowboy hat.  I also had just narrowly missed a deer.  It was a special moment – you were asleep and I held your hand.

TD: If you were 16 again (well before A Smile was out) and a future Dave came back and gave you this record – would you like the direction we went in?

DR: Firstly, amidst disbelief, I would ask future Dave why he removed his facial piercing and stopped bleaching his hair.  I would also wonder why his pants are so tight and then ask if he’s ever been to space.  When future Dave attempts to justify the music of Zounds by admitting that when he was 18 he traded Pearl Jam’s Ten for Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, I would become very suspicious about life in general.  I would then listen to Zounds and enjoy the sound of my own voice, and the guitar solo in Miniature Alas.

TD: If you were 18 and a future Dave came back and told you that you were The One and you had to protect a golden ring from falling into the hands of evil – would you have taken the challenge?

DR: Aged 18, 26 or 60, or even as an angel, this wouldn’t really interest me and future Dave knows this.

TD: If you got free rent for a year but once a week, every week you had to sleep outside in the shed because the landlord set a vicious big dog loose in your house and the next day you had to clean up its mess – would you take that deal?

DR: Before I decide, I would need to know (a) the floorplan of proposed abode and shed, (b) what kind of muffin are you eating right now, Tim, and (c) the exact yearly forecasted sales of Zounds and my permitted ration of royalties from the powers that be, to decide if rent will in fact be schment.  On paper though this hypothetical sounds pretty alright and probably necessary to consider, and no, I haven’t deciphered it’s hidden meaning.

TD: Which of these is NOT a planet a) Mercury b) Jupiter c) Neptune d) Lazerzone

DR: It’s funny you’ve asked this question, friend, because I’ve just written a new song called Planets, and it contains the words "lazer" and "zone" in the lyrics, and it’s going to be on Dappled’s next record entitled "Why, Tim, why?"