Psychedelic San Francisco folkies the Dodos burst on the music scene with their successful “Visiter” album in 2008. Now they’re back with their follow-up, “Time to Die” and singer Meric Long took time out to bring XYZ up to speed – and give us a tourist’s guide to San Francisco.
It doesn’t seem long since “Visiter” came out and now you’re back with a second album – does this mean you’re prolific songwriters?
Well, it feels very different for us – like it’s been a long time – and it actually has. “Visiter” came out last June in Europe but we had the record finished about two years ago so the material is old. We’re kind of in the stage right now where we made a lot of changes in the band and we’re kind of trying to even work on the next album while we’re touring (and) get some new songs we haven’t recorded yet into the mix. So I hope we’re going to hit a bout of being prolific, but definitely this record was a reaction to feeling very, very unprolific…(laughs)
So do you feel like this album is a big step forward from “Visiter”?
Yeah, y’know, it definitely feels like it is. When you finish a record you have time to reflect upon it and there were shortcomings that we felt like we took into account when writing the new batch of songs and recording them.
So now you’ve travelled the world touring “Visiter” do you prefer life on the road or life in the studio?
If you’d asked me this question a year ago I’d probably have said I’d rather be on the road. It seemed like anything was possible on the road, I could write and work on songs, and sort of constantly moving helps flush that out. But having coming home and had three months to work on songs I have to say that’s probably the best.
So the novelty of being in a rock band and touring wears off surprisingly fast?
Yeah, sure. Somebody asked if we liked playing the festivals, I remember at first we were like holy shit! – like little children in a candy store – and it takes a while to find your rhythm.
You’re from San Francisco. What are your top tips for visitors wanting to see the real San Francisco?
Well, you’ve definitely got to go to the Mission District and have some Mexican food –that’s absolutely key. Avoid Fisherman’s Wharf, it’s just a…circus. There’s one in every city and this one just happens to be it. Try and get outside of San Francisco, it’s…the greatest place, it’s almost more appreciated from a distance. So I would say go to the Marine Headlands, Golden Gate Park, Dolores Park.
The new album leaked well before its release date. As musicians, how do you feel about the whole blogspot/illegal download thing?
I’m not personally one who downloads. Not because I have some strong ethic against it but just because I’m lazy and I hate waiting – and the time it takes and you don’t know if you’ll actually get it. I’ve never really downloaded anything and actually had it work! But anyways…being a musician, we made this record and we wanted people to hear it – that was our job. We want to sell records but y’know our main concern is having the record paid for and then having people hear it. If you look at other bands whose stuff has leaked and it doesn’t really seem to hurt record sales.
So do you feel like the music industry is in a strange place?
Is it definitely a strange place. I feel like it’s in this weird in-between place, like record sales are down but people are still buying records when they hear them months before they come out. But in terms of having access to more music and more variety and smaller bands like us getting more attention and having more of a chance – more of an audience – I feel like that’s definitely happened which I think is a good thing.
If you didn’t live in San Francisco and could pick one place from your travels to live in, where would it be?
I really want to go to Japan but I’ve yet to visit there. And I don’t know what it is, it’s kind of weirding me out, but I have this strange calling to go Albuquerque. We played there twice but that was a long time ago…I haven’t been there in over a year. I don’t remember, there was nothing specific that I feel like I need to go back but I’ve been thinking about moving towns for a while now and I’m just like …for some reason Albuquerque keeps coming up…
“Time to Die” is out now.
myspace.com/thedodos
dodosmusic.net
