By Peter Quincy Ng
It’s 11:45AM and Dan Levy and Olivia Merilahti of The Dø are tired and slightly disheveled after ten straight days of touring on their first Pan-American tour. Nevertheless the gracious Franco-Finnish duo took the time to invite me to their bed and breakfast inn to sit down and have a little chat about touring and their number album The Mouthful among other things.
So you’ve just taking a short break after 10 straight days of touring? Describe your current state of mind.
Olivia: Short break? You mean now? I wouldn’t call it a short break but it’s a day without a gig. But no we’ve had crazy great time really like it’s been really busy and awesome and so new and meeting new audiences like Mexico, San Francisco or Cinnincati. You know north and south.
Now this is your first time touring in North America. Is there anything you’d like to comment on besides the different voltage we use here?
Olivia: I’m sorry?
Peter: Oh I was just commenting on a note you posted on your facebook.
Olivia: Ok oh sorry. Oh yeah that we had a lot of trouble finding the adapters and converting the European plugs to the American plugs… and when we found the plugs we were like… hey this sounds better!
While you’ve enjoyed headlining festivals, television performances and now you’ve gone back to hitting local clubs on this leg of the tour. What’s a good gig/bad gig and also describe your ideal venue? And oh yeah you can be creative…
Olivia: Laughs. What’s the best?
Dan: There’s no best gig. We can play a little club like in Detroit with a few people and we can play in a huge club with a lot of people and sometimes we can play with some pleasure and excitement. But it’s a show when you have a crowd that is very happy to see you and that came to see you like in Chicago we have two kids it took them…
Olivia: They drove five hours… (sighing) even though they were underage. They still tried and they got in
Dan: And we play all the gigs all for them (those fans). You know?
Olivia: Sometimes its just for three people in the audience that we play for and its just yesterday we just played in Detroit and it was… well we have to admit it wasn’t packed at all. So there were just people who had a good surprise seeing us so that’s why we do it as well and that’s how you win new people over.
You mean like the energy you get from an audience is different right?
Olivia: (Both in agreement) Yeah of course it’s different but its true when you have an audience like already waiting for you and already really excited about seeing you without playing anything it really helps and it gets you on a very good mood. But then sometimes you can have just three people and we’re just having the best fun of our lives.
If you didn’t know already The Dø’s name comes from the first letter of the scale and from the first letters the names of Dan and Olivia. Now you two first met while writing soundtracks together. How was writing your first album different and what did you learn from your soundtrack writing days?
Olivia: The idea of the album really… well we’ve never decided to write an album it’s just songs that we did in between the soundtracks projects or the contemporary jam projects that we did… the album just happened. We never planned it. So well I guess… well yeah.
Olivia: How is it different from the soundtracks?
Like how is the songwriting process different?
Olivia: It was kind of a contradiction like we were working for direction of the choreographers which was like following certain directions, following certain wishes so we really didn’t do our own thing. So to kind of like rebel against the people who wanted us to work for them, we just did our own stuff and just played in the studio and did whatever we wanted in the most childish and silly and ridiculous way. Which was really invigorating and that’s how the first song developed.
The Mouthful has been described as an eclectic mix of genres and styles everything from folk to hip-hop, but if you were to classify your style what would it be called?
Olivia: We don’t want to call it (anything).
So there’s no labels I guess?
Olivia: Well of course there might be one (but) you could call it indie if you need to find a very general (term) but I like to think it as independent music because it goes nowhere and we don’t want to put it in a box. Well it’s your job (to do).
A lot have people have asked what inspires your music but just looking at you guys you’ve developed a unique sense of style what inspires your look?
Dan: (Laughs) The morning!
Olivia: Well you’ve just seen us fully off the bus you know and sleeping for hours and not having a mirror to look at (laughs).
So I guess this is more of an unintentional thing is it?
Olivia: Well today particularly it’s been after a very tiring day. Well we like fashion and Dan really likes his t-shirts and when we’re in Turkey he just buys a Turkey flag t-shirt and puts it on and the crowd goes really crazy. So it’s about having fun it’s really the thing and even if love fashion I don’t want to spend too much time on it. It doesn’t have to be that important.
Well after ten days of straight touring?
Olivia: Yeah (laughs in agreement).
This is actually quite surprising to me but The Mouthful shot to the number one spot on French Charts and this was an English language album with the exception of one song in Finnish. Olivia you’ve always said English is your musical language but did it ever worry you commercially releasing an English album for a Francophone audience?
Olivia: Oh certainly not. I knew there were other countries you know there’s not only France and it’s just not only because of one territory that I’m going to yield to that. It’s always been that way and I’ve always come across people who say you’ll never make it don’t sing in French and when people said to me I just walked away and kept on doing my thing. It took a little longer but in the end I couldn’t change it.
It’s been the music I’ve been listening to and I’ve been around with so many different languages that it was really natural. So artists just choose the language they feel comfortable (with) and if I manage three languages; I have a choice. I can speak three languages so I can just choose from them and if sometimes I feel like singing in Finnish and I do it. It’s just like an instrument and I’ve always been a bit angry at this law in France where they have to play at least 40% French music. I’ve never really felt really concerned.
So I’ve been looking at youtube videos of you guys and frequently I come across the comment that Olivia is like really hot and Dan looks like Johnny Depp. How do you guys respond to these wild accusations?
Olivia: (Laughs)
Dan: She’s hot that’s true.
(Everybody laughs)
Olivia: You’re hot too you know?
Dan: Ooohhh thank you.
Olivia: Well you know people need to compare (and) Dan might have this kind of look but what can you say. Well it’s a compliment I guess for him.
Dan: And for you?
Olivia:And for me? It’s definitely a compliment but we’re talking about that Johnny Depp thing!
Now this may seem like an obvious question but is there something going on between Dan and Olivia? You know what I mean.
Olivia: There’s a lot of music.
Well that would explain the album cover with you where Dan is putting back on his pants back on?
Olivia: Well’s that exactly why we did that (where) everyone is trying to find out what happens before or what’s going to happen next.
But what about…?
Olivia: (Interrupting) Well we’re not going to say.
Some things are best left secret?
Olivia: Absolutely.
So before I leave you, you’re in the process of writing album number 2. The Mouthful was quite something what are you going to do to surprise us this time?
Dan: We don’t want to think about it. It’s just about the music and to see what happens. Yesterday night I was listening to a demo for the next album and I was surprised and I was like ah that’s cool. We don’t know where we’re going and for the album that’s the same and for us that’s art. We don’t have to have know where we’re going like as far from this point when we start and go.
Olivia: Like (going) as far as possible without thinking of the whole coherence we don’t care about that. We just do stuff, do songs and we’ll see you know how things come together but for this it will be like our first album because we’ll really know we’re (finally) under the name The Dø, but the first one was like…
Dan: Messy.
Olivia: So yeah a bit more exciting
One final question if you could be any animal what would it be and why?
Olivia: (Points to a wooden giraffe sculpture) A giraffe!
Was just an easy answer?
Olivia: Well I’d like to be a sea animal. Maybe umm…
Dan: Seal?
Olivia: No a Beluga. (Cutely mumbling) It has this big nose! They’re too tender and purely white and must be really quiet no one bothers them. I don’t even think no one even hunts them.
And no one interviews them!
Olivia: No I don’t mind. (Pointing to Dan) How about you?
Dan: Me it depends sometimes I just want to be a cat or sometimes I want to be a tiger.
Just some sort of cat?
(Everybody Laughs)
Dan: Something you want to touch and BLAH and do that!
Olivia: That seems soft but…
Dan: Yeah that seems soft… I’m allergic to cats. It’s about revenge.
Well it’s been a pleasure having you and well you’re playing a show at Wrongbar tomorrow so I guess I will see you then.
Olivia: Mmm hmm!