Interview: dan le sac

28 November 2011

dan le sac

On Friday, dan le sac appeared as part of a DJ battle at CALM Takes Over Topman, an event to raise awareness for the charity.

We caught up with the DJ/producer on Thursday to talk about the event, CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably), his work with Scroobius Pip and his solo album.

-Tomorrow is CALM Takes Over Topman. Are you excited?
Yeah man, it's a really nice idea. It's something they should just do anyway, whether charity is involved or not. It looks like tonnes of fun.

-How do you got about preparing for an event like this, compared to your own sets?
Well, for this it's who you're against - you have to know who they are to be prepared for anything they could play. I've battled Huw in this way previously in a silent disco at Bestival, where he destroyed us. So, I'm fully aware of his abilities.

-CALM itself is campaigning to help young men suffering with depression. Do you have much involvement in the organisation?
Well, me and [Scroobius] Pip have been involved for three or four years. They do a CALM Christmas Calendar that has free downloads and stuff - we recorded a special version of one of our songs for that.

We've also - for their RESET magazine, been the Agony Uncles, for that for a little while. We try to do what we can.

It's obviously quite a difficult subject to approach, but CALM's approach of actually making attractive content and getting the message in on the side of that, makes a lot more sense than walking up to blokes and going "You sad? Cheer up!"

-You've had songs in the past like 'Magician's Assistant' that talk about these kinds of issues. Do you think it helps to discuss these issues in that way?
Yeah, definitely. These are things that affect everyone...full stop, everyone. At some point in your life, you will either be depressed, or potentially suicidal, or you will come into contact with someone who is.

Hopefully by singing about it, writing about it, talking about it, people will be in a position to deal with those situations. Even if it's just getting into that mindset that these people aren't mental.

You're not mental if you're sad - you've not got a physical impairment, you're not a problem. You just have difficulty dealing with the cards you've been dealt.

-What do you think about the work CALM does then?
It's really good. It's really strange because there's a weird competition between charities. There's only so much money to go around. If you look at, say, Cancer Research and Macmillan, Cancer Research will always get more money because they're trying to cure cancer, whereas Macmillan are trying to make your last days easier to deal with.

It's interesting to see what CALM have done which, like I said before, is just making attractive content for the people they're trying to help - and not just those people, for men who aren't depressed, for everyone. So, the message can get across without it having to be an "Oh, woe is me, the world has to fix me" kind of thing.

-You mentioned that you and Pip have been quite involved with it. Do you think it's important that people with a platform use it to talk about these issues?
Well, it's important for people with a platform to talk about things that mean something to them, you know? You can always see when...I don't like the word "celebrity", but when a celebrity is talking about something they don't actually care about - they're going through the motions because that's the cool topic at the moment.

So, yeah, if you've got a platform, you have to talk about the things that have affected your life.

You know, me and Pip both have had experience with suicide or depression, whether it be through friends, family or ourselves. So, we feel that it's an important issue to be talked about.

The problem is men...we're meant to be so stoic, you know? We're not meant to cry. That always leads to something - we don't talk! Hopefully if your role-models - not that Pip and I should be anyone's role models - but if your role models talk about these things, then you're encouraged to talk about them.

That might mean the difference between spending time alone, feeling sad, and getting up and doing something about it.

-Is it important to have that kind of honesty in your lyrics, when you deal with these issues?
Yeah, totally. There's no way of flowering up depression and suicide - it's not cool. You do have to be honest, but you also have to be honest, not just the issue itself, the effects of the issue. When you commit suicide, you're going to leave someone behind. People have to be aware that it's not just about them sometimes.

-Shifting towards your music - when you're doing your live sets, does the difference between the events effect how you put together your setlist?
Not massively. It's a different set for a festival than it would be for a club, things like that, but if we've got something that's particularly relevant to that event, then maybe we'll put more focus onto that.

You've been booked because of what you are - it'd be odd to rock up and go "Yeah, it's a punk festival so we've brought a guitar." It would be bizarre.

-In terms of your production work, do you get a similar buzz between the work you do for other artists, compared to stuff with you and Pip?
Well, I do get a similar buzz, but generally with the remixes I only get that buzz if it's me DJing it. If I'm in a club and I drop something that I've done, even if it is a remix, and people dance to it, then I'll get that buzz.

It is different with remixes, because so much of the work is already done - you're just re-imagining. To be honest, you can be quite lazy with remixes - you can take just three words from a song, and then build something knew - which is actually more work, but it is lazy.

You're using somebody else's words to express something new. I do definitely get similar buzzes, but it just depends on the context.

-How's your solo record going at the moment?
Slow. About a month ago, I finished it and then me and my partner sat down and had a listen to it. We just felt like there was something missing.

So, I'm now just re-working some tracks. I should have it finished by mid-December. That's the plan, so I can just sit on my arse over Christmas.

-How's it been working on your own, compared to your albums with Pip?
Well, the problem with working on your own is that you're on your own. There's no-one standing there saying "That's done, that's finished."

That's been the biggest problem - there's tracks that, by now, me and Pip would've come to a point where we were happy. Maybe we would've made some compromises, but we'd have got to a point where the consensus was that it was finished.

There's one song that I've been working on, on and off, for about six months. It's the drums! I can never decide if the drums are good enough, but because there's no-one there to go "Oh, those drums are amazing, Dan", then I don't stop. That's why I've given myself a deadline, so it's finished - no matter what!

-I spoke to Pip a couple of months back, and we were discussing the London riots, specifically the PIAS fire and the affect it had. How did it effect you?
Just on a purely selfish level, it pushed my album back by four months, because of all the repressing and all the stuff that our label and PIAS had to deal with.

On a more human level, it was just so sad. There's so much of that stock that's never going to get repressed - so much of that stock that's gone.

OK, the stuff that's getting repressed, that's maybe because it didn't sell enough copies to warrant it - but it's still somebody's art. Somebody has poured anything from 6 months to 6 years into those pieces of work. For them to be gone, is a truly sad thing.

-From that, a lot of labels and artists - particularly Xtra Mile - came together to support each other. Was it nice to see that unity?
Yeah, it was brilliant. There were quite a few people trying to organise fundraisers. It was nice to see people in the industry that you hadn't really pegged as people who gave a s*** actually speaking up - simple things like compilations. So, it has definitely been nice to see the music community get together.

-It seems to be a strange time for independent music. You've had something like that happen, then people like Scroobius and Frank Turner breaking into the Top 20.
Yeah, it's definitely great to see it. It's a strange thing, because I think...not to get into too big a subject, music buyers have a weird perception of what is evil in the music industry. The word "major label" kinda connotates...you've sold out, you'd do anything for money.

The difference between some of the major labels, and some of the bigger indies, is very little. They've made as much money, you know…XL have Adele! She's one of the biggest female singers in the world, but because they have managed to keep their moral feet grounded, they're still worthy of the name "indie".

It's good to see that people are supporting the people that are doing it morally correctly. Frank Turner, particularly, is someone who does it do it morally correctly - he does do his up-most to put on a good show, to not overcharge his punters.

He's got that big show next April at Wembley. It's pretty amazing to see how someone who's not on a major label can be putting on a bill in a 12,000 capacity arena.

-Looking ahead, is there any word on when you'll be starting to work on the next dan le sac vs. Scroobius Pip record?
Well...annoyingly, we were going to be working this month. The plan was, his album was always meant to be coming out earlier than it did. So, it's kinda slipped everything back.

It's always hard to say how much he'll have to write about, and how many new noises I can find. But, because his tour went back - he'll only have finished his tour two days ago - it just got to that point where...now, we're looking at the first couple of months of next year.

It's been really nice to go off and do other things, because I've got a lot more of an idea of what I want to do with Pip. Coming up to the last album, we had no real plan for it.

We just wrote some stuff - some of it worked really well, and some of it didn't. This time, we're both more aware that for our third album, we could really focus on some ideas and turn it into something great, hopefully.

For more information on CALM, head to thecalmzone.net.