DAS POP: THE INTERVIEW

By: Rob Brayl
For BiggerThanBeyonce.Com

In a down-to-earth interview for BTB, Das Pop reveals a bit of the thread behind their sound’s charming seams. Check out my interview with the Belgium band, below.

ROB BRAYL: Without a doubt, I can hear Das Pop being played in all the dive bars in Brooklyn. Do you plan to tour in the US?

DAS POP: I (Bent Van Looy) have been in the bars you speak of, enjoying a wide variety of drinks (White Russian, Gin Tonic, Long Island Ice Tea or indeed a simple beer) and I, too, can hear our songs playing loudly in the background. It is the best thing in the world, having your songs become the soundtrack to someone else’s life, it is the highest honour. We’d love to play in the US but so far there are no concrete tour dates…

RB: Explain your latest record in three words.

DP: Nostalgia For The Unknown. (Well aware that there’s four words but I thought we could count “for” and “the” as one perhaps?)

RB: I’ve noticed the word “TV” (see next question) in several lyrics. Would you ever allow your music to be featured on, let’s say, the show Gossip Girl?

DP: I grew up without being allowed to listen to pop music, also there was no TV in our house, a forest cabin. A little further away, two boys our age who lived in the woods too, would sometimes let me watch their black and white television set. It was on here that I first came in contact with pop music. We were watching the top 40 and Michael Jackson came on, singing The Way you Make Me Feel and in the meantime changing my life forever. Maybe my obsession with pop and the frequent appearances of TV in lyrics are a result of them lacking in my childhood. About this Gossip Girl business, yes please. Since people have rather gone off buying records, appearing in ads, films or on TV, is one of the only ways a band can make a little money to survive.

RB: I love these lines from A Naked Girl (below). Can you let me in on some secret inspirations behind a few tracks?

See me in the early nineties
Sleeping in my underwear
This is where I turn the lights off
Take me there
Everybody’s dirty dancing
I alone can hear the sound
TV makes when it’s switched on
Burning out
A naked girl

DP: Thanks! You have tracked down an early period lyric. What I try to convey in lyrics is a vague but very strong yearning for an unknown past (or even future). It’d be amazing if a lyric could take the listener back with the same force a smell can transport one to a specific place or time. You’re just listening to this song and all of a sudden you’re on this moldy sofa, in your underwear, the TV flickering in the other room. That would be magical.

RB: I read something about Soulwax and roast beef dinners. Can you spill the beans on this?

DP: Mixing the album in Soulwax’s studio was one of the happiest times yet. Niek, our bass player, is an excellent chef and David and Stephen agreed to produce the album on the condition that they’d be well fed during the proceedings. We’d work like animals and when we all sat around the big table at night we’d talk about the music, friends, and wine.

RB: If I were to look through your record collection, any albums I’d be shocked to find?

DP: I own a disturbing amount of Alan Parsons Project albums and when I was last buying music online I was shocked the next morning to find I had bought quite a lot of Billy Joel records, and not of the “cool early period” either!

RB: What are your thoughts on the current state of pop music?

DP: I think a lot of good pop music is still being made but it doesn’t seem to matter as much as it used to, maybe. Also, with the CD on its last legs, I think there are some really interesting times ahead. We will no longer be tied to this “12 songs on a disc”-concept. I dream about a day when the moment you finish a song, you can release it immediately without waiting until you have enough killer and possibly filler to fill an “album”…

RB: Are there any specific organizations/charities you are passionate about as a group?

DP: Traveling around when on tour, we’ve noticed that we are not into this whole globalization thing at all. Also: save the animals and all organizations that take care of that!

RB: How is life at the moment? Happy with the direction your music is going?

DP: Very! We’re still having tremendous fun playing the songs all over the place and have just returned from Stockholm where we’ve started writing and recording new things for the next album. They sound great!

RB: To the kids who have never heard of you before this interview, what’s one thing they should know about Das Pop?

DP: They should come out and see us live! We try to make our shows so much more than just four guys playing the record on a stage. It should be a once-in-a-lifetime for everyone involved!