Interview: Django Django's Vinny Neff

As stacked as the Longitude line-up is, Django Django are one of the bands that you can't miss. Having released their self-titled debut album at the start of last year, the Scottish (with a hint of Northern Irish) band have gone from strength to strength, pulling in a rake of fantastic reviews as well as a much sought after Mercury Music Prize nomination.

John Balfe caught up with the Django's frontman Vinny Neff for a chat ahead of their Longitude appearance.

Back in 2009 we interviewed Dave from the band, right about the time that the Love's Dart/Storm Double A-Side came out and think he said that Jim was working in ASDA at the time...

It was actually a bookshop, Dave’s doing him a disservice there (laughs)...

Over that period you have graduated from playing to a handful of people toward being the top bill at festivals. What’s it like to experience that kind of progression from your point of view, from the stage and seeing the audiences swell?

It was important for us to do that kind of stuff because we’d really never been in bands before. For other bands they’ve been doing it before when they get together, and know how to play their instruments and know how to work an audience. They have confidence on stage. We were starting from stock. We did two or three years of playing in little corridors and that kind of stuff. You have to do that kind of thing. Last year it ramped up really quickly and we just had to hold on and stay with it.

Were there any particular high watermarks for you? Presumably the Mercury Prize nomination was a big thing?

Yeah Mercury was a big one and Pukkelpop was another. We got there and it was this immense, intense place completely rammed. Everybody was going mad. We played with Metronomy in the Royal Albert Hall. One, that’s a really good place to play but we also got a really great receptive audience too. We played Jay Leno back in March which was pretty great.

What’s Jay like to meet?

Jay was great. When you meet him, he’s a big guy, and when you’re looking at him you keep thinking ‘am I in Madame Toussad’s?’ He was also wearing double denim, a slight fashion faux-pas.

You were an architect, or studied to be one anyway, before the band. Do you ever still dabble in that or did you leave it behind?

No I don’t anymore but I was doing stuff by myself for a while and I still get phone calls now and again but I can’t really help out because you’re busy doing sound checks or something when it comes through. I still love architecture and urban design so I keep an eye out for what’s going on.

I was interested when I heard that as to whether you can apply the architectural, analytical side of your brain towards music to coax more unusual rhythms or time structures out, or are they two completely unrelated things?

They are separate but there are small things. Other people might say I’m talking bullshit but there are little things that connect them in some way like if you look at the overall structure of the song you can put it in blocks. Like chorus, verse and at the end of those there are bits that need more finesse or elaboration to them. Buildings work the same way. They are essentially volumes with decoration and elaboration upon them. I suppose some buildings can’t really be explained, or you can’t fathom why it works, in the same way that there are songs that really get in your head; it’s a very subjective thing. Then again, buildings either work or they don’t. I think there are some similarities but if you think about it too much, you’d end up writing songs about columns and things.

When it comes to the influence you guys each have in the band, do you have different influences that combine to form Django Django or do you all have a range of things you all unite like a base, and then spread off into different directions?

Yeah I think that’s right, we all have a base of rockabilly, Hip hop, acid house, disco and krautrock. Then Tommy is really into Calypso, Dave is into dub step and reggae and I’m quite into African psych rock from the sixties and seventies, a lot of psychabilly stuff and Jim kind of goes cross all that. We all have our own little areas and it means we can show each other stuff and learn from each other.

What’s the plan going forward for the band? Presumably you are still in the midst at the back end of touring the last album?

Yeah we just finished the touring. Four days we got back from America where we’d been for two weeks. That’s touring knocked on the head. Now we’ve two months of festivals and then fingers crossed we can get down to recording the new stuff we’ve written.

Did you write on the road or did you set aside time?

Nah we just had to write as we went and we had stuff we had left we hadn’t got around to. There’s work to do there but we have a good base of interesting stuff.

There’s a joke that goes around that every band’s second album is about touring in some way.

Oh really (laughs)? All about Flight 457 (laughs).

You’re playing at Longitude in Dublin. Would you have played a lot of gigs in Dublin specifically?

I think we only did two. One was The Grand Social and another one in a place which I can’t remember the name of, so yeah only two shows in Dublin. It’s difficult when we are based over here in London. We did a gig up in Derry last year, and another in Belfast, and we are trying to get back to Derry for the City of Culture. Hopefully we’ll get back to Dublin when we have new material.

Yeah and in the meantime there’s a show in two and a half weeks to keep us all well.