Dappled Cities

A conversation with Alex Moore

(July 2007)

Interview and Photograph by Alexis Roberts

You may not have heard about Dappled Cities yet, but you can bet your bottom dollar  that you will be hearing about them quite a bit in the near future. They seem to be popping up everywhere lately: posters, billboards, and Subterranean, just to name a few of the places they have invaded. The Aussie boys are about to make a big move to New York and are on the verge of taking the USA by storm with their charming and delightful indie-pop tunes and Australian accents. I chatted it up with bassist and art gallery enthusiast Alex Moore and we shot the breeze about a little bit of everything.  

About to embark on a brief tour of Australia and then head off to the US in support of their album Granddance, Moore made it clear to me that he’s ready for the move and excited that music is going to be his number one priority. You’ll also see Alex’s excellent interviewing skills when he turns the interview around and started asking me all of the questions. This is probably because I was his fourth consecutive interview that day and he was bored of talking about himself.

So I hear that Dappled Cities are getting ready to head out on a short tour of Australia and then head on over to the United States and do a tour here?

We certainly are, but we're actually going one better than that and moving there!

So where do you plan to move to?

We’re going to move to New York City.

What prompted that?

Well, we’ve always wanted to do America so this is kind of an excuse. It also just made sense timing-wise, and you know it’s always been nice there.

That is true. Except for in the winter when you’ve got like three feet of snow…

Oh yeah, but that’s what I’m looking forward to!

I imagine that you don’t get too much snow in Australia then?

We don’t get any, not unless you go to the top of mountains.

It’s winter out there right now?

Yep. It was seven degrees last night and that’s very, very cold for us.

Well, I’m from Los Angeles so I’m not really too sure what the seven degree weather feels like.

Yeah, well how cold does it get in L.A.  in the winter ?

It actually snowed in Malibu this past winter but it hasn’t done that in years and years. It may get down into the low thirties at night but we usually don’t get much snow here in L.A., ever.

I wonder how the people in Malibu dealt with the snow?

Well they had to shut down PCH, so it just made the traffic that much worse on all of the other freeways. It was crazy; we thought it was the foreshadowing of the apocalypse or something. So on that note when are you guys planning to make the move out to the States?

We leave in 3 and ½ weeks and then we’re on tour until the seventh of August and then we’re going to try to relocate ourselves, it’s very exciting.

I have a story for you! Last night I was at The Troubador, where I caught your label mates All Smiles, but I noticed a poster for the Dappled Cities show that’s coming up in July and it is totally sold out.

I know, isn’t that exciting?

Yes, I was excited for you!

Well, I’m sure it was sold out more because we are playing with the Tokyo Police Club that night…

Yes, but the poster actually only had your band's name on it, so it made you look really awesome, and I’m sure that it’s also a very welcoming feeling when you come all the way out to the US and get to play to a packed house.

You’re exactly right - that’s a very good feeling. How did you like All Smiles?

They were great, I really liked them. When you hear an opening band that you don’t know much about and they turn out to be good it’s always fun.

You Americans and your great bands!

Hey now - Australia has some pretty good bands too!

No, we don’t.

Do you like Youth Group?

Ummmm… yes. I do indeed. Did you see them when they were out last tour?

No, I saw them last year at Coachella, though.

They are really a lovely bunch of young men. Have you met them?

No, I haven’t had the chance to do that yet but maybe in the future….Getting back to business, may I ask you what you look forward to when you’re on tour and away from home? Is there anything that gives you a sense of comfort, like any certain stores or restaurants… anything like that?

I really like art galleries. I think that’s one of the main reasons for moving to New York.

I think that is probably the best place to be in the United States if you are interested in that sort of thing, and music as well, New York is just great.

We just really like going to new cities as well and exploring. We’re going to lots of new cities on this tour. So that should be very interesting for us. It will keep us occupied.

Do you have any favorite cities that you like to play?

Well, I’m obviously a big fan of New York, but I also like playing in L.A., it’s always a bit of an experience.

Los Angeles is sort of interesting because the crowds always have this lack of a reaction to everything. You could have the greatest band in the world playing and everyone would still be standing there with their arms crossed and no expression on their face.

It’s the same thing with Melbourne here. They are exactly the same as L.A. people. You finish a song and two handclaps is all you get.

You know if you are getting at least a few handclaps that people like you.

Exactly!

It’s when you hear dead silence that there is a problem.

When you play up-beat music you sort of want that reaction to bounce into the next song. So looking out at just a sea of faces that seem to be angry is… well….

Well I think that out in Los Angeles our bark is a lot worse than our bite. We pretend to be bored, but once you get out the door you hear everybody saying “Oh my God! That was so awesome!”

Well, I really love that Troubadour venue; we played there in March and it was really fantastic. We had quite a good reaction.

I really like the venue too. It’s big enough to get a good size crowd, but small enough to maintain a certain amount of intimacy between the band and the audience.

Exactly, but those band rooms are like a jail cell !

Oh yeah! Those things are like the size of a broom closet!

Yeah, but it’s good hanging out in the broom closet. There’s also no natural light in there…. No windows at all.

Does the venue at least give you guys free drinks or something? Oh wait, I think I read in the bio that you are all underage… is that right?

No, we’re not young at all. (laughs) We’re all about 24. The bio might have just said that to get people into us… you know with this current trend of youngins.

Maybe it’s a little bit better to be older and more experienced. I’m not really too into the current trend of youngins.

Oh, me either! The industry is just getting ludicrous. They’ve been signing all of these sixteen year olds. I don’t like it one bit.

So what have you guys been listening to? Since we’re on the subject of what we like and don’t like…

We’ve been listening to all sorts of stuff. I’m really into that new Of Montreal record. The new record is just so good. Such a cool band, such a cool guy.

Did you hear about his naked performance in Las Vegas?

Oh yes. I saw some pictures. It was hilarious. How exciting. What a thing to do…

I know! It must have taken a lot of self-confidence.

Yes, I reckon. I’ve also been listening to a lot of Bjork’s stuff. Did you see her or Rage Against the Machine at Coachella?

I didn’t see Rage on Sunday because I only went to see Explosions in the Sky and then went home. By the third day with all of the security, and the heat and the parking it can really get to be a nightmare so I decided it was time to just hightail it back home and call it a weekend.

We were all so jealous, we just don’t have anything like that here. Our festivals are all, you know… shitty bands. Like emotional bands. An indie festival will be headlined by like Queens of the Stone Age. Who aren’t that bad but you know, it always comes down to if you really want to go and see fifty indie bands when there’s only one that you really like… it’s a bit hard. Recently we had a festival with Muse and that band that sings "Black Parade."

I like Muse, but I can’t really comment on My Chemical Romance because it’s not something that I have taken the time to listen to.

Yeah, they’re like Queens of the 21st Century.

So are you feeling confident about driving on the opposite side of the road when you relocate here, or do you plan on just taking taxi cabs and subways?

I’m cool with it. Everybody else drives when we go over there. We actually got in a crash last time, though. It was fun. The woman we hit didn’t really seem to care, especially when she found out that we were from Australia.

American woman just seem to love guys with Australian accents. 

Really? How frightening!  I guess it will be good for the five of us in that case.

I just saw your Eskimo music video for "Fire Fire Fire" this morning, and I was just thinking you seem like such a good humored bunch of guys to be dressing up like Eskimos and filming a video.

It really wasn’t that much fun to do, though, because we had to sit there for a bunch of hours.

It’s a great video, though! Do you plan to do any other videos in the near future?

We just did one for the song called "Vision Bell." It’s sort of a live clip video for people to get to know us. Hopefully we’ll do another one towards the end of the year, though, in America.

Any song in mind?

I leave it up to the record company to choose that stuff.

That’s right, make them do all the hard stuff.

I think I’m just going to pick up chicks in bars with my Australian accent.

Just go up to them and tell them that you’re from Australia and see what happens.

They will probably look at me and walk away.

Probably not. Trust me, I’m not going to set you up for a disaster.

Well, it is surprising how many people we tell that we’re from Australia and they ask “Where is that in Europe?” Thinking that we mean Austria.

Oh but still, Austrians sound a lot more German than you sound. That’s kind of sad. How many other interviews have you had to suffer through today?

Um… three.

Three ! Have they been asking all of the same questions as me?

No, we’ve just sort of been chatting, it’s been very nice.

If I may ask one more thing, I’d like to know if you think you’ll ever have to throw parties in order to raise money for studio time to record your albums?

I certainly hope not. I hope the label won’t make us do that. Throw some sort of weird party. I don’t want to do that.

Well it seems like that might be a more fun way to raise the money than going to work and doing an eight-hour shift.

True, anything is better than that.

Will you all have jobs when you move, or are you just going to do the music thing?

Just the music thing. It’s a total novelty for us.

It’s so great to hear that. If you’re going to go for it, really go for it. Put your whole heart into it and make it your number one priority!

It’s great to have the opportunity to tour a lot, and to sort of do music every day which is something we don’t have the chance to do here… and I’m really excited!