FOR CITY WEEKEND SHANGHAI ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE OCT. 12
Dirty Three, progenitors of post rock and wild men possessed by the demons of drum, guitar and violin, have made music to ache and thrash to for 14 years. As part of their 2006 Asian World Tour, they’ll perform in Shanghai on Thursday, October 26 at Yunfeng Theatre. We called Warren Ellis in Hague, where he’s recently been working on some projects with Nick Cave.
Megan Shank: Before we get started, tell me about some media pitfalls: What word are you most tired of seeing when it comes to your band – for example, “melancholy” often comes up when people talk about your music.
Warren Ellis: Yeah, it’s a bit unfortunate. A word can follow you around forever — even if you’re trying to do something completely different. People use words to make our music their own and then it sticks and there’s nothing you can do about it.
M.S.: What’s up with the mandolin, the bozouki and the bagpipes on your new album, Cinder – are you guys advocates for the underrepresented instruments of the world?
W.E.: (Laughs) I’ve been very frustrated with playing the violin. I bought the mandolin and have just been playing it. When we recorded the album, we wanted to play all the instruments that we could access – make it very layered. In the past, we were concerned with what we could do live. This time we did it the opposite around – what we could record and then we’ll see how we can play it live.
M.S.: Some of the string work on Cinders has a sort of ethnic feel. What was your inspiration?
W.E.: I’m interested in getting different sounds out of various instruments. That’s why I started playing electronic samples. I’ve never tried to just get a regular violin sound, for example.
M.S.: Are you a fan of any Chinese instruments or music?
W.E.: I used to play the erhu in an orchestra in Australia.
M.S.: You’ve had your hand in several film projects as of late.
W.E.: I did a soundtrack last year for a film Nick Cave wrote (The Preposition). Now Cave and I are doing a soundtrack for a Warner Brothers’ film, The Assassination of Jesse James. It’s different because you’re there to serve something else. It teaches you to accept having things rejected. When writing albums for Dirty Three, any objections come from within the band. Our group is pretty open and flexible about that. Making the soundtrack took some adjustment.
M.S.: How did it all turn out then?
W.E.: All the to’ing and fro’ing was actually beneficial because the music turned out better for it. We were pushed beyond where we might’ve pushed ourselves. You have to let go more, and that can be liberating.
M.S.: They love their Dirty Three in Taipei. Any expectations for Shanghai?
We had a really wild time in Taipei. There’s a sense of genuine enthusiasm that you don’t necessarily get in Western places where people take the show for granted. I haven’t really thought about how the crowds will be in Shanghai.
M.S.: How would you personally introduce an average Chinese to your music?
W.E.: After the concert, they would understand. I would also point them to Whatever You Love, You Are, as well as Cinder, which shows our versatility.
M.S.: What’s next for Dirty Three?
W.E.: Whenever we feel like we aren’t playing anything new, we stop playing and retreat to ourselves. We would only release an album if we felt it had moved somewhere. We’ll keep doing this until we feel we have nothing to say.
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