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ALI DRAGON'S CAVERN
Le dernier cri.
Paris
07/11/2002 -
While Gaëtan and Arnaud's group Tarmac continue with the dreamy, violin-infused side of Louise Attaque, Ali Dragon reconstitute the group's bass, drums and festive verve working as a fusional collective (without oversized rock ego!) Bass-player Alex, drummer Robin and Louise Attaque's sound engineer, David, have joined forces with two talented mixmasters and hip hop machine wizards from the group Antidote – not to mention a little help from their friends, Miossec and Philippe, lead singer of Les Wampas! Aware that their album would not fit easily into any existing category in record stores, Ali Dragon decided to mastermind their own promotion, launching an "online guerilla campaign" on the Internet. And over 10,000 cyber-music fans have already signed up to get a preview taste of the album and contribute ideas, images and video clips. RFI finally tracked Ali Dragon down to their lair, meeting the group's core five members. Here we introduce you to Alex (drums, percussion, samples & guitars), Robin (bass, keyboards & graphic design), Bruno (machines), Sane (vocals) and – last but not least! - David (on trumpet, guitar & groovebox).
RFI: Up until now Ali Dragon have only communicated via the Internet. Why is that?
Robin: Well, up until this point, we felt what was right was to get out there and do concerts to give people a chance to discover our music. But this time round the album ended up existing before we went out on the road, so Internet took the place of our usual direct exchange with the public. Thanks to MP3 and the Internet we were able to reach literally thousands of music fans. We ended up inventing this little 'game' on our website - if you're surfing the Net and you end up introducing our music to someone else you can win stickers and T-shirts and stuff. What was great about communicating via the Internet was that we were able to give people a foretaste of the album, launching certain tracks as a sort of 'special preview'. But now we're moving on to a more classic promotion stage. Bruno: Basically, Ali Dragon are an artistic collective. Right now, we're made up of singers and musicians, but the plan is to get other people like video-makers, painters and photographers on board. Everyone's free to make a contribution via whatever means they choose, be it videos, photos, whatever… Over 16,000 people have downloaded our tracks to date and personally, that's what I'd call a success! People have already participated in the Ali Dragon story in a way by appropriating our music.
The Internet's every record company's nightmare, though. They're mortally afraid of pirating…
Sane: But giving away a few free tracks is the best thing you can possibly do! A lot of record companies refuse to do that, but they'd honestly be better off adopting the opposite policy. The problem is there are so many acts out there on the contemporary music scene that it's only normal for music fans to want to check records out before they buy them!
David: Personally, I don't think Internet will ever become a substitute for an album. It could never replace a record's artistic value. It's obvious that if fans like the music they'll go out and buy the album – if only so they can appreciate Robin's graphic design on the cover! Robin: The way things worked out with the album it became a multi-media thing. But that wasn't a deliberate choice. I ended up drawing while the tracks were taking shape, so it became a totally interactive process. But the original idea was that I'd just illustrate them.
RFI: You all come from very different musical backgrounds. How did you go about working together in the studio?Alex: Well, it was actually a pretty long, drawn-out business. A lot of research went into the album, you know…. David, Robin and I already knew one another because we played together before Louise Attaque in a group called Caravage. And we met Bruno and Sane on the road in the course of various tours. They were in a band called Antidote. I think we'd all reached a point in our lives where we really wanted to branch out and do something different. We basically ended up experimenting and creating at the same time. It was only when we'd finished the album that we could start thinking about how things worked as an ensemble. To begin with we started out recording improvisations we'd tried out in concert and loops and sound effects and stuff… The whole thing was a pretty long, complicated process because the aim was to try and push everyone's individual ideas to the limit. But we didn't always know whether everyone would end up playing on the final track.
David: When we started playing together the main goal was to mess around and have a bit of fun together, you know. We didn't plan to make an album, let alone think about how to market it! There were the five of us locked away with our recording equipment and our instruments. It was a bit like being cut off on a desert island really… apart from the fact we were actually in Paris in Studio Plus!
Bruno: When certain tracks really started to take shape we all went off to work in this house in Brittany. Then we went back to working in the studio again and ended up spending about another year experimenting and researching.
Sane: I'd say there was a lot of basic hard work and then other tracks came a lot more spontaneously – like Follow Me, for instance, we didn't rework that at all!
RFI: How did you go about producing the album?
Alex: Well, we spent a really long time looking for a producer. We tried out quite a few but none of them lasted the distance, so we ended up producing the album ourselves. Basically, it was a matter of learning as we went along. It was an interesting experience, but pretty tough too.
Sane: The difficult thing was having to make decisions and having the confidence to know we were making the right ones. There are some tracks on the album that fall into a typical song format, but others don't at all. I think if there'd been a different producer on board he'd have made us stick to a more traditional format. But we just did what we wanted, basically – we never thought in terms of sales!
RFI: The ex bass-player from Les Wampas recently claimed he'd abandoned the bass in favour of turntables and machines because he felt he could play around more that way. Is that why you choose to work with machines?
Alex: Yes, that's true for us too… I mean acoustic stuff, even when you do it live in concert, can be a bit stark and austere sometimes. You just go on repeating the same old gestures in a way. Personally, I'd got to the point where I'd understood exactly how rock works, you know, I'd got to the bottom of the whole verse-chorus-solo thing. But working with machines opens up a lot more possibilities. There's much more room to play around and experiment. You can suddenly switch from one sound to another at the push of a button. There's a sort of magical element to the whole thing…
Sane: Generally speaking, we intended our new album to go against all those artists working within their neat little formulas. I was the same once, too. When I used to play hip hop, I would always, always apply the same old formula. It was a question of making life easy really. But I think people should be happy to wrench something new from their instru
RFI: So when you were playing with Louise Attaque did you have the feeling you were being made to work within a format?Robin: Well, I think if we'd have gone on with things as they were, we would have ended up being formatted. Art's a complicated business, you know. You can set out with this vision in your head, but what you end up with in reality isn't always the same thing! Basically, if you stick within the same framework you'll end up being an expert at what you do. But we're more interested in taking the Picasso approach. What was amazing about Picasso was that the minute he became really brilliant at Cubism he switched and did something radically different instead.
Alex:: I think those who have a hard time making artistic choices tend to go along with whatever's out there or slip back into doing something they've done before. But in my view you've got to forget everything that's gone before if you really want to create.
RFI: Is it a coincidence that it's Louise Attaque's rhythm section (drums and bass) that's migrated to Ali Dragon?
Robin: No, it's a human thing. Louise Attaque's 'rhythm section' doesn't mean anything. We're friends first and that's what counts. We'd actually been thinking of branching out and doing something really eclectic long before Louise Attaque went on hold. Alex and I had been thinking about doing something different for a while.
David: It was always Alex and Robin who were the most into the idea of doing something eclectic and messing around creating new sounds with machines and stuff. So, no, it's not a coincidence that Ali Dragon ended up working with them.
RFI: Are there any plans to do live shows with Ali Dragon? Alex: Yes, we're definitely going to be doing concerts, but they won't be within a traditional framework or anything. They'll be in places converted "Ali Dragon" style were we'll be working with a whole bunch of different people like sculptors and graphic designers… Actually, we're not really sure of exactly how the concerts will be right now but we're working on it! The basic idea is to get a DJ, a guitarist and a bunch of other musicians involved and end up with our own sound-system… But one thing's for sure, there's not going to be One Unique Format! Maybe we'll still do a couple of things with Act Up and there'll probably still be a few other social messages too…
Robin: We're prepared to show our commitment – our commitment to partying for a start, and these days that's a statement in itself! I mean, does it really mean anything to play concerts against the far right any more?
RFI: Your lyrics may not conform to the rock and rap canon, but there's still a pretty dark, gloomy side to your work sometimes…
Sane: Being realistic about life doesn't mean you have to go round loving the world or being a philanthropist. In fact, it's difficult to sing about happy stuff because you end up sounding fake pretty quickly!
Alex: Our songs are about partying, having a good time and venturing outside the usual frameworks. And that's something in itself. We are trying to throw off our chains and free ourselves, you know!
Elodie Maillot
Translation : Julie Street
28/01/2000 -
