Photo by Daniel Boud. Find out more about his work here: BOUDIST.COM

Aaron recently had the chance to chat to Ned Cooke, keyboardist from Sydney's Dappled Cities, as they look ahead to their stint in the 2010 Laneway Festival - discussing deportation and urination along the way!

Firstly congratulations on the nominations for the ARIA Independent album of the year, and also for the SMACS (Sydney Music, Arts & Culture) Record of the Year and best Sydney song, also contesting a few AIR awards in a couple of weeks.

Ahh, Thanks mate! All rolling in.

After spending a decent amount of time in America playing shows how have you found it different to the shows here?

It’s obviously pretty different, because people here kind of know us or at least maybe have heard of us. But when we first went there it was like doing our first shows again, so it was kind of exciting in that way, playing to people who have never seen us before. It’s obviously a pretty huge country, lots of driving, lots of unusual places to go and cool little towns. I guess the crowds are a bit different as well.

Are they as receptive to the humour you guys bring with your live shows?

Yeah I think so, I find that the crowds are a little bit older, maybe?

What is it like playing to a lot of industry types at SXSW

It’s great, it’s really cool. It’s a pretty intense week though, you can’t escape the music. Everywhere you go you can hear two bands at once, it’s pretty crazy.

I was curious as to what inspired the art installations that were put on approaching the release of ‘Zounds’.

We actually didn’t have any hand in the creation of the art; we really left that up to…we sort of put an open call out to artists that wanted to contribute, and we didn’t know what we were going to get until we turned up in the day pretty much, which is how we wanted it. So, it was really cool.

Did they listen to the album, while creating their artwork for the ‘Zounds’ launch? Inspired by the songs on the album?

Yeah, that’s right. There was one artwork for each song on the album. It was held at a storage space…at a Kennards….

Yeah, I saw pictures of you guys playing in the warehouse. There was a performance, how was the reverb (regarding the acoustic quality of a storage factory)?

Umm, it was actually kind of cool, actually. I thought it was going to be pretty ‘tinny’ sounding, but it actually turned out sounding pretty good.

Because you’re an engineer yourself, aren’t you?

Umm, yeah I do a bit of that, and studio work. But umm, the reverb was actually appropriate, underwater sound.

After going around the country a few months ago on the ‘Wall of Zounds’ tour, are you looking forward to another trip around the country albeit in a lot shorter time span and encompassing a lot wider audience, for the St Jerome’s Laneway Festival?

Yes, very much! The lineup for ‘Laneway’ is just really, really good. I’m actually really excited about most of the bands that are playing. So, yeah I think it will be a really cool festival. A lot of the venues have changed as well, it’s actually not actually in a laneway anymore.

Yeah, it’s now on a school campus, or something. In Sydney.

I remember last time it wasn’t really loud enough, and I think they had problems with sound. So, I think…it can only be better.

Last year they had it at Reiby place; it’s a bit of a wind tunnel.

I think, I remember it! I haven’t actually been to the one in Melbourne, but I think that it’s in a different place next year too, which is really funny.

Which band are you most looking forward to seeing on this year’s line up?

I’m really looking forward to seeing Wild Beasts, The XX…ahhh Echo and the Bunnymen, which will be pretty interesting. And Florence and the Machine, which should be great.

What about, the Black Lips?

Oh yeah! I think I’ve seen them before, but the more I think about it the more I think maybe it actually wasn’t them. Because it was at a show they were meant to be playing at, and I dunno…the band was just awful, and I was like, ‘oh well’, because it was before I had heard of the, and everyone was like, “you gotta check out this band”, and I went and it stank, and I left half way through, but I think it was actually…I think it may have been the support band.

Enough opportunities to see them, I guess.

Yeah, I think I may check them out a few times. They’re pretty crazy.

Yeah so I’ve heard, getting kicked out of India!

Yeah! They got deported, didn’t they?

Yeah, something like that. They had to deal with illegal people to get them out of the country, some crazy story.

For pissing on each other or something?

I think it was for pissing on each other’s mouths?

Hahah! That’ll get you deported.

Do you recon they’d get deported from here if that was to happen?

Awww, you never know! They seem to be letting people in now, maybe they’ll let it go.

You’ve done the Laneway tour before in 2007, now with the added shows in Perth and Adelaide, you’re not taking part in the New Zealand leg?

Ahhh we’re not doing New Zealand, and we not doing…there is meant to be one in Singapore as well…which would be pretty cool, but we’re not doing that one as well. Just stickin’ to the continent at this stage. Hopefully next time we’ll do the full stretch.

Can we expect any surprises from the (St Jerome’s Festival) Laneway shows?

Ahh…yes. I don’t know what they are yet, so it will be a surprise for me as well. But umm, yeah, we’ll do something pretty crazy, we just gotta work out what that is.

The light costumes probably won’t work if it’s bit of an earlier set.

Ahh yeah I know, we didn’t consider that. But we might be…we might just look like idiots! We’ll come up with something great.

Seeing as you guys are probably used to the touring schedule, how does 3 days in a row look before few days off before heading to Adelaide and Perth?

That’s fine, yeah. We’ll get through it!

How does it work, do you guys usually fly, and all the gear goes in a truck or something?

Yeah, that’s what we’ll do this time. We’re pretty self-sufficient, like we sort of have our show pretty much so we can travel by plane, will just all our stuff. So we’ll probably fly. I dunno if we’ll be bringing anything. As you said, if we do something more of that nature [regarding the theatrical qualities to their live show], then we’ll probably step it up a notch. We got a few months to think about it, yeah.

Awesome, well that’s all the questions. Thanks for your time.

Thanks mate!

Photo by Daniel Boud. Find out more about his work here: BOUDIST.COM