Like Tiny Bacteria Running Around: An Interview with the Dirty Projectors

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You guys have been involved in some pretty interesting collaborations recently, most notably with David Byrne and Björk. What was it like working with such well renowned songwriters?
Well, that’s a pretty broad question. Maybe you want to be more specific?

Well, both Björk and David Byrne obviously have very distinctive, established styles of writing and performing. How do you approach working with someone like that in such a way that your own voice doesn’t get drowned out?
Well, each one was very different. With David, it seemed like it would be fun to sidestep the current embrace of the ‘80s Eno/‘Heads sound that’s getting regurgitated in various ways and to think of our collaboration more along the lines of the bel canto scene on the Nonesuch albums, like on Grown Backwards. The first song we wrote together was very much along those lines. We traded demos back and forth and then he wrote the words for it. That song became “Ambulance Man”.

That song was so easy to write that we just ended up doing another one, totally spur of the moment. That one ended up becoming “Knotty Pine”. He gave me some lyrics that he wrote back in ‘75 or ‘76 that never became a Talking Heads song and something about the meter of those words just suggested that kind of music to me.

And how did that differ from the nature of your collaboration with Björk?
Well, Björk is just a super open collaborator, she’s very trusting. And her interest in being involved seemed to stem from her wanting to learn and move outside of her comfort zone a bit. That, by the way, was so incredible to behold in an artist like her because she’s so, so amazing. So her being that way was inspiring for me and got me thinking that way as well.

With the Bitte Orca stuff, we were trying to make it as good as it could possibly be. We took our time—we spent about a year writing and recording those songs. It was pretty painstaking. So for the stuff with Björk, I wanted to get into the opposite spirit. We wrote all those songs in a week, rehearsed for five days and then just performed them. With both of those collaborations, we were just so surprised to be a part of them. We learned so much from both of them. It was pretty incredible.

Any chance that that suite of songs that you wrote with Björk will ever be performed again? Or recorded?
It’s possible, it’s possible. I don’t really know yet.

Any other collaborations on the horizon?
Well, I never expected to do anything like either of those two collaborations, so I don’t know. I guess it would depend on the person?

It sounds like you’re pretty open to the idea of doing more collaborative work in the future, at least.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Do you have a dream collaborator you’d like to work with? Like, if you could collaborate with anyone living or dead?
Um…not really.

Well, you mentioned T-Pain earlier. Would you be open to working with him, if the opportunity presented itself?
Um, yeah that’d be cool!

I’m not sure I want to imagine what that would sound like.
What would it be called?

It would probably have some numbers in the title and at least a few “Z"s.
Yeah, what’s his latest one called?

I think it’s Thr33 Ringz.
What’s the one before that? Epiphany? The one with “Tallahassee Love” on it? That one is a really good album.

Photo by Mehan Jayasuriya

Is there any chance you guys will do another project like Rise Above, where you rework someone else’s songs?
No. I mean, that was totally one of those one-of-a-kind things. It just had to do with how I felt about Damaged. It would be so stupid to do that again. [Laughs]

I take it you listened to a lot of Black Flag growing up.
No, not a lot of Black Flag. A lot of Damaged but not really anything else.

Okay, final question. What’s on the horizon for Dirty Projectors? Anything in the works aside from endless touring?
Um, well, there’s some ideas, you know. Right now, it’s mostly about touring. I’m starting to get psyched about some other things but right now, those are just little ideas, they’re like tiny bacteria running around.

Anything you feel like talking about? Or would you rather keep your cards close to your vest?
Definitely the latter.

Photo by Mehan Jayasuriya