"Someone always steals the fucking banana." As a set closer, there's not much that can rival that, particularly if the banana in question (a large yellow inflatable), having been thrown about the auditorium, has indeed now disappeared from view. But then whether in concert or in conversation, it's almost impossible to predict where Son Of Dave will go next. Except France. He invariably comes back to France.
"I love France. It's very civilised," professes Benjamin Darvill, the man behind the moniker. Apart from the meat-heavy menu, it would appear. Browsing the delicacies on offer in a restaurant near la Maison de la Radio, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, the interview takes a detour via vegetarianism (both he and his girlfriend, the folk artist K. C. McKanzie, are vegetarians).
"I do like meat. A lot of vegetarians do like to eat meat, but we don't eat meat because we're trying to point out that most people are idiots."
Sitting down to write this article, I was torn between opening with the above remark, or the banana quip that I eventually plumped for. You see, it's not just his notoriously dynamic brand of beats-fused blues that gets him talked about. It's also this outspoken approach to life. It's what makes Son Of Dave such an interesting and intriguing individual, something that I had already read a little about. Indeed, many people have probably read more than a little about his views, printed as they are on a regular basis in the Stool Pigeon, where Darvill has written a column for the past five years ("We were lovers who found one another in the dark. It's a nice fit," is the man's poetic take on his contribution to the paper). Nor are they, like many musician-penned articles, just boringly monotone updates from a pretentious pop star about town, detailing sexual conquests and tennis with Bono. Nay, some of these columns, outlining Darvill's take on life and which can feature death-trap Lincolns, music scene seat-pissers and the night-train from Moscow to St. Petersburg, have seen the editor Phil Hebblethwaite proclaim them "some of the best stuff we’ve ever printed" and have resulted in "We Need You Lazzaro, You Lazy, Greasy Bastard & The Other Stool Pigeon Columns", a collection of Darvill's columns, released to mark five years of the magazine.
The first time I encountered Son Of Dave live, he was welcomed onstage by the Franco-American group Moriarty during their "Carte Blanche" date at La Défense, near Paris, in March 2009. I remind him of the evening.
"It was very indulgent. They were given a great big budget and they thought they would spend it, splurdge it on other acts. They flew in a DJ, I can’t remember the name, from Brooklyn. They were generous and fun and clever guys."
The event, which went on for a good four hours or so, and eventually had to be curtailed to allow people to catch the last metro home, must also be almost unique in that it featured Darvill on guitar during the last encore.
"I grabbed a guitar? I was quite drunk. I wanted to play a guitar solo? I forgot that!" At this thought, he lets out a dry chuckle, genuinely surprised by the thought of shredding his way through Moriarty's set-closer. "I hate guitar solos. So drunk I wanted to play a guitar solo? Oh dear."
Darvill doesn't like guitar solos, and he doesn't like manufactured pop. A lengthy deviation concerning Phil Collins, prog-rock (apparently it featured little in young Benjamin's record collection) and "sweater wear rock" reveals as much. And a relatively non-descript question regarding the new album ("Shake A Bone", out on 22nd March on Kartel) and his approach in writing it takes us, much like Alice, down the rabbit warren.
"For the last couple of records, I'm still making all the decisions. I don't have a super producer like, euh, maybe eighty percent of the music you hear on the commercial radio. It's made by teams of people; it's not made by individuals. It's made by song writers and producers. I mean, name one of the leading ladies that writes her own songs; they all are credited with writing their own songs and none of them do. All of those hits by Buffy, Duffy, Muffy, Puffy, they're all written by song-writing teams and producers, the songs are passed around. Sometimes the lady will have some lyrics or a musical idea and then they'll hand her a chorus. So [my music] is the absolute opposite of that, not because I'm trying to do the opposite, but because it comes naturally to me. I'm a very selfish fellow, and I like to have fun when I play music and I like to make it a great big laboratory experiment.
Last time round I did more of it. I have sort of co-written a couple of tunes with a producer. I open the door to him when I have a shiny tune and I think it's the right one. I'll open the door to a guy who's my buddy and I trust, and he'll come up with really hooky, tasty, sinful commercial ideas."
The stuff that gets you on the radio?
"Yeah, he'll pump up the boobs on the thing."
The 'X' factor? If you’ll excuse the expression...
A brief look of extreme distaste flashes across Darvill's face. "Yeah... Put that into it, I’ve done that on a couple of, two or three songs only, and that's fine too. I do things my way and occasionally I'll say 'yeah, this one sounds pretty hooky' and then 'poppy' and then we, euh, we throw it to the wolves, and they can rip it up. Sodomise it in the jungle, I don't care. It's just a different game to play."
Darvill is clearly not a fan of the "game". The mass-market media, which dictates to us what we should like (just listen to "Nike Town", from "03"), and the "music machine" is another aspect of modern society that gets both barrels.
"I just find it fascinating that no-one listens to Radio 1. I don’t know anyone who listens to, and enjoys Radio 1. It is still like these traditions that we have. It's becoming the tradition that, in order to tour, you have to release a CD that nobody buys, and hopefully you'll get a hit on Radio 1 that no-one listens to. It's fascinating. Sixty percent of [Radio 1's] playlist... I analysed it once – I got very obsessive, trying to figure out if they had a code, trying to figure out if they have a formula, stalking their playlists. Sixty, no seventy percent is female artists. And of those not one of them - one hundred percent - wrote their own songs. The other twenty percent [and the remaining ten percent? Ed.] are guitar indie bands."
Razorlight and the like?
"Yeah, some of them have their songs written but most of them are writing their own songs as a group, or the producer helps pick some big hit. Now they’re threatening to close down Radio 6 [BBC 6 Music]. Everybody knows, just close down Radio 1! There you've got a lot of money left over."
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Darvill is a great believer in the simplicity of his music. Which is why his latest album, engineered by Steve Albini, was so successful.
"He suited me to a tee. The funny thing about him is that he's not a producer, he's an engineer, he refuses to be called a producer. So, he doesn't lift a pinky finger to make any musical or creative decisions whatsoever. I could go up there, you know, and say 'What did you think of that?' and we'll be met with a blank stare, maybe a sneer, maybe a dry joke. All he does is move microphones about. He's a wizard with tape and just getting it to sound like you make it sound so whatever noise you come out with, whatever hole you deliver it from, he records it onto his tape and it sounds the same coming out of the speakers. Difficult to do actually."
Difficult to do it may be, but greatly appreciated it is. After all, Son Of Dave is always better in the flesh, so anything that brings the listener closer to the live experience has got to be a good thing.
Having recorded the album in Chicago, Darvill is back in Paris on his latest European jaunt, ostensibly to promote "Shake A Bone". I say ostensibly, because Darvill also has an opinion on the whole release-an-album-go-on-tour modus operandi of modern musicians. I ask him what the modern artist does now no-one buys music anymore.
"You play shows and you don't hire a band. That's my trick."
Do you go into writing songs knowing that the important thing is that you're going to play it live then?
"That's a good question. Yeah, you have to have a CD release in order to warrant a new tour even though nobody buys the CD really these days. It's quite a custom. It's become a strange ritual. No-one can understand the origin." He chuckles again. "Selling records. Well, those were the days."
But if his livelihood now depends on his live performance, then fortunately he can rest easy. On stage he cuts an odd figure, cleanly attired in suit, long coat, dark shades and tipped fedora. But the combination of beat-box loops, kickin' foot-taps, red-hot mouth harp blasts and blues drawl is a heady and supremely seductive one. A single track is all that's needed to get the foot tapping and bones... well, shaking. The latest album ploughs a much purer furrow of blues than the previous "03", itself a wonderful mish-mash of party-roots and blues and funk fused through with his beat-box loops. "She Just Danced All Night", a playful anecdote of a late-night teenage run-in, chugs along like an accelerating locomotive, continuing to build-up a head of steam until hitting the punch line, "I got her number though/She might have an older sister". The biggest reaction is obviously reserved for live classics "I Just Wanna Get High With You" and "Hellhound", although by the time the latest album's boisterous title track has picked up on Darvill's lips, one enthusiastic member of the audience can restrain himself no longer and leaps for the space, at present reserved for photographers, between the stage and the rows of seats. There, he proceeds to flail around like the devil himself has taken hold of his limbs. The yelps emanating between blasts of harmonica and murmured lyrics serve to drive the fellow on, before eventually some spoilsport in the front row points out that his impression of a possessed marionette with its strings in a tangle is a little distracting. But then that's what Son Of Dave's music does. His tunes aren't there to be analysed but to be enjoyed, to be felt through the soles of your feet, all the way up your backbone and right into the brain. Son Of Dave is looking for nothing more than a party. And without a backing band to keep him company on the cold, bare stage, he persuades two audience members onto the platform, where a table, two chairs and a bottle of wine await them. Through the course of the set, he throws the couple shakers, tambourines and party hooters. Who needs a backing band when you can make one yourself, out of audience members and random bits of percussion? The penultimate song even sees them let off a huge party popper into the audience. And obviously the banana. It would all seem very surreal, were it not for the music, underpinning the whole gloriously energetic caboodle. And above all, the sense of fun remains fundamental.
"I get a very mixed audience, very, very, extremely mixed audience," Darvill informs me the night before, in between musing on a beat-boxed version of "In The Air Tonight" and his preferred London music radio station (RJR, a Jamaican station playing, amongst others, early American R&B). "You can’t rigidly call [my music] blues or jazz or pop. Keep 'em guessin'!"
Phil Collins, bananas, and strategically-placed microphones. Well, it certainly kept me guessing.
Son Of Dave tour dates:
25 March - Academy 3, Manchester
31 March - Hectors House, Brighton
1 April- Thekla, Bristol
2 April - Brudenell, Leeds
23 April - Bodega, Nottingham
24 April - Jazz Cafe, London
30 April - Duchess, York
6 May - Brook, Southampton
7 May - Leadmill, Sheffield
26 May - The Cluny, Newcastle
27 May - King Tuts, Glasgow
Son Of Dave online
Kartel online
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