A Conversation with Ivy’s Dominique Durand – HuffPost 9.28.11

Mike Ragogna: Today we are very privileged to be speaking with the wonderful Dominique Durand about Ivy’s new album All Hours. Dominique, how are you?

Dominique Durand: Hello, Mike. I’m well, how are you?

MR: Doing very well, thanks. Dominique, what got you guys back together after, what was it, six years?

DD: No, no. It wasn’t quite that long, it was only about five years. It’s not even that we broke up or that we intentionally wanted to take a break, but life just kind of happened, you know? Adam Schlesinger, one of the guys in the band, is a very busy musician and he has two other bands–Fountains of Wayne and Tinted Windows. I have other musical projects as well, and another of us is a producer and has other bands of his own, so the three of us do spend a lot of time on Ivy. I mean, we’ve done, I think, seven records? It’s just that we’re very busy. The last record we did together was In The Clear in 2006, and then a year later, we got back together and went back into the studio to start writing songs and after we took a break and listened to the stuff we were working on, we felt very uninspired by what we had so far. We just decided to scrap it and we all went back to our own projects and came back and struggled to get back to a place that we all agreed on and liked. Finally, last year, we went back very quickly with a lot of energy and made this record. It was all very, very fast.

MR: This album doesn’t sound like it was rushed at all. So, when you guys get together, the songs must just come together, am I right?

DD: Well, I think writing music is just like anything in that you have to be inspired. When you have that energy and that feeling then, yes, it’s pretty fast. (laughs) Then you want to finish and get things on paper quickly–it’s stronger than you. It’s a drive that just allows you to work really fast.

MR: Some of the singles off of this new album have been “Fascinated,” and, I believe, “Distant Lights”?

DD: I don’t know if it was released as a single, but that was one of the first songs that we put on the album. That’s a pretty bold move because it’s a very strange song, it’s very long, and it doesn’t really follow the typical structure of a song. It’s kind of a dance, very hypnotic. It’s a very strange song, but we really liked the way it came out so we thought, having disappeared after so many years to come back with a song that was so strong, strange, and weird was the way to go. (laughs)

MR: (laughs) Nice. I don’t consider that song either strange or weird, just pretty cool. It seems as though you all, as musicians, have your eyes on the world as opposed to just the United States when you’re creating music. Is that the case?

DD: Well, yes. Being French, and the others in the band being American, but very musically connected to Europe, the three of us have been influenced by a lot of great English and European music. But we also have a lot of Brazilian influences. There are so many international types of music that influence us . Ivy spends a lot of time touring in places like Spain and Japan. We love feeling connected to the world.

MR: Who would you say did most of the heavy lifting in the writing of the song, “Distant Lights”?

DD: Well, Ivy is a very collaborative band, so the three of us all put our signature on everything. So, it’s not like I write a song, or Andy writes a song, it’s always the three of us. But the initial idea for that song came from Adam coming up with this drum loop and keyboard idea. He called me into the studio and asked me what I think and I told him that if he was in the mood to be in a Greek disco in August that it was great. (laughs) It was a little bit cheesy and we needed to work on it. So, we took the basic premise of the song and we made it much cooler, much more trippy and hypnotic.

MR: One of my favorite tracks on the album, and one of the ones where I most feel the Brazilian influences you mentioned is in the song, “Lost In The Sun.” Is there a story behind that song?

DD: Well, yes, but it may not be very provocative to most people, only to myself, Andy, and Adam. Andy called me with the idea for the song, and I told him that the bass line reminded me of the movie Midnight Express, which was one of my favorite movies when I was younger. It’s a very dark movie about drugs and such, very scary. But in that movie, there was a theme song on the soundtrack that was very provocative and it had an incredible bass line. So, when he played the song for me, I was immediately reminded of that movie, and I loved it. That got us all inspired to write this song, which is not really a dark song at all. To me, it’s a very happy and hypnotic song; it’s the kind of song you want to listen to when you’re driving through the desert with the windows rolled down.

MR: Is there any song from the new album that happens to be your favorite to sing?

DD: Well, I love to sing them all, but I really enjoy singing, “Suspicious” because it’s a little bit more playful and childish and I can put more attitude into my singing. I can be more ironic and tongue-in-cheek on that one. But everyone will recognize this as a very Ivy-esque song in the melody and the airy way that I sing. But I have to say, they’re all fun to sing.

MR: You all did an interesting approach on an album called Guest Room. Can you tell us about that?

DD: Yeah, well we thought it would be great to do a covers record because you basically just choose your favorite songs and go have fun with it. I mean, a lot of bands don’t do it because they think it’s too cheesy and uninspired, but that really wasn’t the case for us. We just wanted to make a record very quickly that we could have fun with and play some very obscure songs by some of our favorite bands. We just put it out there, and it was a lot of fun.

MR: Do you guys generally have a lot of fun when you’re getting these records together? I’m assuming that’s a yes, right?

DD: I think it’s really fun. When we first started writing together, it was hard because we didn’t really know each other that well. Even though we had pretty unified musical ideas, we all had a bit of ego to deal with because we didn’t really know each other or each other’s insecurities and strengths. And so, it was very hard at first, but then you learn and mature and learn how to work with each other. After that, I think you find so much freedom to be able to work with each other. So, I think, in a way, Ivy’s later records have been more fun to work on.

MR: Now, Ivy’s had its fair share of your music featured in movies. What are your thoughts when you hear and see one of your songs for the first time in the scene of a movie?

DD: You can’t believe it. It’s very bizarre. One of the first movies I think we had a song in was There’s Something About Mary and they used two of our songs and they were very prominent in the scenes. They used “I Get The Message” and “This Is The Day.” It was unbelievable to watch that, and you feel so grateful to have something like that in a movie, especially for me, because I love movies and I studied film in school because I thought I was going to be a filmmaker. So, to have music in films for me is great, especially when you love the movies.

MR: Let’s go back to Ivy’s beginnings. Adam and Andy coerced you into being the lead singer?

DD: Yes, that’s true. (laughs). That was Andy’s doing. I had moved from Paris to New York City and met Andy who had been trying to pursue music for some time but he was struggling. I didn’t even speak English at the time, I had come here to learn. After a while, we started writing songs together and at one point, they asked me to sing one of the songs and I said I didn’t want to. I had never sung before. So, he got me drunk on wine one day and we went in and recorded some stupid little song. Then Adam, who was also a struggling musician in New York, heard it and really loved it. He liked it so much that he pushed us to keep creating and recording new songs and things just sort of happened from there. We were very lucky, we signed very quickly to an indie label, and before they signed us, they wanted us to play live and I said, “No way! I’m not playing live, I’ve never done it, and I won’t.” So, I told them to call back the record label and tell them that we wouldn’t play live and they thought I was crazy because they had been trying to so hard to get signed. Eventually, they actually called and said that we weren’t interested and that we wouldn’t play live, and they signed us anyway. (laughs) And that was that.

MR: You guys also crossed paths with James Iha from Smashing Pumpkins once you signed with Atlantic.

DD: Yes. Well, he opened a recording studio with Andy and Adam called Stratosphere Sound, which is an amazing studio in New York City. He really liked our sound, and he also helped us produce a few tracks on Apartment Life.

MR: A lot of Ivy’s songs also appeared on American TV, for instance, your song, “Undertow,” appeared on one of my favorite teen angst shows, Roswell. You even appeared in an episode of the show, right?

DD: Yeah. They were using a couple of our songs in the show, and one day they called the record company and said that they wanted us to come and act in one of the episodes and perform one of our songs. We had to warn them, though, that we’re not actors or anything. But after we thought it over, we figured, “What the hell? Why not just go and have fun, right?” We wound up performing “Edge Of The Ocean” during one of the scenes.

MR: You guys, as a band have had so many great successes but you’re still “Bubbling Under,” so to speak, a reference to chart records. Do you ever have moments of just wanting that huge hit single?

DD: No, but I think we’re pretty realistic with ourselves about that, you know? We’re not Fountains of Wayne, we don’t have a sound that is very accessible and that will get tons of radio play. We’re a much more subtle band, which doesn’t really make us prone to be a big hit single band. But we’re very happy to continue making records when we can be having fun with each other, and if we can be used in movies and TV shows that we love, great. That’s all we could ask for.

MR: That’s great. Do you have any advice for new artists?

DD: I would say that you should always try to find your own sound. It’s okay if you’re not a great singer or guitar player, the most important thing is to have your own sound and your own unique identity. That, to me, is the most important thing. There are a lot of bands out there that sound exactly the same, and what’s the point of that? You need to have your own unique vision.

MR: Beautiful. Do you go back to Paris often?

DD: Not that often, but yes I do go back.

MR: Great. Do you still feel as though that’s your home?

DD: Oh, yes. Of course. When you spend the first 20 years of your life in a place–I was born and raised in Paris, I’m a true Parisian–you can’t help but miss it. I feel like I am 100% Parisian and I am 100% a New Yorker. (laughs)

MR: Excellent. Well, this has been a beautiful experience. Dominique, thank you so much for taking time to be interviewed today.

DD: Oh, my pleasure, Mike. Thank you for having me.

Transcribed by Evan Martin