Present yourself to the readers
We're Richard Citroen & Stephanie B, better known as Lola Dutronic. We're a synth pop duo based in both Toronto-Canada and Dusseldorf-Germany. We've worked with all sorts of people, including Mike"Aladdin Sane"Garson, Chris Frantz & Tina Weymouth from Talking Heads/Tom Tom Club, and the legendary Marty Thau. We're probably best known for our single "Everybody Loves You When You're Dead", although we did get a Top 10 radio hit in Peru with "Happy Birthday".
Who composes ?...How does it work in the duo ?
I generally write and arrange the music in my studio in Toronto and send the tracks to Stephanie in Dusseldorf.
I then add the vocals and send the tracks back to Richard, and he does the mixing.
While everything starts with me, Stephanie adds harmonic ideas that I wouldn't have thought of in a million years, and it's always exciting to hear what she's going to bring to the table...which is plenty!
Who writes the texts ?..What are they talking about ?..How does inspiration come ?
I write the lyrics. For some reason I'm attracted to movie titles. We've used a lot of them over the years for song titles. "Airport", "Best Years Of Our Lives" etc.
As to subject matter, sometimes it's abstract ideas about fame at some level and other times it's just straight love songs…
… although I tend to have a fairly jaundiced view of pretty much everything. Some of the songs are based on our real lives, some of them aren't...but I'm not going to tell which is which.
Why the name LOLA DUTRONIC ?
When we first started recording for Bongo Beat Records in Vancouver, we didn't actually have a name, and because we work in French a lot of the time, the label boss and I sat down and put together various 60s "Ye Ye" type names such as Francoise Faithful, Brigitte Birkin etc, mixing and matching them until we came up with Lola Dutronc. I then suggested that we change the last name to Dutron-IC, as it's electronic music, and voila! Lola Dutronic was born.
What are your personal musical tastes and your influences ?
I guess the most obvious influence on what we do is Saint Etienne, but they're more an inspiration than an influence. Most people probably won't notice, but I always include some sort of David Bowie lick or flourish in there somewhere....the most obvious one being when we got Mike Garson to play piano on our 3rd album. I'm usually pretty careful about what I listen to. For instance, I don't listen to stuff in our genre as much as you'd think, for the simple reason that I'm afraid that if I hear something good, like Chvrches, I'll either unconsciously steal from it, or get pissed off that I didn't think of it first. I know sometimes I'll see Sia on television and go "That's it, I give up!" I listen to a lot of different types of music from EDM (although I can't dance to save my life) through dubstep to classic rock, although I'm careful not to listen to too much of the latter. I'm at the mercy of the iPod shuffle...but I must say I'm pretty impressed with The 1975, DJ Alle Farben & Charli XCX at the moment, and both of us are really impressed with Ryan Tedder. Not crazy about his band One Republic, but some of his outside songs like "Burn" and "Keep Bleeding Love" are amazing. And of course it's always a hoot whenever I see Scooter on German TV. In fact, I think that they might just be the perfect pop band in that all of their records sound exactly the same! Not even Marc Bolan managed that...
My personal music taste… well, that often depends on the situation, like, I love dancing to 60s and Northern Soul, or also catchy electro pop like Icona Pop, the always popular Stereo Total and their likes. And sometimes it can also be some 70s glam rock – every genre and era has some good songs to really lose it to (laughs). I am currently listening to a lot of melancholic singer/songwriter stuff, like Kings of Convenience & Whitest Boy Alive, Julia Stone, Bon Iver, William Fitzsimmons, or even for example Country duo Madison Violet. I guess as an artist trying to make money from their music I should not endorse Spotify too loudly, but I am SO fond of their playlists, I found bands like JOCO, Julia Holter, Joseph, Marika Hackmann, and others, who all make beautiful music. Two records that really impressed me in the past few years were the ones of Woodkid and Laura Mvula.
Yes, I forgot to mention Stereo Total! Fantastic stuff. Saw a show of theirs in Berlin a while back and nearly choked from all the cigarette smoke...
Generally, what's the reaction of the public during your concerts ?
It depends on where we play. Sometimes people really dig us, with stuff like "My Radio" filling the dance floor, and other times they just stand and stare at us. I remember we played one place where they were deeply offended by our electro house version of Dire Straits' Sultans Of Swing!
Ah, yes, I remember that. (laughs) I personally like our version more…
What's your best live memory ? And why ?
Supporting Tom Tom Club in Bochum Germany, mostly because Chris & Tina were so nice.
I also liked our show at The Piston in Toronto. It was mainly family and friends, making it pretty special and exciting :-)
What would be the festival of your dreams ?(with you playing in it of course !!!)
What I'd really love to do is organize a festival where the bands really are friends, so in our case the bill would consist of Tom Tom Club, The Diodes, The Barracudas, Blow Up (with Paul Zone), Jack Sonni's post Dire Straits band du jour, Mona Mur & En Esch, Hugo Burnham Dj-ing under his Gang Of One moniker, plus maybe The Ting Tings and La Roux. People like that. A real mixed bag...but it would would be great if we could close out the night with everyone up on stage singing "Everybody Loves You When You're Dead" with us.
Yeah, sounds great ! And the other one would be the Melt! in eastern Germany.
What are your future dates ?
No specific dates at the moment, although we're always looking to get on a tour with a suitable act. This has almost happened a couple of times already, so I figure third time the charm...
In studio, what was the ambiance for this great album LOST IN TRANSLATION ?...etc.…
I'm a great believer in albums being of a piece to be listened to from start to finish, so if anything doesn't sound right in that context, out it goes! We have a pretty high level of quality control, and we certainly threw out at least three songs on this current album. Mostly because they didn't sit right next to the other songs, rather than any quality issues.
How does it work for the design of the CD ? and why this title ?
I generally design the sleeves and Stephanie usually provides the photography. It's amazing what you can do with holiday snaps & Photoshop.
The Lost In Translation sleeve is the view from a Toyko hotel room...and we kept with that theme for the album title as well. Although some of our own lyrics, which Richard wrote in English and sometimes were translated into French, come out with a completely different meaning than they started out with. This stuff is a real minefield.
With Management / booking / label / how do you work ? And with whom ?
We've generally always handled ourselves, as we're from the "if you want something done right, do it yourself" school, but we've also worked with labels such as Bongo Beat and Red Star, as well as all manner of licensing deals with labels in Italy, Brazil and Asia. Since the death of our last label boss Marty Thau, we're totally self- contained. I'm usually the first contact, and I usually hand things off to Stephanie who is the "bad cop" when it comes to deal making...
...which comes as quite a surprise to some people. (laughs)
Since I live in Canada and Stephanie lives in Germany, it's too costly to fly each other over for live shows, so for European gigs, we have a our friend Dirk Krause fill in for me, although I'm in constant contact with everyone before and after, so I'm there almost as much as they are...but Stephanie is definitely in charge at the European shows.
What are your projects ?
I've been busy pitching songs to people like Kylie Minogue's "people" and working on some new songs & remixes with a couple of artists from the 80s for various "anniversary" releases that I can't name right now, that may or may not see the light of day. As I'm sure you know, this happens all the time in the music business. As for any new Lola Dutronic music, I'm currently sketching out some ideas for some new songs. They're a lot less Eurodisco than last time out, and I'm currently toying with the idea of having Stephanie sing all the new songs in German...
… I am already curious how that will turn out!
What do you expect from the future ?
It would be nice if we could place some of our songs with some other artists, and of course it would be even nicer if we could get a proper hit ourselves.
Can you expect anything from the future ?
What's your motto ?
Never give up!
« Abhaken, next ! » I can’t really translate that one :-)
Website to remember
https://twitter.com/LolaDutronic https://loladutronic.bandcamp.com/ https://www.youtube.com/user/LOLADUTRONICTV https://www.facebook.com/pages/LOLA-DUTRONIC/80232595392 http://whathappensinthemusicbiz-blog.tumblr.com/ http://agentvspromoter.tumblr.com/
What would you like to say to the readers ?
Stop stealing music! You're not sticking it to the record labels. They'll be fine. It's indie acts like us that suffer. If nobody buys our albums or singles we can't afford to tour, and then people wonder why we don't play in their town.
Ha, I have nothing to add.
And to young peoples who begin in the music world ?
Make sure your songs are actually ABOUT something, and believe in yourself. Even if you don't get a hit, if you don't think you or your records are any good, why should anybody else?
Don’t wait for a label or management to sponsor you to produce music. You don’t need big budgets to make great records anymore. It’s all about being self-sustained, and controlling all rights yourself.