TAS Interview: Danger Mouse And Daniele Luppi

Producer and composer Danger Mouse and his frequent collaborator, Italian composer Daniele Luppi, embarked on a remarkable five-year journey to record a dream project called Rome, an album that reflects their deep admiration for the classic scores of '60s and '70s Italian cinema, like the dark splendor of Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western oeuvres. 

Grammy winner Danger Mouse's mighty résumé includes work with Broken Bells, Gorillaz, Gnarls Barkley and Sparklehorse (Dark Night of the Soul) and a recent stint with U2.  Luppi, who has contributed string arrangements and more for many of Danger Mouse's projects, has done his own extensive film (Under The Tuscan Sun), television ("Sex and The City") and solo work. During brief lulls in their demanding schedules, the Los Angeles-based pair would head to Italy to record, recruiting many of the original musicians who played on Morricone's scores for films like Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars or The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.They drove across Italy to borrow vintage instruments and even utilized Forum Studios in Rome, where Morricone and so many other acclaimed film composers worked. After much consideration about which singers might fit the moody, atmospheric songs they were writing, the duo reached out to Jack White, who composed his own lyrics, and Norah Jones.

Danger Mouse (who prefers his moniker to his given name, Brian Burton) and Luppi released their deeply personal album, Rome, this spring. The Alternate Side caught up with the two friends earlier this month at a midtown studio to discuss the evolution of Rome, the wooing of White and Jones and a possible tour. You can also catch the full interview on Words and Music in Studio A tomorrow, May 26, at 9 p.m. on TAS' sister station, 90.7 WFUV. For a taste of Rome, you can listen to the album stream on YouTube and also check out the interactive Google Chrome film, "3 Dreams of Black," undertaken by director and Rome collaborator Chris Milk:

Kara Manning: Would you define Rome as an homage or an interpolation of the great music of many of the great composers of the Italian spaghetti westerns, like Ennio Morricone. A tribute? An homage?

Danger Mouse: Well, it’s not quite that. Daniele and I both have that as a very big inspiration to our music. I started out wanting to make film soundtracks because of hearing music like this and I think Daniele was the same way, but when we went to make this album it wasn’t about a tribute or an homage or anything like that; we wanted to make a more modern, current album that had this as a really great backdrop to it. That would be different because I hadn’t heard anyone do that before and so that element of it would be almost the scenery or the location if it was a film or something like that. It wasn’t so much about that. We knew we wanted to make songs that were modern songs with modern singers, but this would be a big part of it. So obviously, we’re not saying that we weren’t influenced by [Morricone] or anything like that, but it would be wrong to think that this was us trying to replicate it. It was that at all. I love the Beatles and Kraftwerk, they’re in a lot of music I do and you can hear it, but it’s not homage records to either one of them when those records get done that way. This one is obviously a lot more similar since we used a lot of the same players and sounds, but that was necessary to get this very unique sounding albums.

Kara: How did you reach out to these musicians? Many of them are in their 70s and 80s now and are legendary, like Alessandro Alessandroni. Daniele, had you known them for your previous album An Italian Story?

Daniele: I met a few of them for An Italian Story, but expanded the network, so to speak, for Rome. Rome had to be much more epic, more dramatic, darker, had definitely different things in it from An Italian Story. I was also a different writer so maybe some of the players definitely are the same guys, but what we wanted was to reach out to very particular sounds like the one of the Cantori Moderni di Alessandro Alessandroni It was really fundamental to us to recreate that and it was a fun experience. Once you connect with one of these players and get the trust of one of them, they’re happy to introduce you to the others players and friends. They’ve been working together for the last 50 years.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHDrWfndze0]

Kara: Rome was literally not build in a day, it took you five years to do this. There was a somewhat comedic road trip to gather the vintage instruments. Were you driving around the Tuscan countryside looking for a celeste? When did you decide to do this epic project together?

Daniele: We wanted to do an epic-sounding record, but I don’t think we were really signing up for a epic search.

Kara: You didn’t expect the five years ….

Daniele: No! It wasn’t as if we had particular fun or joy doing that. It just happened to be that it was hard to find that kind of vintage instrument. In Rome there’s no such shop that does that so we had to do it through personal connections instead. It was more tricky than the players, actually. The players were kind of easy to embark on this project. The instruments were not so easy?

Kara: Weren’t you going about with bottles of wine, handing them out in exchange for borrowing instruments?

Danger Mouse: Well, the thing is, you can’t rent those things and if try to pay them, they’ll get insulted. So Daniele knows more of the tradition on these kind of things and it wasn’t payment, but a thank you. When we got off the plane and were ready to start doing this, I didn’t know that’s what we were going to have to do. I just felt like, I guess we’re going to the studio tomorrow, let’s see what happens. And then Daniele explained that we needed to make more calls, get more instruments. I was like, “Well, let’s just rent them, we’ve got a little bit of a budget.” This was five years ago and it didn’t matter, that wasn’t the point. You couldn’t do that. There was no rental shop.

So it took a little while. But the thing that took the longest amount of time, going back year after year. We put a lot into it, but a lot of these soundtracks in the past - when they had everything there - they could have knocked the whole thing out in a couple of days. This took years because it wasn’t that kind of record. That’s not what we were trying to do. It had to develop in the way it did. We didn’t know what singers we’d use. I certainly didn’t know anyone at the time, in 2005 or 2006, who could jump right in and do this. And the songs weren’t yet, the lyrics weren’t written. But you had to start somewhere; if you keep saying we’ll wait for the right time or we’re good enough, it will take forever.

Kara: You’ve worked together before; Daniele you’ve done string arrangements for Danger Mouse’s projects like Broken Bells, Gnarls Barkley and Dark Night of the Soul. You share this love of Morricone, Piero Umiliani and Bruno Nicolai, but when did you think that this would be a fantastic thing to embark on?

Danger Mouse: It was early on. I’d been working on Gnarls Barkley before The Grey Album even, with Cee-Lo, so we had music already together and when The Grey Album happened, then it was going to be able to see the light of day. That’s when I met Daniele. I hadn’t started on Gorillaz yet or anything. When we started to meet up and trade old soundtracks and films, it wasn’t very business-like. And once Daniele started with Gnarls, to help with the arrangements and instruments and things like that, it really took it somewhere else. I’d had this idea myself about a certain kind of album I would have loved to have made. I started out the same way as Daniele, making soundtrack-type music. I was doing it in my dorm-room before I got into anything that was hip-hop or DJ based, but that’s how I really started. This kind of music. Really dramatic, drawn-out instrumental music. I was drawn to the darker side of things and it’s always been there. With Daniele, I finally was seeing someone who really related to that too and I could learn something in that particular way; not someone I could make pop hits with or do different kinds of records with. There was a specific thing that I thought would be amazing to do with Daniele, musically, with this album.

Kara: It seems such a very personal adventure for the two of you too. You paid for this out of pocket, took the time you needed to take. You were seeking the right vocalists who would understand the mood you were driving for as well.

Danger Mouse: Yeah, but we were also looking for someone who would be able to help us take this outside of just a couple of guys who really love this music and are willing to put a bunch of time, money and effort into it. That’s all well and fine, but we needed people who had something special about them who could take this beyond that. Because then that’s hard; that’s a lot more difficult for us to make music we love, that we think is good and pat each other on the back. We can do that, not saying that easy, but that wasn’t the challenge either. Flying to Rome constantly, coming up with the money, trying to write new parts for it and keeping up with the whole thing … but how does this connect? How is this something that’s unique so if you don’t know this music and you hear a song, will you want to know about it? That’s where Jack and Norah come into that equation. I can’t get on the mic and do that. Daniele can’t do that - no offense, man - but I don’t think you can do this.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PXpFFljioc]

Kara: Jack White was the first person you were interested in, correct?

Danger Mouse: Of course, like everything with this project, it took forever. The first time I played him the music I never thought, “I’ll get Jack White” because I didn’t think that his voice and what I knew of his music was something that would compliment this music. We took a while and took another trip over to Rome and did the choir stuff, once we [had that I thought] that maybe it shouldn’t be someone who compliments the music. Maybe it should be someone who stands out on it and the music would be strong enough to hold the weight of someone doing something different. Jack definitely knows music and knows his stuff; he’s not going to come sing something over this music that ignores what’s there.

Kara: It seemed to challenge him as well. He accesses things that he’s not accessed in other vocal performances.

Danger Mouse: He’s never written this way. I was really excited. Daniele called me and said, “I heard [this song] on the radio and this guy could be really good.” It was The White Stripes. And I’m like, “Yeah, actually I have. I’ve been emailing Jack!” Daniele must have thought I was really connected after he’d just mentioned the guy on the radio. I was celebrating when Jack said, yes, he’d give it a shot. I thought, “Yeah, cause you’re going to nail it.” But then it took a while. He even said he wasn’t sure he could do it because he’d never done it this way before. He’s always written all of his stuff from the beginning. He’d never taken music that someone else had done and written on top of it before. That’s the way I work all of the time, but he’d never done that. So I started to think, “Oh no. Maybe this isn’t going to work.” He sent the first few demos to us and they were odd. They really were. There was some great melodic stuff on it, but it was definitely different. But there was something about it and this is what it needed, something really different to make it a modern, unique thing. Once he actually cut the final vocal for it, it was different from what we’d originally gotten. (laughs). I think he sent us something on a dictaphone with the music playing in the background and him just singing.

Kara: Very raw.

Danger Mouse: Yeah, he just wanted to get the idea across more like, I don’t know if this is working, maybe it is, maybe it’s not kind of thing. I’ll have to ask Jack if that was what he was thinking. We didn’t know and we knew how much time he’d spent on this. He knew that this was a big thing for us so he wanted to get it right too. It was. Once he cut the final vocals, it was amazing and something very different. You would have never put these pieces together, but it worked somehow.

Kara: Once you had Jack’s vocals set, then it became an easier process to reach out to Norah Jones as the female counterpart?

Danger Mouse: While Jack was writing his parts, once I knew what songs he was writing, that tipped it off. We’d given him the whole album and I’d had some vocal ideas for the songs myself, but I didn’t want to limit him at all and give him every chance we could to find some songs with inspiration. After he [chose] the three songs, then I went on and followed through with some of the other ones I had ideas for vocally. I started writing, but then I thought I shouldn’t finish them until I see what he does, just for lyrical content. Sure enough, when he was finished, it was right up the same alley I was going down. I was writing from a female point of view and he was writing from a male thing and there’s a melancholy nature to the whole album. There’s a love story, a pained darkness to the whole thing. You’re not going to write a song about balloons on this album. Once he was finished, I could finish up mine, so that’s when it was a little more clear what kind of vocalist would work. Norah was brought up. We’d talked about her before and Jack was instrumental on that too; he really wanted Norah as well. I didn’t let Jack hear the bad scratch vocals that I had for the songs, but I let Daniele hear them and he could see it.

Daniele: I loved them!

Danger Mouse: It gave me some confidence. I didn’t play those [scratch vocals] for her but I did play her the music. I didn’t play her what the part would be until she got [to the studio]. I didn’t want to scare her off. So I [played her] some of the music, what Jack did, here’s the songs I’m thinking about. Just before she was going in to sing, that’s when I dropped it on her. And it turned out really good. Once she started to sing the first lines of the first song, which was “Season’s Trees,” it was instant. It was like, “Whoa, this works. This whole project for the last four years is going to work.”

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0I0PiWiDqQ]

Kara: Ennio Morricone is still alive. Daniele, did either you or Danger Mouse consider reaching out to him or discussing this project? Do you know if he’s heard it at all?

Daniele: Well, I think he’s very busy still. What I know about him, I don’t think he’s interested in listening to other people’s work.

Danger Mouse: No (laughs).

Daniele: Unless you’re Bach! He’s into serious music as in concert music.

Danger Mouse: If you read any interviews of his out there you’d understand why we’re being aloof about it. It’s probably not something he’d tear the package open on to pop it in and listen. It’s much more about him if you read his interviews.

Kara: There was a Quietus one in which he was quite nice and open-hearted.

Danger Mouse: Oh, I’m not saying he’s not nice!

Kara: He just won’t open your record.

Danger Mouse: I don’t think he’s be that interested, that’s all. But I don’t know the guy. That’s the thing.

Kara: Have you and Daniele talked about your next project together? And isn’t there a guy named Chris Milk following you around doing a documentary?

Danger Mouse: No, not a documentary. He’s doing the visual elements to the album that have yet to come out. There’s a visual element to the album that’s still a mystery right now but it won’t be shortly.

Kara: Is it akin to what PJ Harvey did with Let England Shake?

Danger Mouse: No, not that. It’s definitely going to be very unique. It’s a very visual album and Chris is an amazing director. He’s going to be interpreting a lot of things going on with the music. It will be an unique experience on the visual side of things.

Kara: Have you been asked to do a soundtrack or score together by anyone yet?

Daniele: Not yet.

Danger Mouse: Not yet as a team, but I don’t think people are going to wait five years to get a soundtrack from us, but who knows.

Daniele: A very patient director.

Kara: Danger Mouse, where do you keep your Grammy [for Producer of the Year] in your house?

Danger Mouse: I don’t keep those kind of things. I send them to my parents. I think they enjoy that kind of stuff and sure, why wouldn’t they? I’m not into awards stuff because you can lose, and I’m not into that. I try not to pay too much attention. You end up losing more than winning stuff like that.

Kara: Are you going to try to tour this album on the road?

Daniele: We’re talking about it.

Danger Mouse: That’s a whole other thing, but everybody wants to do it and it’s definitely something we’d like to see happen. It wouldn’t be immediate, but we’re going to see what we can do.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQIOxYfL_tU]

Kara: I'm especially fond of the song "Roman Blue" from the album. How did you envision that?

Danger Mouse: That’s one where Daniele did the chord structure of the song and I lived with it, fell in love with it and came up with the top line melody for it. It could have gone twenty different ways. It could have had a singer, all of these different things, and we found a way to put all of these melodies together as one thing, for one song. But that could have been four songs I think. There were so many things in there. But that genuinely was one where I heard something of Daniele’s and was really inspired by it. That’s a good [example] of what the two of us did together.