Pezzner

Huge new Dirtybird release from the superstar producer from Seattle…

 

Interview by Dan Prince

 

Dave a huge welcome to DMCWORLD, where on planet earth are you right now?

Thank you! It’s nice to be here.  I’m at home right now in Seattle. The quiet before the storm before I head out for a three-week tour through Southeast Asia. Chongqing, Chengdu, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, Bali, Bangkok, and Phuket.

The first piece of music you heard this morning after falling out of bed?

I didn’t listen to anything until after I took my daughter to school.  I’m usually listening to NPR in the mornings until I get home from dropping her off.  Then when I got home, Christina, my wife was telling me about Macklemore’s new tune “Drug Dealer”.  I’m not a huge Macklemore fan but I really did like the video and the message behind it – taking on the issues with big pharmaceutical companies.  Good on him.

True or false? You have a great affinity with Tarzan of the Apes?


False.  Kind of! I’m not a fan. However, I was born in Tarzana California which is the resting place of Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of Tarzan Of The Apes and it’s 24 or so sequels.  Back in the early 1900’s he bought a huge ranch just in the north of LA at the edge of the San Fernando Valley, and after some years, the people who lived in the community that sprang up around the ranch voted to call the neighborhood “Tarzana”.  Burroughs is buried there, and I was born there.

A journalist once said about you…“give him a good idea and a few hours in a studio and he’ll make you dance or he’ll make you weep.” What do you prefer doing?

Dancing for sure, but even more, I prefer to make people think.  I find myself really connecting with music that has sounds that I can’t understand.  Hearing music like this takes extra time to process and draws you closer to that you can try to figure out exactly what you are listening to.  I love that, and I want people to hear the things that I “love” in my music.

Loving the new single, a slightly different vibe for Dirtybird and absolutely top drawer. Talk us through ‘The Hand That Feeds’…

The Hand That Feeds You is all pretty free form.  You might notice everything in the tune is running on its own tangent, like dreams do.  Do you dream about music? I don’t know if a lot of people do, or what they are hearing when they do but when I dream about music, the songs have unlikely layers and unlikely arrangements.  In Hand That Feeds You we have a single organic sounding drum which is vibrating in a very not-organic way, and it’s not anything all that complex but somehow this drum, which is totally just a single hand playing a simple rhythm, is gluing the whole thing together.  The rhythm of this drum never repeats itself.  Between the voices and the simple bassline, this single drum, and the location, “the jungle” (and I think I see what you are getting at with this Tarzan thing. Nice one!), it all works, right? But here’s the thing: in this place, at first there’s nothing more going on, it’s just a mood. It’s just a time and a place in the jungle.  That’s where our sine waves and horns come in, because without the sine waves and horns we don’t really have a story. It would be like if John and Alice Rutherford Clayton (Tarzan’s parents) were stranded on the island at the beginning of the story and just ended up surviving there hanging out, no problem. Maybe they camped, built a house, had some more kids and spent their days eating fish and coconuts. That would be the end of a mildly boring story. But luckily we have the sine waves and horns to tell us, “now well, here’s some drama”. The synth sine waves don’t really have a place in the jungle setting which is what I find interesting.  It’s like the primates finding the Monolith in the movie “2001 A Space Odyssey”. I imagine the listener would be like an ape studying the sine waves and poking at them thinking “what the fuck are these things?”  That’s what I think about the sine waves. The brass horns are for crescendos. They’re important for drama.  Oh and Claude VonStroke helped me with the kick drum. I was having some trouble getting it to cut through the mix, but thanks to him, the kicks sound great!



I live in Ibiza where James Zabiela’s nickname is apparently Samson. The rumor goes is that if someone cuts his flowing golden locks he will lose his mixing powers, just like the Biblical figure would lose his strength. You played with his malt weekend at Studio4/4 in Seattle, did chopping his hair ever cross your mind?

I hope no one ever cut’s Zabiela’s hair. I was tempted figure out a way to nonchalantly touch his hair after opening for him, but there’s no easy way to do that without seeming like a creep. Besides, if you ever get to see for example, Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, you might want to reach out and touch it, but its inappropriate.

What are the big 5 tunes in your box this weekend…

I have some new ones and some old tracks I’ve been playing again.

General Ludd – Sunset Yellow

All work by General Ludd has a place in my DJ sets. So WTF, some of tunes are tribal some distorted.  Love it and I love General Ludd’s range.

Johnny Lumière and the Triads – Peanut Stand

This whole EP is great.  Perfect for woodworking.

Herbert – Deeper:

Remember that one?

Auntie Flo – Daabi

Simple, psychedelic, tribal… perfect for a good African jungle tangent.

Moodymann – Dem Young Sconies

Will never leave my box.

Timmy Regisford Feat. Lynn Lockamy – At The Club (Claude Monnet Mix)

I know that’s five tracks, but I just remembered this one, and I can’t delete any of the others.

Best and worst thing about living in Seattle?   

Amazon.com

The last time you danced to a DJ…

Last weekend in Punta Mita I went to a friend’s wedding. Droog and Rob Dowell played 80’s cuts all night and we were all dancing like freaks.

We come back to yours after the club for some afters, what is the one album you hurry to hide as you’re embarrassed it’s in your collection?

I have two Spotify accounts.  One is the main one that I use to attach to my artist account, but the other is for my 5 year old daughter and to research tracks to play at weddings.  Yeah, sometimes I play weddings.  We’ll just stop talking about that now.

What is your earliest musical memory?

I was in preschool, 4 years old maybe?  Actually I think it was the first day of preschool, or some kind of day care. I remember being excited to join the class, and the teacher played a song that was fast and all the drums and sounds were electronic.  I distinctively remember the music sending me into a panic attack. It was so scary to me that I had to be pulled out of the room and sent home with my mother.  I’ll never forget that song. Later I learned that it was Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit”.  Now one of my favorite songs of all time.

What is the worst job you have ever had?

Telemarketing when I was 19.  I was a telemarketer for a company that was soliciting donations for our local fire department.  The boss was a real hard ass, and I couldn’t bring myself to call anyone, so I would just sit there and stare at the cubicle walls. It was torture.

What is coming out next from the mighty Pezzner studio?

I just finished a remix for an up and coming DC artist called Jus Nowhere “Corpulent” on Silence In Metropolis.  I did a remix of a tune for Martyn Hodgson on Decay Records, and I’m mixing a compilation for them.  I’m doing something for M.A.N.D.Y. on Get Physical.  On my own label Hunt & Gather, we have a debut EP for an artist called “Motel Express” – quite good.

Best DJ gig of 2016?


Dirtybird Campout.  Everything about that party from the experience of just being there, the fun energy of the crowd, to the behind the scenes experience was so top notch.  My wife flew down with me, and our son and his friend road tripped down from Seattle to LA for the party.

The last GREAT film you saw?


Weiner-Dog directed by Todd Solondz, who is known for “Happiness” and “Palindromes”. If you are familiar with his style, he’s not particularly for the faint of heart. He takes dark humor to the next level. This one is about a dachshund that moves from disturbing and funny story to disturbing and funny story.
And finally, if Donald Trump gets into power David Brian Pezzner will…

Lose all hope

http://www.pezzner.com/