HOLV: First off, it must have been about this time last year we were last in touch, how was 2007 for you?
 
DF: As far as making music goes, I think 2007 for me was a year of opening myself up to new ideas and trying new
things. I mean, I've always considered myself an experimenter, but this year in particular I made some
leaps that I'm not sure I would have taken in the past. A lot of this centers around being more
collaborative. Before this year hit, I'd been a solo artist in the truest sense of the word- I wrote,
recorded and performed everything by myself. Ultimately, I think this because I'm a bit of a
control freak, at least when it comes to making music. But after finishing my last album, The Crawl, it
became pretty obvious that I was going to need to enlist the help of some other musicians if I ever
wanted to play these songs live. There was just too much sound going on for me to successfully pull them
off live by myself. So I found some musicians to help me out and eventually I realized that collaborating
has it's own set of rewards- sure, I don't get the satisfaction of doing every little thing myself, but
it's a completely different and amazing feeling to be a part of a group that's working together to make
something bigger and better than any of us could have made on our own.
 
HOLV: Another way that I've opened myself up to collaborating more this year is with Spoolwork, a new
remix and production project I've started. As opposed to the backing band scenario I was just talking about,
where I write the songs and then bring other people on board to help me play them, Spoolwork lets me be more
collaborative at the creation stage, when musical ideas are first being put together to make a song. The
project is just getting underway and I only have one finished song so far, the Jens Lekman remix, but it
was such a fun and refreshing way to work, playing off someone else's ideas (in this case, Jen's vocal
melody) and seeing what I come up with. I'm definitely looking forward to doing more stuff like it, and maybe
throwing new kinds of collaborations in the mix as well, like working on a film soundtrack or something
like that if the opportunity comes along.
 
HOLV: Your last album Crawl is probably the most accomplished piece of work you've had to date. Are you
putting much pressure on yourself to make the next release even better?
 
DF: I think I'm always pushing myself to make the next thing I do better than what I've done before. I think
that's an important part of doing creative work, whether it's musical, visual, literary...whatever. The
best way to make progress is to keep raising the bar. Or to push yourself into new territory you haven't
explored before. I definitely did that when I started working on The Crawl. When I first started making that
album, I had some general ideas about what I wanted to do- I knew I was interested in working more with a
computer, doing something that was more sample based, and I knew I wanted to make something that was bigger
sounding than what I'd done before. But how exactly that would all play out, I had no idea. I mean, I'd 
done very little music making on a computer at that point. But I got a copy of some music making software,
a program called Reason, and I just jumped in, learning as I went along and developing my ideas as I
learned more about the tools I was using. That can be kind of frustrating when you're first starting out-
there were definitely moments early in the process when I felt like I had no idea what the hell I was
doing. But ultimately it was a great thing to do, because I learned so much in the process and like you
said, I think the album ended up being the most accomplished thing I've done so far. So yes, now I'm
kind of at the beginning of that process all over again. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing with this
next album, but I know I want it to be as good, if not better, than what I've done before...or at least
different.
 
HOLV: Speaking of next release . . . any hints as to what it will be like and when it's going to be out?
 
DF: At this point it's still pretty early in the process and I could see it going in a few different
directions. Since I formed a backing band to help me play the songs from The Crawl, I could see making a
record that's more band-oriented. That would actually be a completely novel thing for me to do- work with
other live musicians in a studio setting. But I'm also still really attracted to the idea of making music
with a computer, because of all the possibilities it creates, all the sounds you can manipulate and use to
make songs. The new album may very well be some sort of hybrid of these approaches- some songs could be
recorded with a band, some songs could be created entirely in the computer, and maybe I could even
through in a couple of songs where it's just me and a guitar or piano. I definitely like the idea of making
an album where the songs all sound different, and the only real thread tying them together is that it's all
my songwriting. We'll see what happens. 
 
HOLV: You mentioned before that you are starting to play Crawl live? How difficult is that to do considering
the way in which you construct your music?
 
DF: When I was making The Crawl, I made a conscious effort not to worry about how I would ever play the songs
live. I think that would have just led to writer's block. I just tried to focus on making an album that I
thought would be interesting to listen to. In this case, that ended up being a set of songs that are all
thickly layered, with lots of different sounds being used to create the arrangements. Some of the sounds
are recognizable, like strings and horns and drums, but then there are also a lot of sounds that I
manipulated with the computer and don't really sound like any traditional instrument. So when it came time
to finally perform these songs live, I had to accept the fact that they just weren't going to sound the way 
they sound on the recording. I had to let go of a lot of the sounds I'd created and manipulated, and
basically rebuild the songs from the ground up. I started with my guitar because, actually, before I
used the computer at all to create the recorded versions of these songs, I'd worked out all the basic
chord progressions on an acoustic guitar. So the bare bones skeletons of all these songs could be played
with just a guitar. And bass parts, even though they aren't played by a bass guitar on the recordings, are
still within the range of a bass guitar, so that was easy enough to transfer over. For drums, I enlisted
the help of a drummer, but because a lot of the drum programming on The Crawl is so dense, we have a laptop
on stage that plays some of the more electronic-based percussion, and the drummer plays live over it. Having
a laptop on stage also helps retain a little bit of the electronic sound that exists on the album, so we
still don't sound like a completely straight ahead rock band. And finally, I'm working with a viola
player. There isn't any actual viola playing on the album, but each song has parts, either sampled strings
or manipulated electronic sounds, that fall within the range of a viola, so we worked out live viola parts
from there. Rebuilding these songs for live shows was hard, not so much because it was hard to figure out
which live instruments would play which electronic or sampled parts on the recording, but more because it
meant I had to let go of a lot of those sounds I'd worked so meticulously on to make the record. But
ultimately, it always comes down to the songs, and the way you dress them up is secondary. So I had to trust
that the songs were good enough on their own and they'd still work even in a completely different
setting. In this case, with guitar, bass, drums, laptop and viola.
 
HOLV: You have another project in the pipeline called Spoolwork where you've remixed the brilliant Jens
Lekman song 'I'm Leaving You Because I Don't Love You'. How did this come about and what else have you
got in store for listeners in the way of remixes?
 
DF: I learned a lot about music production and song arrangement when I was making The Crawl, and I was
curious to see what would happen if I applied some of the things I'd learned to other people's music. So I
started a new remix and production project I'm calling Spoolwork. I figured the easiest way to see how my
ideas might mesh with someone else's would be to remix someone else's song. I approached Jens with the idea
last fall because I liked his music and I knew he had a new album coming out. He was excited by the idea and
since I hadn't heard any his new songs at that point, he suggested he just send me the vocal track to one of
his songs and I could build up my own version of the music from there. So that's exactly what happened. I
got his vocal track, came up with some chords that fit underneath his vocal melody and then built up the
arrangement using lots of little samples I had stored on my computer. It was a lot of fun to do and we're
both really happy with the way it turned out. I don't have any other remixes officially lined up yet, but
now I have a finished track that I can share with other musicians to show them what I can do, and
hopefully it'll lead to some more work like this in the near future. In the meantime, if anyone wants to
hear the Jens remix, it's available as a free download on the Spoolwork Myspace page:
http://myspace.com/spoolwork.
 
HOLV: What bands and artists have really impressed you over the last twelve months? Anything to make you think
about your own musical direction?
 
DF: I think more than any specific artist, my ideas about music have been influenced by technology recently. I
was a little slow in getting one, but I finally got an iPod this past year. And one of the first things I
noticed was that if I was listening to it on shuffle, I was almost ready to move on to the next song by the
3 minute mark. Even if it was a song I liked. And I don't think this is a result of a shortened attention
span on my part, I think it has more to do with me liking songs that have a certain economy to them.
Songs that present their ideas and then move on. Songs that don't overstay their welcome. So as far as my own
music goes, I'm wondering if the next album might have more short songs on it, maybe a bit like an old Guided
By Voices record. Although one of my favorite albums from last year, the new Of Montreal, has that 10+
minute song on it that I love and never want to skip past, so I guess there are always counter-examples.
But yeah, one theme I'm already noticing in the new songs I've written and I'm guessing will continue
throughout the making of this next album is "less is more."
 
HOLV: Lastly if the touring goes well do you think you could be making a trip to Europe for a change of scenery?
 
DF: I would absolutely love to tour over in Europe with this new band. I've been over there before by myself,
but never with a backing band. Bringing more people over would of course make the trip more expensive, but
if the opportunity comes up we'd definitely like to try and make it work. I'll keep you posted!