DD: You worked with Soulwax for your last album Sexor and now again for Ciao! What artistic progressions have you seen within yourself between the two albums and has there been any change in dynamic between the two of you in the studio?
T: Yeah we’re more like an old married couple now. You know, it’s like you’ve seen each other naked so often, the lights are on, nobody cares, no one’s trying to put on makeup…it’s just like ‘oh, you again.’ So it’s a bit like that, there’s a comfort level with us now, specifically for example, with singing. I’m much more comfortable singing in front of him now so I’ll experiment and try different things. I don’t need as much time to warm up. And also, with things like lyrics and writing, we started to know each other better so it wasn’t ‘hey, let’s write as we go along,’ but ‘Tiga you go into the other room and finish your lyrics.’ There’s no bullshit when you’ve worked with each other so much and you work a bit quicker.
DD: Speaking of singing, you didn’t start out doing that. I know you did some on the last album but when did you make that decision to start singing on top of your own music and did you have any previous experience?
T: No, I never thought of singing and I never wanted to sing. It wasn’t even a dream of mine. It started when I did that track “Sunglasses At Night” which was a long time ago now. I think it honestly started because I couldn’t do anything else. I think that’s the origin. I was working in the studio with guys who were very experienced who would slap my hand if I tried to touch the drum machine so then I was like, ok then I’m going to sing. So it kind of happened by accident and then I just fell into it. I still don’t think of myself as a singer, but it is fun, that’s for sure.
DD: Has taking on singing brought your music in a different direction now that you’re taking that into consideration?
T: Yeah, definitely. If you’re making club music or techno music without vocals it’s one category. As soon as you introduce vocals of any kind, American house vocals, Madonna, it’s now something different.
DD: You’ve always been known for your covers and that seemed to be noticeably absent on Ciao! What’s the reason for that?
T: It wasn’t a conscious decision. I just wasn’t interested in doing covers this time. I think when I look back on it now I used covers as training wheels. It was to learn to sing, to learn working on music through other people’s songs…a template. It’s like with kids and coloring books. The drawings are already there so they can just focus on the colors.
DD: Do you plan on doing any more covers?
T: Yeah in the future definitely. It’s a lot of fun, like a get out of jail free card.
DD: Any covers others have done that you love?
T: Antony and the Johnson’s did a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “If It Be Your Will” and it’s mind blowing how good it is. It might be the best I’ve ever heard. As a listening experience it’s beautiful.
DD: What musical influences did you have while in the studio for Ciao! Any bands, movements, or particular artists?
T: I had some ideas when I started but it really didn’t add up. I was interested in Robert Palmer, that kind of stuff. That was my original inspiration. It was like white Prince meets electronica but it just never happened. It’s probably better that it didn’t happen. Yeah I was listening to a lot of disco records so there are a few tracks on the album that are very disco oriented. Also a lot of our friends at that time, guys like Justice, Proxy and Boys Noize had that more aggressive and slightly ravier cut-up sound. That was an influence. So there are songs like “What You Need” which has this big, dirty synth sound. That came across on a few tracks.
DD: The variety on the album makes it hard to categorize and you’ve mentioned before that you’re quite proud of the fact that your music doesn’t fit into any one category. Do you still feel that way?
T: Definitely. I think there’s so much music out there now…we live in a saturated time of information and music. If what people are getting is something different, even if not so many people love it, I think that’s important. I don’t consider myself as a person to fall into a normal category…I was never a goth, or a mod or a punk…so yeah, I’m fine with falling between the cracks as far as genre goes. It’s a bitch when it comes to marketing and it might hurt sales but in the long run, I think it’s nice. The most important thing for me is that, because of my past, whether it’s as a DJ, or a remixer, or my videos, or my photos, or the albums, I feel like I’ve set myself up in a position where people expect anything. I have a lot of freedom and that is more important than your sales.
DD: So, completely random but I have to bring it up. The only thing I could think of when I was listening to “Turn The Night On” was Joe Jackson’s “Stepping Out.”
T: You’re not crazy and yes, I suppose it was inspired by is a nice way to put it. It’s funny, it didn’t start out that way when we wrote the song. It originally had nothing to do with Joe Jackson. I wrote it with Gonzales and it had that same quick tempo feel but it was actually more like a Bowie song and then with Soulwax in production we did the synth line and now it’s very much like “Stepping Out.”
DD: Speaking about another song on the album, “Shoes,” the first time I heard the song was when I saw the video on your website (www.tiga.ca) and the experience made me laugh out loud. It was such a subtle kind of funny that is very unique to you. Can you talk about humor in your work?
T: I take that as a very serious compliment, especially about “Shoes.” I think humor and music is a very dangerous combination because if you make funny music or you’re wacky, instantly it’s ruined, you become like the Barenaked Ladies or Weird Al. The difficulty comes in trying to be funny and sexy at the same time. A lot of the time humor kills any sort of sexual feeling, which also kills that dance floor legitimacy so you have to be very careful with it. But like you said, a deeper, deadpan humor about the absurdity of everything is very very important. In my music I’m a bit careful because I don’t want it to cross that line but I have a lot of other things happening now like I filmed a movie, an interview that’s straight up comedy, we just wrote it to be funny. It’s important to me to be able to laugh at everything, including yourself.
DD: That’s very apparent when you look at the interview included in the press release for Ciao! or your official bio. There’s definitely layers of absurdity in there.
T: Exactly. Absurdity is one of my favorite things. I find it in real life, I find it in my work and I try to recreate it whenever I have a chance. Life’s pretty absurd anyway…I’m doing this interview, sitting in a hotel room in Milan talking to a computer. Ten years ago that would have made me a crazy person.
Leave A Comment!