Article: Doe, a Deer...
Doe, a Deer...
"It used to be a sin for a musician to sing in English in France."
Homer Simpson. He’s who you need to keep in mind if you can’t remember how to pronounce the name of catchy indie-pop duo THE DØ. But unlike Homer’s famous grunt, there’s nothing to be annoyed by in the sweet tunes of this Franco-Finnish pairing. Their name instead references the notes at the beginning and end of the musical scale - simultaneously representing both new and old - and is also a metaphor for the abundance of musical styles found on their quite aptly named debut LP, A Mouthful. Olivia Merilahti, the cute-as-a-button singer of the group, phoned in from Paris to chat with BMA about The Dø’s upcoming tour of Australia, A Mouthful’s only non-English track and her ability to sing in three different languages.
The V Festival, taking place across the country in March and April, sees The Dø’s first visit to Australian shores in their relatively short history. “We haven’t been before and it’s really far and everyone who comes back from there tells us how great it is, for real!” Merilahti gushes. “Australia’s really popular, so we’ll see if we have as much fun as everyone tells us.”
One would certainly hope they do, but the festival circuit can be tough - especially on bands with little gig experience. Merilahti reveals that she and bandmate Dan Levy were thrown in the deep end when it came to learning to play before an audience. “It was all so new for us,” she admits. “When our tour manager came to us [in 2007] and said ‘okay, you have a gig in a month’ - we didn’t have a band, we’d never rehearsed before and we had no idea how we were gonna do it. We just took a drummer and started playing the songs and rehearsing like crazy. It was quite terrifying for us in the beginning! It was really scary to get on stage because we’d been so used to this cocoon that we had in the studio. It was dangerous!”
Despite Merilahti’s apprehension, I get the feeling that learning to play before an audience wouldn’t have been too big a hurdle for the singer to overcome. She is a very talented individual after all, and has the ability to converse not only in English, but in French and Finnish too. The majority of the material on A Mouthful is sung in English, yet one of its most intriguing songs is Unissasi Laulelet - a beautiful tale sung in Finnish. “It means ‘you’re singing in your sleep.’ I wanted it to be very traditional, so it’s obviously some kind of really naïve and natural imagery with nature and animals,” Merilahti says, kindly explaining the meaning of the song for all of BMA’s non-Finnish speaking readers. “It’s just poetry about someone singing in their sleep and, how can I say... being caught back with the wind and the sea and the ocean and the snow.”
For a band with diverse European roots, it seems a tad strange that the majority of the lyrics on the album are in English. An attempt to appeal to and break into the lucrative British and American markets, perhaps? “Oh, that’s just me,” Merilahti confesses. “I’ve always been singing in English. I grew up in a family where we spoke French and Finnish and then English was the music we listened to. It used to be almost a sin for a musician to sing in English in France. There was a terrible pressure on musicians because it was protectionism. They wanted to keep French music a majority on radio and releases.” The French public seems to have become a little more open-minded as of late thankfully, as evidenced by A Mouthful’s top placing in the French charts in its first week of release.
With any luck, this success will extend to the Dø’s appearance at V Fest in a few weeks. And the imminent chants of “dø/d’oh” will be out of admiration, not frustration.
JOSH BROWN
"It used to be a sin for a musician to sing in English in France."
Homer Simpson. He’s who you need to keep in mind if you can’t remember how to pronounce the name of catchy indie-pop duo THE DØ. But unlike Homer’s famous grunt, there’s nothing to be annoyed by in the sweet tunes of this Franco-Finnish pairing. Their name instead references the notes at the beginning and end of the musical scale - simultaneously representing both new and old - and is also a metaphor for the abundance of musical styles found on their quite aptly named debut LP, A Mouthful. Olivia Merilahti, the cute-as-a-button singer of the group, phoned in from Paris to chat with BMA about The Dø’s upcoming tour of Australia, A Mouthful’s only non-English track and her ability to sing in three different languages.
The V Festival, taking place across the country in March and April, sees The Dø’s first visit to Australian shores in their relatively short history. “We haven’t been before and it’s really far and everyone who comes back from there tells us how great it is, for real!” Merilahti gushes. “Australia’s really popular, so we’ll see if we have as much fun as everyone tells us.”
One would certainly hope they do, but the festival circuit can be tough - especially on bands with little gig experience. Merilahti reveals that she and bandmate Dan Levy were thrown in the deep end when it came to learning to play before an audience. “It was all so new for us,” she admits. “When our tour manager came to us [in 2007] and said ‘okay, you have a gig in a month’ - we didn’t have a band, we’d never rehearsed before and we had no idea how we were gonna do it. We just took a drummer and started playing the songs and rehearsing like crazy. It was quite terrifying for us in the beginning! It was really scary to get on stage because we’d been so used to this cocoon that we had in the studio. It was dangerous!”
Despite Merilahti’s apprehension, I get the feeling that learning to play before an audience wouldn’t have been too big a hurdle for the singer to overcome. She is a very talented individual after all, and has the ability to converse not only in English, but in French and Finnish too. The majority of the material on A Mouthful is sung in English, yet one of its most intriguing songs is Unissasi Laulelet - a beautiful tale sung in Finnish. “It means ‘you’re singing in your sleep.’ I wanted it to be very traditional, so it’s obviously some kind of really naïve and natural imagery with nature and animals,” Merilahti says, kindly explaining the meaning of the song for all of BMA’s non-Finnish speaking readers. “It’s just poetry about someone singing in their sleep and, how can I say... being caught back with the wind and the sea and the ocean and the snow.”
For a band with diverse European roots, it seems a tad strange that the majority of the lyrics on the album are in English. An attempt to appeal to and break into the lucrative British and American markets, perhaps? “Oh, that’s just me,” Merilahti confesses. “I’ve always been singing in English. I grew up in a family where we spoke French and Finnish and then English was the music we listened to. It used to be almost a sin for a musician to sing in English in France. There was a terrible pressure on musicians because it was protectionism. They wanted to keep French music a majority on radio and releases.” The French public seems to have become a little more open-minded as of late thankfully, as evidenced by A Mouthful’s top placing in the French charts in its first week of release.
With any luck, this success will extend to the Dø’s appearance at V Fest in a few weeks. And the imminent chants of “dø/d’oh” will be out of admiration, not frustration.
JOSH BROWN