southern records

INTERVIEW

Hoodlum in the Hit Parade (Baby Dayliner Interview - 22/03/2004)

INTERVIEW - By Chris Tipton

Last week I was lucky enough to meet up with Baby Dayliner, arguably one of 2004's brightest musical discoveries. Baby Dayliner, Ethan Marunas according to his passport, is a 28 year-old pop messiah from NYC on a mission to get the kids dancing with their heads and thinking with their feet. On his forthcoming debut album, <High Heart & Low Estate>, Ethan's songs touch on spontaneity, living death, escaping relationships, the incongruities of rap speak, love, loss, redemption and baseball. His tools of the trade are equally unconventional. Performing alone on stage, Baby Dayliner relies almost entirely on his mysterious antique suitcase from which a myriad of analogue synth melodies and resolute hiphop beats emerge. However, the truly unique feature that affirms Ethan's status as a star in its ascendancy is his characterful, sonorous and instantly recognisable voice. Pitched bizzarely between caberet crooning and lo-fi hiphop karaoke, Ethan's low-slung voice has a resounding impact on his songs, filling every with moment earnest passion. Imagine Frank Sinatra living it up with Bernard Sumner in Compton circa 1984. OK, so not quite so messed up, but you get the picture. Add to this heady mix a dynamic stage presence, equal parts fly moves and aerobic masterclass and you're well on your way to understanding the endearing appeal of this artist.

One really crucial point, worth labouring, that I'm sure could be missed by many in this post-Har-Mar age, is that irony is of no importance to Baby Dayliner. Ethan is a beguiling and offbeat talent performing songs with the utmost sincerity. His act is everything but fake and his aesthetic transcends gimmick. So leave your wry smiles at the door, his music really means something, and for this reason I suspect that Baby Dayliner will crossover to a wider audience and make a difference. Within the unlikely surrounding of a Thai restaurant in central London, prior to his first show abroad and indeed tour date anywhere, Ethan discussed with me the Baby Dayliner philosophy, taking in spiritual freedom, desire, lust and other appropriate ways to spend one's free time. Here's the transcript of the only interview I've conducted with an act named after a small sailing vessel, there's a fitting analogy there somewhere, but I'll leave you to find that one.

Chris: What initiated your interest in music and writing songs? I remember reading that you were classically trained?

Ethan: Yeah, I played the violin for ten years from 7 to 17; rather, I studied very seriously. My parents wanted me to be a concert violinist, but I didn't go to conservatory after high school to my parents chagrin. But I played percussion and drums pretty seriously as well, I wanted to be a jazz drummer. I was playing in orchestras, jazz bands in high school and music school. At the same time I was also making music with my friends outside of this. I guess somewhere along the line it just made sense to me to concentrate all my efforts on one project.

C: How did such a classical mentality lead you to Baby Dayliner? (lengthy analysis of the way you can tell BD is classically trained from listening to the record, ends with...) The strings and beats are, really unusual and interesting, rather than just tacked on as accompaniment.

E: Strings and beats? Didn't I see that on the menu? (*Hilarity*)
I think the structure and clarity of concert music speaks to me a lot. I suppose it informed about about writing songs that affect such an array of emotions. However, pretty early on it became apparent to me that the classical world was too restrictive for me to express myself properly, so I looked elsewhere. Before Baby Dayliner, I had been playing guitar and singing in a rock band called Bodyrock for nine months, but the members of the band, not myself, found it increasingly difficult to get along, they were all old, old friends, but it just kinda fell apart. All I wanted to be doing at that point was performing, I had just got back from college and I didn't want to be waiting round for more personnel, so I started programming everything into a sequencer and synthesiser and just pressed play on stage. That's how Baby Dayliner started developing, by watching what the audience reacted to better within that format of just one man on stage, with no accompaniment, other than a piece of electronics.

C: What kind of places were you playing when you were working this all out?

E: Just bars, lower rung clubs in New York, places like that. My first show, my friend Doug was doing this DJ night at this bar, was kind of an unlikely place to play, but that's where I played the first time. It was very nerve-wracking!

C: You were saying that you react to the crowd, just one man on your own, do you feel more like a DJ in the way that you can tailor your set as you go along?

E: Well, it's kinda like that. Yeah, I can read what the crowd move to and are moved by and I can go home after the show and write the songs that are right and work for me. I think that my show has changed a lot over the years. Each time I perform I see what people are more interested in, and what gets a reaction, so it kind of evolves, for example a couple of years ago it was completely different. At first I think that it was an experiment of sorts, to see if this was a viable thing, but its getting extremely popular in New York, so I've been able to sorta craft the things that've worked well for people. Because it is bizarre, people seeing one guy on stage without any gimmicks. Generally, even people who come to like the show fanatically, at first don't get it at all. In the first couple of songs they think that I'm a phoney somehow, then as the set progresses they realise that I write the songs and do all the production, it's just that I don't have other people on stage with me.

C: So how has your live show changed over time? Have you always been such an energetic performer pulling a microphone out of your suitcase and getting down to it?

E: Well, yeah, at first I didn't walk around with the microphone, I just sort of sang into the mic motionless. Then after the first couple of shows I started shaking a little bit, out of nerves more than anything, and people started enjoying it... (more hilarity) So I guess you could say that trembling with anxiety led onto my stage moves. Since then there's been no looking back.

C: So your debut album is being released in Europe in May, will you be playing tracks from <High Heart & Low Estate> on this tour? I didn't recognise many of the songs you played in soundcheck.

E: Don't worry, I'll be playing my `hits' (general laughter), but there's a whole album almost finished of new material, so I'll be playing a lot of that too. That will also be coming through on Brassland, they're great people and are really on top of things, fostering so many relationships with bands and plugging for them so defiantly, they don't give up which is kinda amazing seeing that they're a relatively little label.

C: It's a really odd label as well, when you consider how disparate all its bands are, what unites Clogs and The National?

E: I think that happened kinda by accident, although it lends them a lot of credibility cause each of the artists can be seen in the whole scheme of things as totally unique. Take Erik Friedlander for example (conversation goes on a New York jazz tip, with Ethan admitting he'd like to play shows in that scene but its unlikely anyone would want him - ahh!).

C: So how is your new material different from <High Heart & Low Estate>?

E: It's real different. Yeah, it's a lot more complex, the beats and the music are a lot more sophisticated and are nearly entirely sample based. It's much more optimistic. There are no break up songs, thankfully!

C: So is it a party jams album?

E: Yeah, there's definitely going to be some party jams. Its going to be a really fun record. If anyone has influenced my new recordings its definitely Daft Punk, they've been a real discovery for me, I think they're fantastic. Some people can't get past the house music aspect of them but there's so much more to them then that, which is why I think they're really good. I'd love to see them perform.

C: What experiences instruct your songs? What do you like to write about? There seems to be recurring themes of love, loss and not finding closure on <High Heart>. Lots of songs about escaping places and people.

E: Oh yeah, <High Heart> is very preoccupied with all of that, it certainly means a lot to me. I guess lately I've been writing about spiritual freedom, sorry for being vague... y'know leaving behind responsibilities and moving on, that's about right. Then there's a couple of new songs celebrating man and woman, and some songs about desire and lust...

C: Covering all the bases there then. (Much laughter)

E: An album of party jams? (More laughter)

C: Sounds like a great party

E: It's what we're all looking for. (More laughter)

C: The first time I heard the name Baby Dayliner was in the production credits for the Def Jux (look up under incredibely hip NYC hiphop label - Aesop Rock, Mr Lif, EL-P) Party Fun Action Committee record.

E: That's the thing, I do a ton of production that you wouldn't necessarily know about. It's a really important project to me as I care a lot about how things should sound. On that Def Jux record I was the executive producer. I didn't make any of those beats, but I helped them form the skits and mixed them. I helped them make the major choices with the album. That was a fun project, although it took a while. Unfortunately Def Jux didn't really do much promotion so it didn't get as much exposure as it deserved, there's a lot of funny songs on that record.

C: How did you get in touch with Def Jux?

E: Well I'm childhood friends with Blockhead? Aesop Rock's producer, that's all really. We just hook up from time to time and try different stuff out, it's really fun.

C: So have you always lived in New York?

E: For the most part yeah, I was born there. Born in Chelsea. I think <High Heart> is placed very much in the city. I definitely think you can hear that on the record, literal and symbolic escapism from the city and the people I know there.

C: So do you get more out of performing your songs live than recording?

E: Well, I approach them very differently. The recording process is painstaking to me, I can spend weeks just tweaking the vocals on one song. For my new material I'm working with a producer this time, this guy Andrew Prince, who is involved with Mahogany on Darla, so I can let him worry about the sound and relax a bit more. Playing live is a lot more to do with enjoying the songs and sharing that with whoever turns up and digs it.

C: So what kind of music do you listen to and to what degree does what you listen to influence your own sound?

E: I listen to all sorts, hiphop, old soul, especially Betty Wright the 70s soul star, electro too, pop music. There's this rapper on Battleaxe who's amazing, oh yeah and Roots Manuva, Witness the Fitness, that song's just one of the best. It's impossible not to be influenced by great music.

C: I always think that your voice comes from a completely different place to your accompaniment. What singers have influenced the development of your voice? It's very distinctive.

E: With <High Heart & Low Estate>, I was listening to the Smiths a lot and Stephin Merritt from the Magnetic Fields, as to whether I wear it on my sleeve with the recordings I dunno. Stephin Merritt is definitely a big influence, especially with his more missive songs. But y'know there's some New Order influences on there too, but I don't get any of the Ian Curtis references people always level at me. I've also been listening to a lot of Johnny Cash, he's a huge influence, not bad for a two chord guy. I've just finished one of his autobiographies, he talks about how he really only ever knew four chords and it was quite recently that he learned more, and I just couldn't believe it. His repertoire is so rich and yet he could hardly play the guitar. His voice is phenomenal.

C: So finally, to sum up this enlightening introduction on the new sound of 2004, what does Baby Dayliner mean to you? What is Baby Dayliner about?

E: I think it's just a case of simply being the most appropriate way for me to spend my time. (More laughter). I thank you.