An Interview with the Dandy Warhols
With a career spanning 21 years the Dandys came to fame in the 90’s and have been jamming with their psychedelic rock ever since. They’ve supported the Rolling Stones, are admired by David Bowie and had numerous hit records and sell out tours. But the Dandys have stayed true to their roots the whole time and never lost their way. We chatted to frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor before their show at Standon Calling about how the Dandies have lasted over two decades…
Heya Courtney! How do you feel about headlining Standon Calling?
Honestly? Flattered. This has to be one of my favourite festivals that we’ve ever been to.
How comes? You must have been to a few in your time!
It’s so creative, intricate and dreamy. It’s fun. There are acrobatics, families and a whole Wild West theme, which is actually pretty lucky. I wanted to wear this kinda hippee shirt, but didn’t get the dress up memo. Turned out pretty well though!
How have festivals changed over the years then? And how do they differ in the US?
UK festivals used to be nasty, angsty and corporate. The 90s were shitty. Now it’s cool, people are cool. There are boutique festivals in Europe and Australia. It’s much better now.
So how did you get through the 90s?
A lot of drink. A lot of drugs (laughs).
And do you love what you are doing as much as when you started out?
Oh god yea! More! Now we know what we are doing, we are good at what we do. No one rocks harder than my band.
Other bands actually want to chat and be friends now. Everybodies great. In the 90s no one wanted to talk. Everyone kept themselves to themselves.
Plus have you heard of Wholefoods? (At this point I loose my shit a little and nearly jump out of my seat with a ‘Merlins beard yes I love that place!’). Well we get a delivery from there to the dressing room. All sorts of healthy food and even a juicer!
Can you give us some heads up on cool music now? Your inspiration?
the Dandies were inspired by 5 songs that we listened to over and over again when we started. Now? It’s hard. I love groups (grizzly bear, black honey) but there is nothing that ‘inspires’ us per say. We’ve seen so much and our bar is set so high.
What advice would you give aspiring artists?
It’s a tough industry now (we had just been talking about laptop music). We were one of the last bands to make it the old school way and be able to continue making music forever. I’d say you have to do it. Put aside a few years and follow your dream, however don’t expect to be able to do it for the rest of your life. It’s just not the same anymore.
So where are the Dandies heading now?
We move on now, however never tour more than 3 weeks at a time. It just seems to work.
Our final question was a little more ‘unconventional’…
So many people know you from the Vodaphone advert, FIFA 2004 and Veronica Mars. How do you feel about that?
We only put our songs to things we believed in and thought were cool. The advert was a damn cool advert (They took home royalties of over £1 million). Veronica Mars was a smart show for smart kids (Courtney appeared in an episode). We have said no before thought. There was something worth £30k and it just was like ‘no we are not putting our name to this’.
Courtney Taylor-Taylor is an absolute babe. He seemed to find our costumes humorous and took the whole thing as good fun (mine a Christmas jumper and Will Young’s a dinosaur onesie, apparently we didn’t get the theme memo…). Smooth talking, confident and totally infatuated with what he does and his band. We could have listened to his stories all day and will definitely be checking out the Dandy Warhols new biography out this year.
In the meantime check out Dig! A cracking film about the Dandiess rise to fame and frenamies The Brian Jonestown Massacre, another knock out 90s band.
Reporter: Aspen Glencross ¦ @gollumcrackcorn ¦ #caracastle & @notthewillyoung