A band that truly stands apart from the rest, Dengue Fever was a crowd pleaser at San Francisco’s The Independent at a recent Saturday night performance. With energetic fans at the foot of the stage and rows of enthusiastic attendees crowding in behind them, Dengue Fever has gained quite a following in the Bay Area. With music that the band members don’t even try to describe, it is best said that one should simply pick up a copy of their latest CD, Escape From Dragon House, or better yet, attend a show. See a brief band history and this writer’s description of their one-of-a-kind sound here.

Shortly after their performance I had the opportunity to speak with bassist Senon Williams about the show, their latest album, and the band’s trip to lead singer Ch’hom Nimol’s native Cambodia.

You guys were awesome the other night!

Thank you! It was a lot of fun.

You guys looked like you were having a blast.

I’d never been to The Independent before!

How was it playing there?

It was fine! The people were nice, the crowd was nice, the sound was good…it was cool.

You guys had this mini mosh pit/fan club going in the front!

A group of cheerleaders right in front of us!

That must have been good ammo to get you guys going for the night.

Yeah!

Regarding performing, do you prefer performing live or working in the studio?

It’s all part of the program. There are different aspects of both that I love. What I don’t love about playing live is all the parts in between, you know? Touring is a lot of driving and a lot of sitting around with an hour and a half [to spare], like not really enough time to check something out, not really enough time to take a nap, and not really enough time to do anything. Except, you know, you better hope you have a good book.

Hopefully you do!

A little chess here and there, but other than that, that’s the hard part about touring–all the in between times.

Regarding recording, I’ve been recording since I was 13. I would have stopped a long time ago if I didn’t love it.

[But] even the sitting around part can be kind of pleasurable, too. I mean it’s roaming down the street, lost in some town in the morning–it’s fun. I had a good time playing in Santa Cruz last night. I walked down that mall area–that downtown area, and I enjoyed that! I enjoyed all the people with two teeth, the college girls in their cruisers, the teva sandals, and the old bearded guy playing sitar with his buddy singing gibberish lyrics.

On your most recent album, Escape From Dragon House, you have more original tunes than you had on your first record.

Nimol’s background [includes knowing] a couple hundred [Cambodian pop] standards. She has a huge repertoire but was never really exposed to writing music. When we first started being a band we’d have little jam sessions before going into a bunch of cover songs and she would just sort of hang out until we were done, and then we would start working on some old 60’s songs… Since that was what we were playing, we recorded them… That first record was what made us a band. From there we switched gears to write music. Nimol had a lot of songs she wanted to sing but [we wanted to] create some music, and that’s what the second record is.

How did she react to that? Did she enjoy it or was it more of a struggle?

It’s hard, but we’re playing live, and she rocks those live songs. It’s not as automatic for her. There’s a little more personal emotion in them because some of them she helped create and all of them she tweaked into the Khmer style. It’s hard work in the studio–rehearsing, and all that stuff. I think it’s just a different process than normal bands have.

You started out playing standards. Do you feel like your song writing has evolved since your first album?

The evolving process started with playing those old songs because we were never concerned with being exact. We were more concerned with playing music that we liked. And that was the initial influence. But it wasn’t a direct translation into what we became musically because our styles are completely different than those old styles. And also our recording techniques. We don’t have a problem with making the bass and guitar sound how we want them rather than kind of tweaky and old like it’s coming out of an old speaker. I think our sound was being formed when we were playing those old songs in a new way. Our new music can’t help sound like it does because we have Nimol, for one… and Paul and I in the rhythm section always try to find a toe-tapping kind of groove. It’s all different styles that make our own style.

Now that people know who you are and you have a following, does that make performing and writing more difficult?

I think that makes it all easier–especially performing because when you’re playing and you have the energy coming back right to you…[we’re] basically being fed by the crowd. When you’re struggling and playing a gig where no one is familiar with your music and [they’re] sitting around waiting for you do something special for them, it’s difficult because that special thing doesn’t always happen. As far as writing, I don’t feel much different. When we’re in the studio we’re just doing our thing. It’s fun right now because we’re working on some different music. We’re working on the soundtrack for this documentary we did on our trip to Cambodia last November. It’s mostly instrumental so we’re just being real loose and coming up with all kinds of different stuff and some different mood pieces. We’re experimenting with all kinds of different sounds. We’ve been doing that for about a month. Once the film is done we’ll start working on a new record. The soundtrack is giving us a nice segue into the new record because we’re playing a lot and a lot of the instrumentals will turn into songs on the next record.

How was performing in Cambodia?

It was one of the most bizarre experiences I’ve had in my life. It was incredibly exhilarating and exhausting. We played in this place called Maxine’s Bar. It was run by this guy Snowy, a crazy ex-pat guy from England–a complete character. He lives in this house slipping into the Tonle Sap River. There was literally a three-foot difference from the front door to the back deck. About 250 people piled into this little house—a combination of ex-pats and locals. When you’re suffering with extreme jetlag and it’s 100 degrees with 100 percent humidity everyone’s just like, shiny and sweaty. We got [some studio time reserved] while we were there so we’d show up at the studio at like eight in the morning after doing these gigs and there would be master musicians—old souls and old people, and next thing you know we’re playing with traditional musicians. And then we’d go to lunch and meet some kids from the ghetto and rehearse with them and play gigs that night. It was just being thrown into the fire…we shot for 10 days and then went to Sihanoukville–a little beach town. Another strange thing was, we played on CTN–the Cambodian Television Network–one of 3 stations there. We played live there the second night we were there. They did a two-hour special on us. We were interviewed between every two songs we played. There was this vaudeville comedy act that came out and made fun of us for a while, which was hilarious. It aired at 8 p.m. that night and then was shown twice a day every day that we were there.

Everyone watches TV there. You’d be driving along and see shantytowns and they’ll have little glowing lights, and it’s a TV. They don’t have electricity so they have these guys who go around with generators and charge people’s batteries for them. They don’t have money, so everyone has fluorescent lights and TVs. They were all watching CTN. We’d stop to buy some fruit and they’d look at us and go, “CTN!” That was something I’ve never experienced.

The shorter guys [in the band] had it a little easier than Zac and I did. Zac, being bigger than me, being six-foot-six, we were just spotted immediately. They’d see us and go the other direction [because we were so much bigger than them].

Where do you want to see your work with Dengue Fever go with all the increased publicity and upcoming European tour?

I travel a lot and I love [it]. One of the things about Dengue Fever is that we have a lot more possibilities than the average band. [We don’t have to be] some huge band to be able to travel to all these different strange places. I’m pretty comfortable with the size we are…as long as we can just keep making records and travel and make a living, that’s all I really care about, you know? We have people who have invited us out to Thailand, Japan, and now we’re going to Moscow and Portugal. I want to see a proper release in Eastern Europe, which we haven’t gotten yet. But I think we’re something people have to find for themselves, because it’s difficult describing us to people. You start describing what we are to people and they immediately think [that we are] World Music. You call up a label in Europe that usually puts out rock bands that we’re interested in, all they think is that we must be “World Beat” and are immediately not interested. We have a really solid fan base. But it doesn’t seem like the industry has as much of a vision or as much of an open mind as our fans. So I think people are going to have to fall in love with us themselves.

Thanks so much for coming–we just loved it.

http://www.denguefevermusic.com
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