Durham Magazine Photographer Briana Brough and I met The Old Ceremony frontman Django Haskins, 36, recently at Rue C
Django Haskins at Whiskey. Photos by Briana Brough.ler. The interview followed a particularly embarrassing and gushy blog post I wrote about never wanting to wash my arm again after he touched it following a recent performance at Cat’s Cradle. He denied remembering that moment, which broke my heart a little, but quickly redeemed himself with an interview about how he juices Durham (where he moved from Carrboro recently) for songwriting and musical inspiration, why his band members wear vintage suits, and how a vibraphone, one of the more interesting instruments in TOC, sounds.
Briana: Here’s the question of the day - Why would you leave Carrboro and move to Durham?
Django: I lived in Brooklyn for seven years before I moved here. Durham has a similar kind of energy. There’s a lot of possibility. Every fourth house [in my Lakewood neighborhood] is an artist of some sort, which is exciting for me, which means there’s a community reaching a critical mass that will draw more creative people, and people that will appreciate the creative stuff they are making.
Lisa: Talk about a specific inspirational moment around town.
D: Every year [my neighbors, a Mexican family], has a birthday party [in their yard for their kids who have similar birthdays]. And this last year, it started pouring. And then we all crammed inside into the living room. There were 50 people there, half spoke Spanish. It was really fun, and really humid, and it’s pouring outside. And then – the mariachi band shows up. A full mariachi band, 9-piece with the sombreros, trumpet, violin, guitar and bass. And you know, they are not going to send the mariachi band away, so they perform in the living room. There are very few places I could think of where that kind of thing could happen, and it was across the street from my house.
L: I want to talk about clothes. I like the clothes you guys wear, especially the guy who plays the violin - Gabriel [Pelli]. Some bands wear jeans and T-shirts, which is fine, but I like the suits.
D: At the beginning, we consciously decided that is what would fit with the music we’d make. [It] was not just rock. We like rock 'n' roll, and we play some, but it was drawing from a lot of …influences, from some jazz, to European music. I think I had one suit when we started. Now, I’ve raided thrift stores all over the whole country and I have a stupid collection of clothes. Yeah – it’s fun. We all kind of enjoy it. Most of us.
L: Do you guys go shopping together?
D: We have.
L: And do you drink margaritas after?
D: We usually buy shoes because that makes us the happiest. And watch Sex and the City.
L: And cry?
D: Naturally. Tissues are never more than a few feet away.
L: Tell me about the song you played recently at the end of a Cradle show that everyone loved so much.
D: It’s a song called Whither On The Vine. We decided to turn off the PA and step to the front of the stage and see how it goes. And it was kind of a leap of faith. We didn’t know if people were going to be able to hear us, if they’d be quiet enough to listen. And we definitely didn’t know if people would sing along, which was really awesome. And it was our favorite part of the show too.
Photos by Briana Brough.
L: This is the short answer part of the interview. Favorite baked good?
D: Fudge
L: Signature drink?
D: Jameson, neat (At Whiskey if they would go non-smoking).
L: How does the song Rocky Raccoon from the Beatles The White Album make you feel?
D: Young. I listened to it as a kid. And it’s kind of a kid song. It has murder ..
L: You’re talking too much!
D: If I had a dime for every time a woman told me that…
L: Ok, try this one. What does a vibraphone sound like?
D: Like dropping golf balls into a bathtub.
L: Summing up, this interview was so…..
D: It was fun, but I don’t want to say ‘fun,’ because that’s lame. This interview was so…. delicious. It was delicious. The food was delicious.
Want to be in Music Monday’s? Know someone who should be? E-mail lisarossi@durhammag.com