Dengue Fever is a six-piece band from Los Angeles. Senon (bass) answered some questions about the band's sound, what it was like to make the film Sleepwalking through the Mekong, and what it means to be featured on shows like Weeds and True Blood. Nimol (vocals) discussed what it is like to sing for the King of Cambodia.
If you are filing the music of Dengue Fever in a music store, where do you file it?
As Charles Mingus would say...Why can't we just call it music..that's what we all do? You can also find our film in the music section.
Nimol, how did it come about that you often sang for the king and queen of Cambodia? Describe what that was like.
My sister Charvin is also a very famous singer in my country. She was the first to sing for our King and Queen. After I won an award as the best singer in Cambodia, the king Sihanouk invited me to sing in the Palace. Whenever I go home to Cambodia or sometimes in France, I will still perform for his son, King Norodom Sihamoni. Maybe one day I will be able to do a concert for Cambodian royalty with Dengue Fever. My friend told me the King saw our movie Sleepwalking Through the Mekong and loved it!!
What is essential to every Dengue Fever song?
It is important that every song conveys an emotion of the present, not the past and not the future. Essentially, something that we can look back on and know what we were feeling when we made it. We spend a lot of time in the studio and when we pen a song, it is meant to have everything we know in it, not just a Cambodian angle on it. All the music that we all have listened to from all over the world should spill out of the grooves.
What does it mean to you that the band has been featured on shows like True Blood and Weeds?
I think it means that our music has a cinematic quality. Our sounds make pictures pretty...or scary. We were commissioned by the San Francisco Film Society to score & perform to the 1925 silent film called The Lost World. We performed it live at the 2009 San Francisco International Film Festival at the Castro theater and it sold out! It was pretty cool to actually write with images in mind.
Describe your experience making the documentary Sleepwalking through the Mekong. What was the best part? What was the most challenging part?
The best part was being in Cambodia shooting the film, recording with master musicians like Kong Nai in Phnom Penh, playing live in old bombed out buildings and in mountain top temples. Just wandering the dark streets and being led by locals to some pretty wild parties.
The most challenging part was taking the beautiful film John Pirozzi made and then navigating all the hoops of a film through post production, all the film festivals, turning it into a DVD for release and making sure that everyone involved put their heart behind our film.....all in all it ended up being a soul-enriching trip.
What would you be doing if you weren't making music?
I would build my own house in the woods attached to a tree house studio above my wood shop where I would record all the beautiful music my friends made....and cook good food in my outdoor kitchen....and have many children of all ages and nationalities.
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