Singer Chhom Nimol (center) is the Cambodian element in the Cambodian/American rock band Dengue Fever... (Contributed photo)By JOEL HERSCH
Posted: 21st April, 2011
Santa Cruz Sentinel
Watch Dengue Fever performs live.
While traveling with a friend through Cambodia in 1997, Ethan Holtzman watched from the back seat of a truck as his travel companion Ross trembled and sweated in the front passenger seat of a truck. The vicious symptoms of a mosquito-borne disease were taking hold, recalled Ethan's brother Zac Holtzman, the both of whom would form the indie-rock band named for that sickness, Dengue Fever, when they returned home to Southern California.
As the truck bounced down the road from the northwestern city of Siem Reap toward the capital city Phnom Penh, Ross endured while Ethan listened to the 1960s Cambodian pop-rock music that the driver had cranked up on the car stereo.
Ethan Holtzman returned to California with a collection of Cambodian-rock tapes, and he and his brother started kicking around the idea of finding a Cambodian singer and starting a band based on that material, said Zac Holtzman, who plays the guitar and sings for the group and had coincidentally also been introduced to the genre by a friend at a recording studio.
Since its start in 2001, Dengue Fever has steadily risen to fame, toured all over the world, had a song featured in the popular HBO vampire series "True Blood" and garnered praise for fusing Cambodian-pop oldies with California surf-rock. The group will perform at Moe's Alley on April 27.
Zac and Ethan Holtzman pulled together musicians, including drummer Paul Smith, bassist Senon Williams and horn player David Ralicke, but still faced the problem of finding the perfect Cambodian singer for what they envisioned, Zac Holtzman said. Their search started and ended in Long Beach at a Cambodian buffet and night club called the Dragon House in an area called Little Phnom Penh.
There, the group heard Chhom Nimol sing in her native tongue, Khmer, and knew she had the voice they were looking for.
Nimol spoke very little English but was already familiar with the kinds of songs they were interested in performing. They convinced her to come and sing at an audition where, upon arrival, the other half dozen hopefuls recognized her from the nightclub and decided to leave rather than bother trying out.
Considering she was the only one left, it was a good thing she was a perfect match, Zac Holtzman said.
Today, after a decade of playing together, the group has come a long way, overcome some language barriers -- they don't need a translator present at rehearsals anymore -- and has created something in its newest album, "Cannibal Courtship," that Zac Holtzman says wasn't even possible on earlier albums.
"After traveling on the road and spending so much time together, we grew into a family pretty quickly," Zac Holtzman said.
The group writes lyrics in English, and then works together, sometimes with the help of a translator and usually with their heads buried in translation books, to rework their words into Khmer, Zac Holtzman said.
Rewriting English lyrics into Khmer means the sound of a phrase changes entirely, he said.
"Things are lost, and things are gained," he said. "A phrase in English that's eight syllables can translate into over 20 syllables in Khmer. You have to get rid of the extraneous words, and the songs end up being like these haikus. It's a nice process. You trim off all the fat and it gets boiled down to just the bare bones of what you're really trying to say."
Dengue Fever has released three albums, a documentary music DVD called "Sleepwalking Through The Mekong," which shows the group performing in Cambodian cities, and won the eighth annual Independent Music Award for best World Fusion Album.
In 2010, the group released a compilation of 14 songs by its favorite Cambodian rock artists from "the Golden Era" of Cambodian music called "Electric Cambodia." All the proceeds from those sales go to the Cambodian Living Arts. They also work with the Wildlife Alliance organization to help promote awareness of endangered species in Cambodian forests.
Ross, who first put the idea for the band's name in Ethan Holtzman's head, Zac added, did pull through his bout with Dengue Fever back in Cambodia.
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The expanding range of Dengue Fever
Photo:
Dengue Fever/Courtesy
By Nick Myers
The Daily Californian Staff Writer
Date Added Wednesday, April 20, 2011
It's easy to say something invokes nostalgia when talking about music, but few bands do it more flawlessly and genuinely than the Los Angeles-based Dengue Fever. Playing an amalgamation of pre-Khmer Rouge Cambodian pop and psychedelic rock, the band performs in a uniquely desaturated style that is suited for songs ranging from upbeat kitsch to thoughtful and expressive storytelling. In an interview, the band's keyboardist Ethan Holtzman shared his thoughts on the band and their music as they prepared for the release of their latest album, Cannibal Courtship. It was released Tuesday and continues that tradition of combining a wide range of styles into something delightfully listenable.
After returning from a voyage through Cambodia in the late '90s, Holtzman founded the band with his brother Zac in 2001. By then, both were familiar with some Cambodian songs. Holtzman said he first encountered the ghostly, radical rock that characterized the country's pop of 1960s while packed in the back of a truck with about 30 villagers. The cramped trip from Siem Reap to the capitol in Phnom Penh became the spark that created his closeness with the people of Cambodia and their music.
"The truck was driven fast and the tires were bald," he recalled. "My life was being risked for that entire ride and my friend was sick with dengue fever up front. The road was dirt back then - all the bridges were blown up from previous wars ... it was a bonding experience with the Cambodians and their music."
Dengue Fever's beginnings were rooted in performing covers of songs in Khmer - the language of Cambodia - that Holtzman brought back on cassettes from his trip and that Zac had heard at Aquarius Records in San Francisco. The band's sound today has evolved to include more musical styles and techniques while maintaining the same upbeat, adventurous tone. Previous albums were heavily inspired by those old Cambodian songs from the '60s, as well as the band's 2005 tour through Cambodia, where their shows drew audiences upwards of 10,000 people. Cannibal Courtship, however, draws from a wider array of experiences and musical styles, Holtzman explained.
"We've become more comfortable creating space for each other," he said, adding that touring all over the world had a significant influence on the new album. In particular, he cited playing alongside the Nigerian group Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 while in New Zealand and Australia as a direct contribution to the strong afrobeat sound on several of Cannibal Courtship's tracks. "We're just doing whatever music we like and whatever grooves we feel and come up with in the studio," he said.
On the new album, the band's Cambodian-born vocalist Chhom Nimol sings more lyrics in English than she has on their previous albums, boosting mainstream appeal without compromising their established sound. According to Holtzman, non-Cambodian fans like to sing along, and English helps facilitate that, but the Cambodian language will always be part of the band: It's just like another instrument for them.
"There's certain songs that just feel more Cambodian," he said, explaining how the band determined what songs should be sung in English and which in Khmer. "And those songs will naturally sound better with Nimol singing in her native tongue. And then there's other songs where its like 'Oh, this is kind of a cool relationship story,' which the English would be great for."
Ultimately, it's all about how the song is expressed in the end. As an example, Holtzman said the latest album's Khmer track "Sister in the Radio" is a very emotional song for Chhom to sing. The slow, slithering tune has a magnificently haunting aura, and although most Western listeners won't understand what the words mean, the feeling put into it leaves a distinctive mark. As Holtzman explained, the song has a greater impact once you realize that it tells a story about how a young Nimol and her family discovered that her sister - then a famous singer like Nimol is today - was alive in Cambodia while the rest of the family had fled to a refugee camp in Thailand.
With the addition of afrobeat influences, as well as the distinct funk and jazz sounds heard on Cannibal Courtship, Dengue Fever's trademark throwback pop has been modified to expand its international sound, creating a feel that is all their own. Holtzman said the band's main goal is to continue touring and reaching new audiences by making great music. And although the band's shows today are dominated by their new work, they always toss in five or six of the '60s covers they started with. As part of the Cannibal Courtship release tour the band will be playing two Bay Area shows, one at the Fillmore tonight, and another on April 27th at Moe's Alley in Santa Cruz.
"It's been very slow and steady progress," Holtzman said. "Ultimately we just want to play music and be able to travel, and that's good enough for me."
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