Art on the road: The Line Of Best Fit meets Dark Dark Dark

Dark Dark Dark are a band in the most traditional sense of the word. A band of friends, a band of travellers, a band of artists and (obviously) of musicians. Their rise to prominence has been via an organic, people orientated musical progression. They’ve made a name for themselves through constant touring, creating, making friends, incorporating others into their fold and continually spreading the gospel of the Dark Dark Dark cause – to survive by creating art. Dark Dark Dark founders Nona Marie Invie and Marshall LaCount caught up with The Line Of Best Fit to discuss the roots of the band, how they got here and where they’ve been along the way.

“One of the main reasons was to go to New Orleans” describes main vocalist Nona as to the initial reasoning behind creating the band with musical partner, Marshall LaCount. “We started playing music, and the idea was that we’d go to New Orleans because neither of us had been there before. We did a tour to pay for gas money, and then it just sort of continued after that.”

The Dark Dark Dark story began in 2006, when the group first embarked upon their journey. The two founding members gathered musicians and artists along their way, enticing them into the world of Dark Dark Dark, and exploring their native land through the eyes of touring musicians. “It’s not so romantic as it was” states Marshall when asked whether their process for finding bandmates remains the same today. “Our schedule and what we want to do requires that everyone is very committed, and back then, someone could join us for one week, or one month or one tour, it wasn’t so serious. And the musicianship didn’t matter as much. Everything was more flexible. It’s less flexible now, but it’s still really fun.”

In April of this year, Dark Dark Dark unleashed their second album, Wild Go, upon British audiences. The follow up to 2008′s The Snow Magic, the band set out to create a more refined, fluid album than their first. “We knew we wanted to grow from The Snow Magic. The way that we made that record was that it was a document of all of the first songs that we had written, with no real decision making process for what would go on the album. Just, all in. So we wanted to have more intention with the EP and with Wild Go. More intention with the songs’ relationships to each other.” describes Marshall of his vision for the sophmore effort. “We had a pool of songs that we chose,” adds Nona, “we split them up between the Bright Bright Bright EP and Wild Go. I think that Wild Go has more of a vision out of all of those songs – which would fit together, which would flow well together.”

Wild Go features both Nona and Marshall taking lead on vocals, so is the creation of Dark Dark Dark’s music always a united effort, or do the pair tend to write seperately? “We’ve done both.” explains Marshall “Right now, the collaborative process feels more gratifying, and makes for more of a unified effort than each of us bringing our songs to each other. Nona’s definitely prolific and a very good songwriter, so those songs have been going really great.”

The pair have travelled not only with the band, but with other creative endeavours with which they have been involved, such as building rafts for a collaborative art project which took them to New York, Venice and Slovenia. Dark Dark Dark’s lifestyle revolves around the art that they create, the places that they’re taken as a result and the people that they meet along the way and it’s from these roots that their musical reputation has grown. Was this always the plan? “After a short time of wanting the instant gratification of the internet, we just realised that it’s perhaps not as sustainable as having real relationships” says Marshall. “Often, that’s driven by the team that’s behind your band, that we’ve never had until recently. And the most basic way of doing it ourselves was by working constantly, working hard, touring constantly. Then we got to see all of our friends, meet all of our new friends and play music for people, which is what we’re actually passionate about. In the process, we got better at writing, better at playing and better at making musical decisions too.”

Similar to Beirut, Dark Dark Dark are often described as having an eastern European influence to their sound, probably owing to the use of accordians, clarinets and trumpets. “Often, in the US, people say ‘Oh, they must love you in Europe’.” replies Marshall when questioned about this and the reception the band’s music receives at home, compared to abroad. “Then everyone thinks the US is a difficult place to tour, or it’s hard to be appreciated as artists or musicians there. I’ve been really considering that a lot lately, because we have had some great opportunities that seemed a little bit easier in France, for example, than in the US. But I think what I’ve been realising is that we did 3 or 4 years of footwork, or the hard, annoying work in the US, so that might be why our impression of it there is that it’s hard. Once we got to Europe, we were slightly more established already. I think that in the end, the point is to be able to perform our songs and make our art for people. It’s been happening, and it’s been really exciting over the past couple of years. The shows are getting bigger and we can really have fun with it and really appreciate it. And once you get past fighting over dinner in the US, it’s fun there as well.”

Wild Go is available now through Melodic Records.