Free Blood: Part 2
Fashion designer turned electro-goddess Madeline Davy fills us in on the feminine side of Free Blood.
It’s always been said that behind a great man there’s a great woman, and that’s no different in the music world. As introduced in the first part of our interview with Free Blood, John Pugh is an amazing, intelligent and talented musician. But the other half of Free Blood is just as incredible. Madeline Davy is a prominent fashion designer turned musician in New York City who joined her good friend John almost five years ago to start his new project Free Blood and since then has added the moxie and femininity to their raucous beats. We sat down with Davy to discuss her side of the story.
HEAVE: I was reading your one-sheet and it said that New York City had a huge influence on your music, specifically Brooklyn and Manhattan. What was it about the boroughs that really impacted your music?
Madeline: Well I think each of the five boroughs has a unique style. Manhattan’s more club-oriented and Brooklyn tends to be more house party situations and maybe a little more gritty. I think we are influenced by both of those. I think Manhattan’s a little bit more demure, maybe a little more polished (laughs). And Brooklyn’s a little more rough and tough. But yeah, I think our music sort of reflects that.
HEAVE: I know right now you’re just gigging in New York. Have you toured anywhere else yet?
Madeline: We have toured a little bit. Mostly New York, but we went on tour with Hot Chip last spring so we sort of did a little bit of everything. We did the east coast, a little bit of Canada, the Midwest, and the west coast. It was a really good introduction for us and we plan to do a lot more touring and exposing ourselves to the rest of the country.
HEAVE: Do you feel like your music does better in a smaller venue or a larger venue? Or does it not matter and you guys just rock the house where ever you are?
Madeline: (laughs) I don’t know if it matters! We started out in small venues, I think that’s pretty typical of most bands, but also just playing at a house party where there’s some people there. We have evolved to some pretty big space. For example touring with Hot Chip, those were pretty big venues. Naturally it’s a huge challenge to fill the space with sound and I think we’re up to doing both and, for example, making a bigger space work better. We’re interested in having a drummer and a guitarist and sort of more presence on stage to fill up that space and make it dynamic in that sense. But I think we’ll always do small things as well. It’s really fun to have more intimacy with the audience. I get into the crowd sometimes, but John [Pugh] especially going out and mixing with the crowd and dancing and sometimes making people uncomfortable. But it’s all in an effort to bring people into the fold I think.
HEAVE: I know your primary business is fashion design, but were you involved in music before Free Blood?
Madeline: Not playing out. I just had some projects with some friends before. I’ve been friends with John for a while and he was in !!! and running around and he wanted to start this new project that was a little more intimate. So after talking about it forever we finally got together and started practicing. So this is my first, I guess, real band but there’s definitely this sort of progression. At this point it’s sort of equal amounts of working on my label and working on music.
HEAVE: You must be creative all the time then!
Madeline: (laughs) I try!
HEAVE: Was it hard to just jump into music never really have done it before or was it easier because of the style or because of knowing John?
Madeline: I don’t know…I mean it wasn’t difficult in a sense that I know that we’re coming out with our first album now and it seems as if, “Oh this is something new” but this has been a slow burn. John and I have been working together for five years so it’s been this slow evolution. It’s never seemed like some big, intimidating monster. It’s always been a natural thing and just working out stuff in the studio. Definitely there were times where I use to get really nervous to go on stage and now I’ve done it enough that it doesn’t affect me in that way. Being friends with John is helpful and I t hink that’s how a lot of bands start any ways is people who have similar interests and get along start tinkering with things. We feel comfortable around each other so it works well.
HEAVE: As far as writing, was the duty split evenly or did one person take the reins for your album The Singles?
Madeline: John does the bulk of the writing, especially with this release. A lot of these songs John’s been working on forever and some of them he’s come in to sort of having a pretty good idea of what he was working with. Maybe it would just be lyrics and we’d both work on them or he would come in with a drum beat for a song for example. Some of the newer stuff is more of a collaboration so it’s sort of building. John can play the piano and drums and a little bit of guitar and I stick to vocals and lyrics. As far as arranging and mixing we definitely talk about a lot.
HEAVE: My friend, who is a huge electronic music freak, has this theory that you can’t know the full effect of your music until you see people reacting to it.
Madeline: That’s interesting…
HEAVE: I’ve asked a couple DJs about this idea, but I was wondering if you guys felt the same way although you’re not technically DJs or anything like that.
Madeline: I think that’s a really interesting theory. I think there are a lot of factors are involved like the type of audience and where you’re playing. You could be playing a hardcore show and people would be like “Who are these people making dance music? They’re really noisy.” So in that sense it’s a little weird. But it’s also interesting to know what you think is great and people will respond to something completely different that you haven’t thought about. That in essence definitely is interesting to come to terms with, how people view it and stuff like that.
Free Blood is currently playing in New York City but be on the lookout for this dynamic duo to come to your town.
Posted by Amy Dittmeier on Apr 15, 2009 @ 8:00 am
