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 In the midst of touring on the back of their third acclaimed album, Time To Die, DODOS frontman MERIC LONG tells TESS CURRAN how he’d give it all up to be a pelican.
Meric Long is an infectious kind of guy. He talks openly, laughs frequently and spills more bad jokes than your drunken next-door-neighbour. Naturally, we get along instantly. “I remember Brisbane,” he says excitedly in his strong Southern Californian accent. I hadn’t asked him, but I guess he’s just the kind of guy who likes to know where a girl is from before committing to a 15-minute chat with her. “I remember it being real hot – actually fucking totally hot. And I remember that we went into an apartment that was kind of like a high rise and we had like this view of the city and everything. It was pretty. That’s all I remember.”
Perhaps there are more memories to be created, I suggest, as the band’s second visit edges closer with the wind up of their latest global tour. “We’ve been playing a lot of Scrabble,” he explains of the glamour of the road. “I’m getting really good at it. I once scored an 80. I used all my letters, so that’s like 50 points, then you land on a triple [word score] and you’ve got like a Q and X in there. Oh man.”
Yep, with all the time in the world for cell phone games and Scrabble mastering, it’s little wonder touring is something Long adores. “I really like moving around,” he says. “Being free.”
Naturally, his back-up career plan fits the bill (no pun intended) perfectly. “I’d like to be like an Albatross,” he says, “…no, no, a pelican! I’d fly from city to city picking up little babies and dropping them off elsewhere. Or anyone really.”
So like a cabbie, maybe? “No,” he considers. “I prefer longer distances than just a cab driver.” Pelican it is then.
For now, however, the music thing is kind of working out for him. The Dodo’s 2008 release Visiter had the gods at Pitchfork and crowds alike swooning, and hit single Walking received massive airplay and a feature spot on a now-iconic episode of television series Skins.
So then what’s up with a new record entitled Time To Die? “Basically we decided to go with a new producer and just make the poppiest record we could,” Long explains. “And instead of trying to think about whether it was the right thing to do – especially after putting out a record that was fairly well received and knowing there’s going to be this sort of expectation – we just thought fuck it, we need to just decide on making this record and just do it. So ‘Time to Die’ is sort of like the mantra for that – saying, well, we might totally fail and it might be a disaster, but whatever.” (A.k.a: ‘Suck it critics, we pre-empted it’).
But the most pressing question still awaits: Do he and the band receive a lot of tacky, novelty dodo birds as gifts and/or an amicable sort of harassment from friends? “No,” he laughs. “No one’s ever gotten us one! Though we do get a lot of shit about naming our band after a stupid bird.”
THE DODOS play The Zoo on Sunday Feb 14. TIME TO DIE is out now through FrenchKiss/Witchita/Shock. www.dodosmusic.net
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