DAVE LONGSTRETH, musical protagonist behind New York band DIRTY PROJECTORS, has done many things. Soon to add a trip to Australia to the list, he tells PATRICK EMERY about a few of the others.

Brooklynite Dave Longstreth can count a few strings on his bow – he’s completed a degree at the prestigious Yale University, released a Black Flag cover album, even made a concept album involving Eagles drummer Don Henley. But he’s surprised to discover that he’s alleged to have collaborated with noted Australian feminist academic Germaine Greer. “You’re the second person to ask me about that”, Longstreth replies. “I dunno where that came from – I think the Internet made that up”, he laughs. “I don’t know who she is – but I like the idea of collaborating with someone I don’t even know!”Under the artistic guise of Dirty Projectors, the now six-piece Brooklyn-based musical outfit he has fronted since 2002, Longstreth has released some of contemporary music’s most intriguing and challenging music. “I studied a bit of music theory at school”, Longstreth says, when I ask him about his musical education. “I learnt about orchestration, but I didn’t really play an instrument at school”, he says.

After finishing high school Longstreth enrolled at Yale University, one of the United States’ prestigious Ivy League universities. Longstreth’s attitude towards his college education is, however, equivocal. “I feel I got more out of high school than college”, Longstreth says.  “Yale seemed more like somewhere that was about acquisition of knowledge and information. But on the other side there was the acquisition of money and social currency. Yale seemed like a place where make kings”, Longstreth says.

In 2002 Longstreth released his first record, The Graceful Fallen Mango, under his own name.  By 2005 Longstreth, now working under the moniker Dirty Projectors, released The Getty Address, a concept album based around Eagles drummer Don Henley. It was, with no word of a lie, a concept without parallel. “I don’t know what his reaction was to the album”, Longstreth says. “I sent him a letter when I’d finished the record, and I enclosed a copy of the album, but I never heard from him”, he says.  While affection for the infamous Cocaine Cowboys is rarely admitted in polite music company, Longstreth does acknowledge the quality of the Eagles’ material.  “I think the Eagles are great”, Longstreth says. “I love their music.  When people think of the Eagles I think they naturally think of Don Henley – but I wonder whether it’s Glenn Frey who’s more important. It’s like Black Flag – Rollins was the figurehead, but it was Greg Ginn who was the guy who was really behind the band”, Longstreth says.

Longstreth’s reference to Black Flag is far from accidental. Dirty Projectors’ follow-up record to The Getty Address was Rise Above, an album covering the Black Flag album Damaged recorded entirely from Longstreth’s teenage memory of the original tracks. “I have actually heard the [Black Flag] album since we recorded the record”, Longstreth says.  “In fact, I listened to it the first day of the tour for the album – it sound much different to what I remembered”, he says. 

“I’m not sure if it’s important to deviate, but it is important to keep searching”

Longstreth has since met Black Flag guitarist and songwriter Greg Ginn and struck up a friendship. “We played a show with Greg Ginn in Austin, Texas”, Longstreth says.  “He’s a really cool guy. He’s a searcher, he’s still obsessed with music, and he’s still evolving as a musician. It was great to hang out with him in Austin”, Longstreth says.  Ginn’s positive reaction to Dirty Projector’s Rise Above, Longstreth says, reflects Ginn’s passion for finding new musical pastures. “I read an interview with him in the Austin Chronicle”, Longstreth says. “I think he it found it self-referential, but not really about feeling. If your consciousness is moving across the surface of bands then I understand that reaction to what we’re doing”, Longstreth says.

For the next Dirty Projectors album Longstreth moved away from the band’s previous artistic path. Bitte Orca, the third Dirty Projectors album eschewed the overt conceptual aspect of the two previous albums in favour of a more pop sensibility.  An artist, is it important for you to deviate from your previous artistic territory? “I’m not sure if it’s important to deviate, but it is important to keep searching”, Longstreth says. 

What about your audience? Do you expect your audience to ‘get’ your music – or is the music principally about your own subjective experience? “That sounds like a deep perceptual question that I don’t know how to answer”, Longstreth laughs. “You can never anticipate how people will interpret what you’re doing – so I suppose the answer is I don’t know!”, he says.

In the early days of Dirty Projectors Longstreth tended to accumulate musicians based on the music he was playing at the time. Since 2006, however, the line-up of Dirty Projectors has been largely stable, with Nat Baldwin, Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian, Brian McOmber and Haley Dekle. “Early on the band didn’t tour much, so then when we did tour I had to retrofit to make sure I had the right performers for the music”, Longstreth says. When Dirty Projectors are performing live, the experience varies from the recorded work. “It’s definitely different”, Longstreth says.  “Live, the music is much different – it’s like the difference between a book and a running race”, he says.

Longstreth has recently had the opportunity to work with one of his idols, former Talking Heads leader David Byrne, both on record and on stage. “That was very cool”, Longstreth says. “I’m a fan of classic Heads, and Byrne’s solo stuff as well.  It was really cool meeting him.  Since then we’ve seen his band a bunch of times. He’s a really inspiring dude to know, and the things that interest him”, Longstreth says.

In the immediate future Dirty Projectors will be touring extensively on the back of Bitte Orca. Eventually Dirty Projectors will head back into the studio, though Longstreth isn’t entirely sure what’s on the horizon for the band’s recording. “We’re going to be on tour quite a lot this year, and then we’ll go back into the studio in April, and hopefully release something in September”, Longstreth says. “We’re still in tour mode, and I haven’t started thinking about ideas for the next record”. Well, there is always that Germaine Greer collaboration ...

DIRTY PROJECTORS play The Lost Weekend Festival at the Brisbane Riverstage and City Botanic Gardens on Mar 6 & 7, alongside Dinosaur Jr, The Drones, Deerhoof, British India and more. BITTE ORCA is out now through Domino/EMI. www.myspace.com/dirtyprojectors / www.accessallareas.net.au/thelostweekend

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