A Chat With My Dear Disco’s Tyler Duncan

Armed with everything from synthesizers to bagpipes, My Dear Disco creates exciting and different dance music with a little something extra. They were local favorites in Ann Arbor while I was at the University of Michigan, but after nationwide tours and appearances at major festivals, they’ve gathered quite a following.

Although I missed their show due to the latest blizzard to attack the Midwest, I was able to chat with Tyler Duncan over the phone. Check out what he has to say on the band’s unique sound and listen to their new remix of the Black Eyed Peas below.

You guys have a pretty unique and intricate sound. What are your influences and what inspires you?


I think what makes our sound unique is the fact that we are more open to let our influences coalesce. We’ve all been musicians and students of music for a long time. All of us come from different places. I grew up playing traditional Irish music, there’s a little bit jazz, there’s a little bit electronic, pop. We’ve studied classical, just lots of range of influences already built in personally. One of the biggest mission statements of the band is seeing what happens and to let the song naturally come out however they do. Just come together and make a really weird, high-energy dance-pop smoosh. We definitely have current influences as well that people know of. The recent ones would be, Robyn is a girl we’re into. Bands like Brazilian Girls, Daft Punk, Cornelius. Michael Jackson is an ubiquitous influence for almost any musician. Yeah, I mean really the influences I find can trace back to childhood things. I write something and I’m like, “oh that’s actually traced to some cartoon I was into when I was ten years old” and then that went through fifteen years of musical education and came out as an idea. I think that’s true for everybody in the band.

So, what exactly is “Dance Think”?


Dance Think is the genre we self-applied in an attempt to clarify what was going on. We knew from the outset it was going to be hard to describe our music to people when we had Irish bagpipes mixed with re-adaptions of Stevie Wonder in a sort of Japanese pop way. When you have all these diverse and disparate-seeming influences coming together and it’s all original music, people of course say “well what does this sound like” and we just couldn’t figure out a way to say it without taking way too long. So Dance Think was born out of the brainstorming session of what are we and what are we doing, and that really is the term that most simply captures what’s going on. It is dance music, it’s designed and made because we want to make people dance, that’s sort of the sign of a success for us. But at the same time, we are all graduates of music degree programs and have a very deep and passionate curiosity about music and are always trying to expand ourselves and each other. There’s intricate arrangements and harmonic structures and odd time signatures and stuff like that. So Dance Think was something that really made sense and continue to feel is relevant to what we do. That term has been around now for a few years and it’s as relevant as ever. It’s a goal and a description for us.

Besides Ann Arbor, where has been your favorite place to perform?


Well, every place has their strengths and weaknesses I suppose. Alaska, for just the exotic scenery was awesome. Just outside of the gigs we got to really do some amazing hiking. It’s beautiful out there. It’s different and beautiful. We were there in August so it was still nice and warm. It was pretty gorgeous. Playing at SXSW, it’s like playing the band olympics. You’re surrounded by thousands of musicians, close to your age, similar aspirations. And if you’re going to take a broad perspective on it, probably similar enough in musical tastes. So being in that kind of environment. It’s just musical excitement, social excitement, molecules just in a total frenzy, it’s nuts. When we played there it was just a buzz, an intense buzz for a week. We actually played in Fargo last year and we had an amazing time. Nothing against Fargo of course, I’ve just never been there. You just think of “Oh man, we’re going to Fargo! It’s gonna be crazy!” It actually ended up being totally amazing. We’ve been wanting to go back there but haven’t been able to make it yet. Colorado, it’s gorgeous. Great scene out there. I could go on, I feel like every place has its strengths that you can only find there. Going to Memphis is cool, because they have great barbecue down there.

How do you guys split the creative duties? What exactly goes into making a My Dear Disco track?


Usually an idea is spawned or miraculously occurs in either Bob, Michelle or my brain, and then we put it together in some recorded form, whether it’s fleshed out or just a little blip of idea and that’s all there is to it. Then send it out, then the three of us listen to it, and kind of start writing on it. A lot of times, the instrumental track is sent out first and then Michelle writes over it, and then we go from there. At a certain point we take it into rehearsal. Some songs we’ve left pretty sparse knowing we’re going to fill in the blanks at rehearsal, some songs we’ve written entirely in the studio. Depends on the song and what it means. Some of the tunes feel pretty electronic in their identity, so it makes it sense to finish it in the studio. There are some songs, like “Over the Noise” that are built around the idea of a live band, so writing the parts in a studio context while separate didn’t make sense, so we came together as a band and everybody put in their own touch until we had a song. So there’s definitely a range, we’re always trying to figure out the best way to do it. Being in a band with this many talented people, the only challenge is harnessing all the creativity as opposed to letting it feel overwhelming or distracting. We’re always trying to make the writing process easier and faster and more fun.

What’s in the works for My Dear Disco?


Lots! We have all new stuff basically for everything coming out. We got a new CD coming out, we have a new music video coming out. We’re working on those right now. Actually Michelle’s doing a lot of editing work on those. She’s putting that footage together so people can be looking out for those videos soon. We just released a remix of Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling” [Listen below]. Just released that a few days ago. We’re gonna be releasing another new remix. We’ll keep the artist a surprise, but it’s somebody everyone knows and I think that’s going to be really cool. That’s gonna be coming out in a few weeks. Then we have new pictures, a new website, everything new, new, new. Big system update.

I Gotta Feeling (My Dear Disco Remix) by My Dear Disco

Speaking of your remixes, if you could remix absolutely any song other than what’s on the Remix EP, what would it be?


I would say the two songs that I really felt my curiosity has been peaked, one is “Modern Man” by Arcade Fire on their latest album. That song really grabs me for some reason and I would love to do something with it. It’s a weird song but it’s very compelling and catchy aspect to it, but it’s fun to be beholden to something you don’t understand but you feel like you want to sing along to it. Like, “I agree, I agree with you so hard that I don’t know what I’m agreeing with.” Whether this is shameless or not, it doesn’t matter, I really like the song “Firework” [Katy Perry]. It’s not poetically some sort of intensely brilliant Hemingway piece, but I like the sentiment a lot, and I like the way it’s put together a lot, and I think her singing sounds ridiculous on it. I really actually have a lot of respect for her. I’ve seen some videos when she’s kind of on her own with a guitar in a little room, before she was a big deal and she’s actually very talented. So that’s another song I want to play with.

How do you occupy yourselves while on tour?


That’s exactly it, touring. I wish there was time for hobbies. Touring is touring, when you’re touring you’re doing nothing but touring. You wake up, get in your car, go, take care of your necessities. You probably need to get food, just so you can stay alive and get to the next gig. You show up, you unload, you set up, you sound check, you eat dinner, write out your set list, put on stage clothes, play the show, tear down. Go to bed, now it’s 3, 4 in the morning, wake up, get in your bus and then do it all again. There’s no time for hobbies.

Any rituals to help you prepare for a show?


We always like to do a huddle. We don’t ever have anything specific to say. Just like, “here’s to holes in the wall! 1 2 3, holes in the wall!” We do that. Other than that just sort of general, we don’t eat right before we get on stage or anything like that. We stay pretty sober before we play. Don’t know if I would call that a ritual.

Do you remember the first album you ever bought?


Yes, it was Michael Jackson’s Dangerous.

What’s on your playlist these days?


An artist called Oh Land. I’ve been listening to Samuel Barber, classical composer. Grace Potter. I’ve been listening to a lot of different stuff.

Have you read any good books lately?


Good books, let’s see here. Recently read a book called Culinary Artistry. It’s all about cool cooking stuff which I liked a lot.

Speaking of, what’s your favorite comfort food?


Marshmallows.

Prepared any specific way, or just straight out of the bag?


Roasted marshmallows are hard to beat. I actually made some marshmallows, I’m going to start making more marshmallows. But I really like the idea of gourmet marshmallows that don’t use gelatin. And doing like, curry chili marshmallows, stuff like that.

Last question. Favorite part about Ann Arbor?


Hmm, I’ve grown up here. The Arb. Love it.