Jordan Galland is what you would call a creative multi-tasker, in the most positive sense of the word. He is a songwriter, musician, cartoonist, and filmmaker. His first band, Dopo Yume put him on a trajectory of touring with some pretty good company. He’s contributed to projects with people as varied as Mark Ronson and Daniel Merriwether. Currently, Galland is promoting his first full-length feature film titled Rosencrantz And Gildenstern Are Undead, (yes that’s a Shakespearian vampire film), and his latest CD, Search Party. Did I mention that he’s managed to do all this before the age of 30? I recently got to chat with him via phone about all of his projects as he was in the studio doing some mixing, jumping into a taxi and heading into a meeting.  Yes, all while on the phone with me.  I truly don’t know when the man sleeps, if at all…

JORDAN GALLAND: Hey, Christine.

CHRISTINE NATANAEL: Hey, Jordan. How are ya?

JG: Good. How are you?

CN: I’m good.

JG: So it turns out my thing got postponed anyway.

CN: It happens that way. [editor’s note: He had been waiting on an important conference call.]

JG: But, let’s talk.

CN: Yeah. I’ve got all afternoon, or until my battery dies. [laughs]

JG: Yeah. No worries. I don’t know when, to be honest, I don’t know when my world’s gonna come crashing down, but…

CN: In other words, other engagements?

JG: Yeah. Just, I’m in a mix. I’m like, literally, in a studio session with Daniel Merriwether for his new record, and yet juggling the release of the film, and preparing for a show next weekend. So, I’m just like—my brain is like, literally, like, fried. But um, yeah, so…

CN: Let’s see, should I start with what you’re doing now. Actually, let me start chronologically…

JG: Wherever you want.

CN: Let’s start at the beginning with the young Jordan. Because I haven’t asked you any questions about the young Jordan and I haven’t—I’ve seen sketchy information online, so… Crusher likes to go all the way back to the beginning. You have the music thing, so I’m gonna start with the music and then go into your film career. Obviously you’re doing both. Uh, what is your first musical memory, Jordan? Or your first memory of music?

JG: My first memory of music… probably my brother listening to Willie Nelson and Stevie Wonder.

CN: Really?

JG: Yeah…and being terrified as a mix. I mean, I guess “Thriller” was terrifying too, but that was really my first memory of MTV. [laughing]

CN: Right.

JG: But my first memory of music is that. It’s like, my brother loved “On The Road Again” and “I Just Called To Say I Love You”.

CN: Okay, which were two very popular songs at that time period, which I guess you’re talking late ‘70s.

JG: Well, I was talking early ‘80s… Oh. Oh. This is the conference call. I’ll call you right after.

CN: Okay.

JG: I’m sorry Christine. I’ll call you right back.
(a bit later when we're reconneted) Hey, Christine. So, talk to me.

CN: So, where was I? I had asked you about your first musical memory and you were telling me about your brother and Willie Nelson and Stevie Wonder.

JG: Yeah.

CN: How old were you at the time?

JG: I guess I was like, two or three.

CN: Really? So you can remember that early?

JG: I actually have very early memory. I have really oddly early memory because I remember shit that like, my parents were like, “You were only one year old. How did you remember that conversation?” [laughs]

CN: [laughs]

JG: I remember because I have older brothers and I just remember hearing people talking during situations And I like, I remember the first house where I lived, like the whole…the whole layout of the house. And I was only there for a year.

CN: Wow.

JG: It’s weird. But, I don’t know. Anyway. I think, I mean, I think everybody has that kind of memory locked away and things trigger it, sometimes traumatic things…

CN: That’s true. I think sometimes people just don’t know how to access those things.

JG: Yeah. I often say I sometimes feel like I remember every dream I’ve ever had. I know that’s crazy, but I remember dreams from when I was like, the same age.

CN: Yeah?

JG: Yeah. I think it’s all there. It’s all in your head.

CN: You’ve just got to know how to access it. I think music is a key to that.

JG: Music is.

CN: Film can be a key to that, it depends on how it’s utilized…

JG: Mmm-hmm.

CN: Did you study music at all when you were younger or have an aptitude for it prior to starting to create it yourself?

JG: Did I study it? Yeah, yeah. I took some piano classes when I was five and I found myself, like it made a lot of sense to me, like I could figure out songs pretty quickly, like theme songs. I remember like, teaching myself “The Godfather” theme song…so, but um, even though I was five, but… and then I studied the flute and then I studied guitar. I picked up the flute when I was eight because we had to choose an instrument. And then I studied guitar when I was 14. I kind of taught myself but every now and then I’d have a lesson with this jazz guitarist, this woman named Leni Stern.

CN: Yeah?

JG: And um, she was travelling all over the world. Like she was sort of a successful jazz guitarist [chuckles] and she was a friend of my parents so I would see her every three months. I think I had a total of like, five lessons with her, but in between those lessons I’d learn Ziggy Stardust songs and Beatles songs and Doors songs.

CN: So that was the kind of thing you were into at the time, the more classic music of that era?

JG: Yeah; because like I said before, I mean, you know, I was also learning Nirvana, but like, there wasn’t a whole lot of like, ‘80s… I guess I wasn’t, I wasn’t into like, being Slash, or something. I wasn’t teaching myself riffs. I was teaching myself songs.

CN: Right. Right. And were you trying to unlock the potential to get the songs out of your head that your could hear in your head? I mean, you had an aptitude for piano and flute already…

JG: Yeah.. Actually, I did kind of write songs when I was like, 10, 11, 12…so, but, I mean… [exhales slow and loud] I did. I guess I did. I wrote some pretty silly songs around when I was learning those David Bowie songs. I was trying to figure out what kind of stuff I wanted to write. And I still to this day, if it’s like a bit of the same process. I’ll hear a song now that will blow my mind and then it’ll inspire me and make me feel like I have more songs that I need to write.

CN: Different avenues to explore and things of that nature.

JG: Yeah. And like, I’ve been listening, you know, even like something like listening to a Bob Dylan song, like it’ll make me go, “Wow! Like, oh, my God, I want to sit down at the guitar and write.” And when I was listening to David Bowie and The Doors, and I was 15, I was writing a bunch of silly songs. And I don’t think, I’m glad that no one can hear. [laughs]

CN: [laughs]

JG: But these days I take it more seriously. And I still write songs that no one can hear cuz I know not to record them because, oh my God, that sucks… Maybe some people think my other songs suck, but my point is, I’m constantly working through bad material to get to material that I think is good and pure and what I want to say.

CN: Yeah. You have to get that stuff out of your head, too, or else it’s just gonna swirl around in there with the good stuff and muck it up, I guess.

JG: Yeah, exactly.

CN: You have to expurgate it to a degree. So, when did you know that you wanted to pursue music as something more than a hobby and when did you try putting together your first band and who was in it?

JG: When I was 18, it really happened pretty organically. I basically, when I was 18, my two close friends at high school, like, and I, decided to play three songs at like, a high school talent show called Coffee House. It was mellow. You were supposed to recite poetry and do plays and comedy skits and then perform music. And we did that, and then I booked a show at a club called The Spiral [editor’s note: formerly located on Houston St. just off the corner of Ave. A in the Lower East Side of NYC] where you could pretty much just book a show and you didn’t need to give them any music.

CN: I remember The Spiral.

JG: You didn’t have to give them a tape, you’d just go, “I want to play.” And then play. Our first show, it was still light outside when we played because it was like, 6 o’clock in like, May or June. And honestly, I thought it would be our first and last show because my bandmates and I were just not getting along, and they had already, in the time that we had started Dopo Yume, they had started a side band without me. And it was one of those things where I was supposed to play with my friend Sam, and I was like, “When are we gonna play your songs?” And he was like, “Well actually, we started this other band. So this could just be your song.”

CN: Ah, the musical betrayal…

JG: So basically then, at that show, I mean, we had quite like, some funny people in the audience. There was a lot of freshman girls. We were seniors. But then there was Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono, the painter Donald Baechler, um, the model who is now married to Jack White. I am forgetting her name… [ editor’s note: that would be Karen Elson, twin sister of Kate Elson.] Redhead. She was there. She had just won some VH1 model award, which is funny because my two sort of, like they were friends of mine from like, older friends that I knew… and there was this kind of clashing of kind of high school crowd and then this New York art/intellectual/fashion crowd. And the place was packed. And afterwards, I think I literally got a call from Sean the next day. And it was back in the day of answering machines. I didn’t have a cell phone. I listened to the answering machine and it was Sean and he was like, “Hey listen, I think you guys should open up for me on tour.” So then, like our next show was opening up for Sean in Philadelphia at The Pontiac Grill. And then it was just like then in a band I was even reluctantly playing with these guys who I knew didn’t really want to play with me. But we had a fun summer. We opened up for Sean in like, six or seven cities and we did a cool deal because we used his gear so we just brought our guitars and pedals. And we got to open up for him and it was really fun. And like, sold a lot of…I recorded an album that we mixed to tape, like, not real tape, but cassette tape. And we sold cassette tapes and toured. And then in college, the two guys, my friends, they left. But it was my band and since they hadn’t, they didn’t ever want me to play their songs, so I just put a new band together with the name Dopo Yume because Sean continued to ask me to open for him and Cibo Matto also asked me to open up for them on a few shows. And then it sort of developed into this thing where whenever like, a band that I knew came through town, they asked us to open up, which was fun—like Phantom Planet, Maroon 5, uh, I don’t know, others…well, Rufus Wainwright. Rufus Wainwright was on that summer tour in 1998. So it was this whole, I think like, that call from Sean asking us to open up for him made me go, “Oh, shit! That’s huge. Maybe I’ll make money from it.”

CN: Yeah. So besides being fun playing with your friends, you realized, “Hey! There’s a career in this.” And obviously you’re pretty good at doing it, with or without those original friends, right?

JG: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they were only there that first summer. I’m still friends with them. Obviously, now we’re older.

CN: Yeah. So you did two of the CDs under the name Dopo Yume, and now you have two solo records, but there’s a bit of time in-between all of them. You were doing film and whatnot in-between?

JG: Well, I did also the band Domino, which was an incarnation of Dopo Yume.

CN: I came to see you with Domino.

JG: Right. So that was just Dopo Yume with Domino singing, basically. Just my songs. So I did Dopo Yume from 1998 to 2004, then I made Smile For The Camera, the short film. And that took about six or eight months, and then I played with Domino for two and a half years. And then I did Rosencrantz, and in the last three years while I’ve been working on post-production, (well, I’ve been in post-production for like, two years), I put out two solo records. [ Airbrush and Search Party]

CN: Now, was the music to decompress from what you were doing with the film at this point, because in the beginning the music seems to have been your primary, but as you moved more into the film, I would think it would be more of a release. Just as serious, but…

JG: Yeah, music is more of a release. I am excited to play. I am playing my first show. It’s an interesting time to reminisce about it because I’m playing my first show June 11th, and I just feel like… You know, I’m excited. I kind of remember those old feelings coming back. It’s like, “Wow. Like maybe people will come and like, discover me and I’ll get a huge record deal.” But I know where to put those thoughts now. And it also doesn’t concern me as much because like, this Friday my film is opening at a theater here in New York so I’m not as like… (exhales loudly) I don’t know what the word is. Desperate is the wrong word, but like, I guess I’m just not as like, “concerned” pleasing people in the record industry. That’s the only way to put it.

CN: Right.

JG: And I really was before. It was like this constant thing of, “Who’s coming from what label? Who’s coming?” You know, we could play a great show, but if one of the Beastie Boys who had promised to come didn’t show up, I’d be depressed. Like, “They didn’t see it. Now they’re not gonna tell their friends about it.” Like, I’m not worried about that right now. I’m really doing it for me and for maybe some old fans who are like, you know, “Cool. Jordan’s gonna play some new songs and some old songs.” I’m gonna play a few songs from the Domino band, I’m gonna play a few songs from Dopo Yume, and I’m gonna play some new material.

CN: And it’ll be fun. I think I’m actually gonna make that one.

JG: Awesome.

CN: I haven’t seen you since you played with Domino at Mercury Lounge that night, so it’s been a while.

JG: Yeah. Back then. That was a fun show.

CN: That was a fun show. Now how the intersection of how I came to know about you actually came through film moreso than music. I mean, I did know of you from shows you did around the city, having been a writer for many years of music, but had never been to one of your shows, and then my friend Nicole (Holland) who does Independent Film Quarterly had the Smile For The Camera short and you had won an award from them. [editor’s note: “Them” is The New York International Independent Film and Video Festival], and then I said, “Wow. He’s doing two things. Let me see what this person’s doing. And that’s why I became a little more interested in you, because you had more depth than just the music. You seemed to have something else going on.

JG: Cool.

CN: Tell me about the process…I mean, obviously you studied animation and film, so tell me about how you got into that as opposed to just the music. What made you decide to study film and animation? Were you in school?

JG: Uh, it’s weird. I went through…I mean, I definitely… When I was younger I was learning, when I was a kid, I like knew, how to play music, but I wasn’t like the kid that mastered the instrument. I’m still not. I’m still a sloppy player. But I was definitely the kid that could draw well, somehow. Like I was, just, you know, one of my friends would be like, “Draw that.” And I’d draw it. And it would look like the thing that I drew. And then I was really into comics and I think then when I was 15, I mean, I wanted to be a painter. Like, I kind of learned about modern art and like, I met some cool painters in the downtown New York scene and I became good friends with Francesco Clemente, who in some sense took me under his wing. I mean…

CN: He’s great. I like his stuff.

JG: Yeah. It was cool. We would hang out all the time. He’d take me to museums and galleries and stuff. And other artists…I was really more drawn in that direction until Sean asked me to open for him. I mean, and then there was a real opportunity. And then I’m not sure I ever had like, a vision in terms of what I really wanted to be, as like a painter or an artist in New York, I just liked it. And, basically I always wanted to make cartoons. I still do. And so, when I got to NYU, there were these animation classes, and sort of, I was like, “Holy shit! I’m at college and I can study animation! This is amazing!” And I guess that’s just what it was, just sort of an obsession for it. The cool thing was that, you know, having spent all this time recording and working in sound, music, that’s just like 50% of movie making.

CN: Sure.

JG: And it’s crazy because it’s the unseen part, the heard part…and it’s unseen. You don’t necessarily think about it half the time, but I realize that, you know, making a cartoon is like getting drawn, anime’d. And I can actually kind of completl something like film make with the tools that I’ve have and the skills that I’ve developed. But yeah, I guess when I was 18 and I studied animation it’s just because I was really into it. You know, I was just a fan of it.

CN: What were some of your favorite cartoons or are some of your favorite cartoons and animators?

JG: Well, I mean I sort of loved the normal things like Thundercats and G.I. Joe cartoons and watching He-Man, and Looney Tunes would probably be my ultimate favorite. But then there was this Japanimation wave. I felt like in the ‘80s and ‘90s there were these surreal, then somehow oddly mudane cartoons coming from Japan. They were about norml things but they had this magic quality to them.

CN: Right.

JG: And, I just liked that world. It’s escapism.

CN: Very much so.

JG: You have like, a dream world. I really related to it. You know, it’s like reality but it’s magical and unexpected. And I could related to that much, much more.

CN: So how did you come to do the short, Smile For The Camera? Was it a school project or was it something after you graduated? And where did the idea come from?

JG: Yeah. I did it after. I started when I was 24. And um, it came from a song I wrote, that was totally unrelated. As for the actual idea, that I wrote this song that was more about like, people. The lyric that I originally wrote was, you know, “You don’t smile for me, you only smile for the camera”. And I don’t know. The song just wasn’t, it wasn’t like…I was trying to make it like a Duran Duran song like “Girls On Film” but it just wasn’t working, and I had this vision of a movie, kind of like, a cozy, small story about a girl who buys an antique camera and like, sort of discovers this mystery about it and it leads her on this adventure. And um, you know, like, it’s the dark, low-budget, twisted version of Alice In Wonderland or something. That was my initial thought, and I borrowed a friend’s camera. Next I started talking to people and asking friends and I had also just like decided that I couldn’t play with Dopo Yume anymore, so it was this new, like…my time was different. It was like, “Oh, I can go and make something. I can travel to Long Island. I can go in the woods, I can…you know, I can just be different. I don’t have to, you know, be in the city, going to practice spaces, going to bars, playing shows. I can like, wake up at 6 in the morning and go film stuff. It was a switch. It was like a 180. And honestly, a lot of my friends told me that, like, they had never seen me so happy as when I was making that movie.

CN: It’s like a whole new world. A whole new perspective on the world.

JG: It was cool, but you know, at the same time, it was ridiculously… It’s a ridiculous movie. The script I wrote way too quickly. And I didn’t know. I just powered through it. I didn’t really know how to write. I mean, I knew how to write dialogue and comedy. I knew a little bit, but I didn’t under…I didn’t… I was at that stage where I was like, I can do this cuz I can write prose so I can clearly write a screenplay. And I have. Um, anyway, it works for what it was. And I had a bunch of friends who got on board and they were meeting and the comaradrie and the feeling of like, “Wow! We’re just gonna go make this movie. This is kind of nuts.” Um, and then when I was editing it, I was terrified because I was like, “This is crazy. This is unusable.” I mean, it was and hour and a half and I had a 90 minute version of Smile For The Camera. Which , when I cut it down to 29 minutes, then it was watchable.

CN: Yeah.

JG: I don’t know. I was surprised by the response my friends gave me.

CN: In the initial, first-time film making experience, I mean, at that length, which is longer than, obviously, what you do in film school, how did you know what to leave in or what to take out?

JG: Um, I mean, somehow I feel like I had a kind of innate sense for it or I learned as I went. It seemed very clear to me.

CN: So you didn’t really struggle over too many themes, it was obviously clear?

JG: Yeah, no, it made a lot of sense. Hold on a second. [Puts me on hold for a while.]
Hello?

CN: Yep. Still here.

JG: Sorry.

CN: Okay, so your friends were surprised by your output on this short film…

JG: Hm-hmmm.

CN: And obviously that made you feel good, though, that they were, that it was positive surprise, that I’m thinking…

JG: Yeah. It’s always a balance. I mean, even with Dopo Yume, it’s like, we’d get bad reviews and good reviews. I was just surprised, especially with the short, because like, I thought it was really dumb. But I also knew that it was like, funny.

CN: Right. Well, sometimes the humor can, sometimes even if you think it’s dumb, dumb humor is sometimes good. What can I say? Sometimes that is the best humor. If you try too hard, it’s when you bog down in things. But evidently, you made the right move.

JG: Right.

CN: After you did Smile For The Camera when did the idea come to you to do Rosencrantz And Gildenstern Are Undead?

JG: I don’t know. I really liked the title. I felt like, well…the idea took a long time to form really. I played around with the ideas a lot while I was in and out of bands. I mean, while I was doing Dopo Yume and Smile For The Camera, I had the idea for Rosencrantz, but when I made Smile For The Camera and showed it in a festival and like… Then I was like, “Wow!” You know, I learned so much about Rosencrantz And Gildenstern Are Undead. I felt like, a) it was an idea that could attract a recognizable actor or some sort, b) the title alone would be cool at festivals and they’d want to show the movie. I didn’t, I just thought I’d make it for $10,000 or something. I didn’t know what I would make it for, but I was like, you know, the idea was basically like, a theater director gets hired to put on a play and the play can be as low budget as possible, the play will tell the backstory, and all I have to do is rent out a theater. And it was kind of cool because the idea was simple and I could see myself doing it, then it like, snowballed into this much bigger thing throughout the course of like a couple years while I was doing, while I was working with Domino. Um, and then, you know, I had the script and these producers from C Plus Pictures said they wanted to license on of my songs. And I told them about Rosencrantz and they wanted to read it and then they wanted to make it. And then we moved forward and so it really like, it definitely like, has been way more successful than I ever dreamed it would have been.

CN: It’s a very, very entertaining film. It’s definitely going to have, if not widespread popularity, then at least cult status. Either way, it’s gonna be successful. Uh, how did you attract the or come about attaching the actors to the project? How did you choose who was going to be in it? I mean, did the producers help you, did you have somebody in mind already, were they friends?

JG: How did I find the cast? Well some of them came from the casting agent that the producers hired. Uh, Steve Battaglia… But a number of the key roles were friends of mine. Jake ( ) I knew from college. He had actually gone to Tisch and had used a song from my band in his short film, and I was an extra in a couple of his short films. Devon (Aoki) I knew by working on a music video with Sean that she was in. And Jeremy Sisto was a friend of a friend. I didn’t know him that well, but I had his information. And Devon, Bijou (Phillips) was a friend before, you know, I knew her for 15 years, she has a cameo. Ralph Macchio we cast because I was looking for somebody who had that balance of like, somebody who would be like a believable mobster but also be kinda cute and charming enough that like, the girl that we’re supposed to like would date him. He was perfect for that, actually. Um, we auditioned some great actors, who were just like, you know, Italian-looking tough guys, but they were too tough. And then, whatever…basically, Ralph has an amazing time in the movie because he is kind of a legend and not only is the Karate Kid amazing, but like, My Cousin Vinny is one of the greatest movies.

CN: So what did the budget end up being, if you don’t mind me asking? It wasn’t $10,000.00, that’s for sure.

JG: Yeah, no. I mean, I don’t want to discuss the budget, but it’s under a million.

CN: That’s a good little amount of change for an indie.

JG: Well, it was appreciative. It was unbelievable. I mean, it was a proper indie budget. I think we cinched it. I think we made it look like a lot more.

CN: It does look like a lot, actually, which is why I asked. Which theater did you use?

JG: We shot at a theater on 4th St. between A and B. It was just like, tucked away in there. It’s from the 1800’s. It’s like an old Yiddish theater, you know?

CN: Yeah. I thought that’s the one it was. It looked very familiar to me. I’m like, “It looks familiar, but I’m not quite sure…”

JG: You’d never know it was there. I mean, there’s a sign that says “Theater” up top, but I had no idea. I live on the other side of that block with my girlfriend and like, I had no idea. It was kind of a coincidence because we filmed there for a week and I didn’t have to cross the street. I just walked around the corner.

CN: Perfect. Very, very short commute. Always good for working. I commute from one side of my living room to the other. I find it perfect. [laughing]

JG: Yeah. [laughing]

CN: So now, I came to your screening last fall and now you’ve got your premiere, your theatrical release, tell me about the steps that were involved in getting that and is it limited or is it National release?

JG: Um, that’s what the conference call was just about. This Friday [editor’s note: he means the day of June 4th, 2010] is a limited, but, I mean, we’re just going to art houses all over the country, so it will be National. . We’re gonna have a National spot running soon. I mean, you know, we had to get a sales agent two years ago. We worked the festival circuit. Ultimately, I think our distributors, I mean, they just saw a screener of it and wanted it. And basically they were…what was interesting was we believed it had theatrical potential, and they made a small theatrical offer of one theater. And we were like, “Great! Let’s do it!” You know, like the market crashed and the economy was bad and films weren’t…indie films were doing worse than ever, and we weren’t like, waiting around for like some amazing thing to happen. Plus we know that the film is kinda weird, so it wasn’t like exatly lot of people didn’t know exactly how to market it. So we went, we took the leap of faith with this company and we just dove right in. It took eight months to negotiate a contract, so…then it took them, basically six months until they could release it and that’s where we are. The whole thing was really just waiting around for people for papers to get signed and then needing enough time to like, get press and artwork and all the elements together.

CN: Right. Now, again, how much of the art is yours and obviously, you had your friend Sean help on the music, so tell me about that.

JG: The drawings, those are all my drawings. My friend, Michael Collins animated them. And in the beginning, the opening title sequence, they were drawn by a great artist called Alejandro Cardenas and Michael Collins animated his graphic skulls and stuff in the titles.

CN: And then the soundtrack says music by Sean.

JG: Yeah.

CN: Obviously, I know he’s your friend. You guys grew up together, right?

JG: Well, I mean, I met him… like, I basically met him a few years before the show that he came to and asked me to open up for him. Which wasn’t like…he’s a sweet guy, so we were…he was really nice and supportive--supportive enough to bring his mom to my first show. But, we weren’t like…I don’t know. He was like an older brother. I was also really aware of him being who he was. Like, it wasn’t…we became really close that summer when we were touring and like, just spending time together, talking, and then he asked me to write songs for him for his next record. Which, I mean, we wrote tons of songs over the next six years, and then he made Friendly Fire and two of the songs are on there.

CN: Right.

JG: You know, in that time, he also played with me. We recorded a lot of stuff together. We wrote quite a lot of babies together. So, I mean, we were, I guess like, I was a teenager when I met him but he was kind of grown up. I guess now that we’re like, adults, it feels like we grew up together.

CN: So, was he the only choice to do music for the film? Um, I mean, he was the only person like, I mean, you know, all of my musician friends would have done an awesome job, but Sean had read the script. Sean had introduced me to Tom Stoppard, and Sean, I felt like, was my first choice for those reasons. And obviously, I just went to him first. And we collaborated on the script together, so I just felt like, as far as us having an understanding about our aesthetic, our taste in music and film, we were on the same page. And then obviously it was… because he had this great home studio set up where he felt comfortable working and it wasn’t far from my house, so it worked well, which was good. And Sean had kind of also always wanted to score films, and I think like, in some ways he was more excited about trying to score a film than like, maybe doing another pop record.

CN: I can understand that.

JG: Yeah, so…

CN: It’s something new and different. Just like when you went into film. I mean, you had studied it, but here on this project you were all absorbed with the film end so why put more on your plate with the music when you have someone who’s so close to you who’s obviously so overly proficient at it.

JG: Yeah! I was too…like, when the whirlwind of the film started, I just… I mean, I could have scored the movie, if I had taken like a fucking six months vacation. Which I could have done... At this point, I realize we didn’t show the film until January 2009 and we filmed it in December 2007. But, at the time we were filming it, I mean, I wasn’t…we were like, “We’re gonna get this in the computer and have it ready by Tribeca.” We thought it was gonna be in festivals. I mean, I didn’t know. The producers were like, “Let’s send it to festivals!” And I mean, it was their second film, too. We were beginners. But I loved working with Sean and I think collaboration is what makes the film great. There’s unpredictable things that happen and often they have a synergistic effect.

CN: I think so. So you did the music with Sean for the film and now you’re going to be doing a gig with him for your new, newest CD, Search Party. Tell me about the CD.

JG: It’s kind of a part two to Airbrush. They’re from the same time, in fact they might have been one record at one point, but I kind of divided them into two. I think Search Party is a little bit darker. But you know, it’s homemade. It’s a completely homemade record. I recorded it in a dining room, and a kitchen, and my bedroom, and I think to some degree it kind of sounds that way. It sounds kind of cozy and smaller. But, I tried to make it sound good. I don’t know what else I can say about it. I guess I was really inspired by trying… I had written all the songs on acoustic guitar and piano. And I was just trying to arrange that in a way that it felt like the music I was listening to at the time, which was a lot of Serge Gainsbourg and Francoise Hardy and those older references, but also I was also listening to Arcade Fire and Rufus Wainwright. I’m always listening to Rufus Wainwright. And I guess in a way, I hadn’t thought of this, as it’s just occurring to me now, but it was kind of a reaction to like, having to record all these sort of like, disco-rock-pop songs with Domino. I mean, some of the songs on Airbrush and Search Party were songs that we were playing with Domino. And I just, I sometimes felt like we were overcompensating and making it sound too like high energy, when really the songs needed to feel a little bit spooky and mysterious.

CN: So, this is more of a scaling back, then, a little more minimalist, I guess. Did you find it freeing, though?

JG: Yeah. One-hundred percent.

CN: I find that funny in a way, that you mention Serge Gainsbourg and all that because you probably don’t even remember this, but the night I came to see you with Domino at Mercury Lounge I was actually vastly overdressed because I was going to a release party at Plumm for some new Serge Gainsbourg music releases.

JG: Wow!

CN: Isn’t that funny? [laughing]

JG: It all circles back. [laughing]

CN: It’s all connected. On some level, it’s all connected. You just don’t realize it.