Semi Staccato: An Interview with Louisahhh!!!

January 5, 2009 4:33 PM
by Pete Tremblay

Cooljunkie takes some time with ½ of the Female DJ Duo Staccato, Louisahhh!!! to talk about Unicorn Wrangling, Garbage, and being an ambassador for the true art of Music.

Cooljunkie: How was your new years eve?

Louisahhh!!!: My New Years Eve was…humbling. Kicked off ’09 by spinning a private event. The guests kept requesting Top 40 Hip Hop, which isn’t really ‘what I do.’ It’s important for me to remember that this is a service industry, though, and to be able to compromise with a crowd. After that I somehow ended up at an amazing loft party where half of the people were just obliterated on drugs and alcohol and the other half were totally clean and sober. This seemed to make no difference in the level of enthusiasm and insanity that was being exhibited. Everyone was raging equally hard (in a good way).

CJ: Which DJ/Electronic Act first caught your ear in a major and inspiring way? Who (or which band) really blew your mind when growing up?

Louisahhh!!!: Ah, this is kind of an embarrassing answer to a great question. I kind of want to lie to seem ‘cool’, but I seriously owe everything to the bands and artists that taught me to love music and the craft of DJing. Growing up, my favorite band was Garbage. That obsession opened the door to past masters like the Pretenders, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Patti Smith…a lot of strong female role models. In terms of dance music and DJing, Josh Wink, Green Velvet, Tiga, Felix da Housecat, Mylo, Soulwax and Jacques Lu Cont were my first heroes.

CJ: In your bio it says that you began expressing yourself musically with “real instruments.” Which ones do you play? What are the major differences for you between natural instruments and Electronic equipment as far as being able to express yourself? Do you feel the same connection to music through both mediums?

Louisahhh!!!: I took piano lessons starting at age seven for almost a decade, and started playing guitar when I was 14. I also studied quite a bit of music theory in college. This education was essential in developing an ear for rhythm and tonality in DJing, made it a kind of non-issue. Similarly, this was very important in instilling an idea of form and structure into the music I make and the sets I play. While a lot of the emotion surrounding these two mediums is similar and the joy I feel while DJing and playing an instrument is the same (one of the reasons I love working as part of Staccato so much is that it feels like a band, I get to vibe off of my counterpart), it feels like working with recorded music, appropriating it, using it to educate and elevate…this takes some of the pressure off and cures the self conscious stage-fright I feel when playing an instrument in front of others. I also find the intellectual process is a lot more complex as a DJ – it has to be, in order to keep things interesting and challenging!

CJ: When did you start playing music?

Louisahhh!!!: As said, a formal musical education has been part of my life from a young age. My dad is in the music business and is a true lover and connoisseur of all kinds of sound. It has been a point of connection for us since I can remember. Music has always been an integral part of life, a means of expression and relation.

CJ: Do you remember your first gig? What was it like?

Louisahhh!!!: It was absolutely retarded. It took place at Bar 11 (now the Annex in New York City) with my friend Nico, playing songs to our pack of dancing comrades. A lot of what we did was in terrible taste, I know “Magic Dance” (Bowie and the muppets) and “Wannabe” (Spice Girls) were both played at some point in the night. I remember that it was addictive, infectious, super fun.

CJ: What would you be doing if you weren’t a musician?

Louisahhh!!!: Taming unicorns. It’s actually my side-project.

CJ: What kind of emotions are you trying to share/inspire with/in the audience when you are putting together a set list for the night?

Louisahhh!!!: I think Stephen Bush put it best when he instructed me to ‘kill them softly and bring them back to life’. Generally, I try and put the music first, to do it justice. It is about being a channel for the love and joy I feel from this music, not about playing god; the Art, not the Artist.

CJ: Your sound has been defined as 'Minimax Acid Disco House' (according to your bio) How do you describe your sound? What musical elements do you tend to lean towards when spinning Solo?

Louisahhh!!!: While Staccato has a pretty consistent sound/feel, I think I tend to be a little more diverse when I work alone. ‘Minimax’ refers to the fact that my sound (and that of Staccato) incorporates equal parts big room house and minimal techno. The ‘Acid Disco House’ is pretty self explanatory. The emphasis changes depending on the gig, or what I’m personally excited about, musically, but those elements seem to be good adjectives for describing what I do.

CJ: Your bio also mentions you have intention on producing more original tracks. What is your creative process like? Do you ever play any natural instruments in your original compositions?

Louisahhh!!!: Right now, all of the writing and composing we’re doing is digital, though I really admire the work of contemporary ‘electronic’ artists who use organic sounds (immediately Holy Ghost comes to mind). It makes a huge difference. Alas, based on time and space and funds at the moment, we’re working with what we have. It’s been interesting and challenging learning to make music with computers because the process is so vastly different then writing with, say, a guitar. It’s good though, employs new and different thinking.

CJ: Let’s talk about Staccato. How’d you meet Gina? How did you start working together?

Louisahhh!!!: Gina and I met on my birthday in 2007. I was still in rehab. We played a gig together and the last song I played, she had already cued up as her first track (it was the Thin White Duke remix of “What Else is There”). Subsequently, we threw a weekly party together (it was awful) and eventually started working at Turntable Lab together. When Staccato was born, accidentally, Axwell was playing and it rained glitter and balloons. True story.

CJ: Why did you choose Staccato as a project name?

Louisahhh!!!: In our work as a duo, we try to appropriate classical forms and structures in both our sets and our original compositions. Staccato is a musical term meaning ‘detatched’ or ‘separate’. It’s a bit ironic, as we are, duh, a duo, but working as a single entity.

CJ: How would you define Staccato’s Sound?

Louisahhh!!!: Futuristic Sound Futuristic Sounds Futuristic Sounds

CJ: Musically/performance wise, how is Staccato different from your solo stuff?

Louisahhh!!!: I tend to get alternately darker and harder OR bouncey disco when I play alone…There is a lot more flexibility based on where I’m at personally when I play. Staccato is pretty consistent, musically – the sonic evolution is a lot slower and less bi-polar. Because there are two of us, technically we can get a lot more complex then either of us does solo, ride mixes for a lot longer, pay more attention to EQs and effects.

CJ: In Staccato, are there defined roles (musically, promotion wise etc) in the group between you and Gina?

Louisahhh!!!: Gina is the aggressive managerial type, she deals with bookings and handles our relationships with promoters. I am more laid back when it comes to the business side of things. Musically, she plays along housier lines while I tend to get a bit darker and more techy. We both sing along.

CJ: What are you excited about for 2009? Anything in the works for Staccato?

Louisahhh!!!: We have some pretty exciting gigs coming up in the beginning of this year! I think we’re going to be at Avalon in LA with Drop the Lime on January 9th. Then I have a mini solo East Coast tour. We are holding Major in San Francisco at the end of the month and February should bring us back to Monterrey, Mexico. At some point we are going to be working in the studio, hopefully. Stay tuned!

Click here to hear more from Louisahhh!!!