Interview - Freelance Whales (Philadelphia, PA; Winter 2010)

It’s no secret that we here at melophobe are fans of Freelance Whales—their debut album made its way onto our Top Albums of 2009 list, and we’ve loved seeing them live. Following a show at Kung Fu Necktie in Philadelphia, we had a chance to sit down with lead singer Judah Dadone to talk about signing to a label, busking on the streets of New York City, and the eventful first year of Freelance Whales.

melophobe: How was the tour?

Judah Dadone: It was good. This one was a mini-tour; we just did nine shows in the last ten days. But it was kind of right on the heels of a 7-week full U.S. tour.

melophobe: Right, we caught you in Boston at the end of October—your first gig outside of NY, at Great Scott.

JD: Yeah, with Temper Trap. That was a show that we did five days before the tour started. So technically separate from the tour, but essentially a jumping off point.

melophobe: At that point you hadn’t signed to Frenchkiss/Mom and Pop. I talked to Jake at that show, and he mentioned that you guys were talking to a bunch of different people and shopping around labels before settling on one. What made the eventual decision for you?

JD: We were offered a few different types of deals. We decided to go with a shorter deal that was more artist-friendly and based more around our development. There were two labels that were kind of in that vein, that wanted to work with us in that capacity, and those were Frenchkiss and Mom + Pop. And we really admired the people that worked there. Syd Butler, who plays for Les Savy Fav, founded Frenchkiss, and we really respect the label that he’s put together and how he works with all his artists (and there are people in my band that really love Les Savy Fav). And the same in Michael Goldstone at Mom + Pop Records. They just brought on Tokyo Police Club (we love them a lot, too), and they were able to give us a deal that we thought was very fair and friendly. They kind of communicated, “We want to help you get there.”

melophobe: So are you re-recording stuff from Weathervanes, or remastering anything?

JD: No, no. We’re going to release it as is. But the re-release will have a beautiful storybook—like a wordless storybook that will come along with it. We didn’t want to change too much about it. We certainly didn’t want to look back too much. We know how many people have the record (it’s not that many), so we’d rather take what we’ve done and get it out there to the world without spending too much time to change it.

melophobe: You wrote all of the songs on the record, right?

JD: I wrote all of the proper songs, and then Kevin and Chuck did a couple of the little transitional pieces.

melophobe: And the band met through Craigslist?

JD: Craigslist was part of it. We had all posted demo songs up on MySpace pages and stuff like that, and there was kind of a mutual admiration building. There was my stuff; Doris was making these really fun cute kind of electronic hopscotch songs; Chuck had this really driven kind of punk sort of vocoded pop music. So we all kind of gathered around the demos I was putting together, and they eventually became the songs on Weathervanes.

melophobe: And you started busking those around New York? I hear that a lot about you guys.

JD: We busk a lot. And we’re still starting out. But I think technically we were playing stages first, and then we recognized that we didn’t want to rely on our friends to come out to shows and support us, and that we needed to find some other way to get people to stand in the pit. So we decided that we were going to go out to the streets and go into the subways and play some different renditions of our songs so that people would be forced to hear it. And to put people in a position where if they did like the music, they would have a chance to find it.

We also just started talking about how there isn’t that much glory in playing on a proper stage to ten people, and it’s not really lowering or debasing yourself to stand in the street or the subway and play, especially if you’re playing to 600 people in the course of two hours.

melophobe: And especially if you’re playing songs that you believe in. You’d rather have people standing and listening because they’re interested, not because they’re supposed to sit through the opening band.

JD: Absolutely. I think for us it became a way to get better as a band, and to meet a lot of people really quickly. Seems like pretty much everyone we met in the music industry—people doing music videos, people managing bands, people working in labels—it can all be traced back to someone we met on the street. So for us it was just sort of what worked. And I think that New York bands just have to find what works for them, because the city is just so inundated with bands. So there’s something like that for every band, where they can find some way to stick their neck out there. And that was it for us.

melophobe: What’s next for the Freelance Whales? Are you guys taking some time off? Playing SXSW?

JD: We’re taking the rest of the night off . . . but it’s actually the morning now, so there’s that. We will be playing SXSW. We’ll be touring there and touring the rest of the country after that. But before that, in February, we’ll be going to London and playing some club shows there. Because apparently people have found the music there, which is awesome, and I don’t know how that happened. But people are listening to it. And I’ve never been to London before, so I’m really proud to go there for the first time with a purpose of sharing something. So that’s hopefully what we’ll do in February.

melophobe: Well, congratulations. And thanks for a great show tonight.

JD: Anytime, we really appreciate it.

Some Related Entries:

Interview - Passion Pit (Seattle, WA; Winter, 2009)

Interview - The Acorn (Part 2)

Fanfarlo + Freelance Whales - TT the Bear’s (Cambridge, MA; Dec. 17, 2009)

Freelance Whales - Great Scott (Boston, MA; Oct. 29, 2009)

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