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Arts & Music

Gimme Five! Django Haskins of The Old Ceremony

It’s hard enough playing music in front of people without having to wonder if they understand a single word you’re saying—but don’t bother explaining that little quandary to Django Haskins.

It’s hard enough playing music in front of people without having to wonder if they understand a single word you’re saying—but don’t bother explaining that little quandary to Django Haskins.  Adventuring after graduating from college, this Florida-native found himself cutting teeth as a songwriter playing shows in Hangzhou, China and that feeling of being lost in translation was all too immediate.  With words suddenly so insignificant, melody and rhythm and tone and instrumentation became the most important expressions.  It was an accidental lesson, but an important one. He went over a songwriter; he left a budding arranger.

It’s been several years since Haskins’ Chinese escapades, but any passing listen to the complex and textured aural landscape of The Old Ceremony intimates how important that translation-gap was to his musical mindset. As figurehead and lead songwriter of The Old Ceremony, Haskins, along with bassist Matt Brandau, drummer Dan Hall, vibes/organist Mark Simonsen, and violinist/keyboardist Gabriele Pelli, conjures music that hinges on some pop-noir aesthetic.  It bleeds jazz affectations into atmospheric Brit invasion inspired expanses.  The deliberate theatrics of their arrangements pair with murky, affecting lyrics and undeniable hooks.  It’s a precarious balance that perhaps inspired the name of their most recent album, Walk on Thin Air, and you can watch them tiptoe that line this Friday, April 23rd, at the Cat’s Cradle, where they’ll be joined by Benji Hughes.

Now just the new ritual questions for ye old ceremonial leader:

1. If your band were a member of New Kids on the Block, who would it be?

Well, we all like to hope that never happens, but if we had to be a member of NKoTB in order to save the lives of terminally-ill orphans on the Titanic, we’d be Mark Wahlberg because he’s the one who erased his New Kids past most effectively. Plus he got to deck Matt Damon in The Departed.

[editor’s note 1: The editor would like to point out that she thought everybody knew that Donnie was a New Kid and Mark was the leader of the Funky Bunch. “Come on, come on! Feel it! Feel it!” The editor wonders if maybe this is just a ruse so that Mr. Haskins does not have to admit having a NKOTB poster above his bed…]

[editor’s note 2: After pointing out the common knowledge of “note 1” to Mr. Haskins, he replied with reference to Mark Wahlberg’s wikipedia page which clarifies that although later replaced by Joey, “Mark, at age thirteen, had been one of the group’s original members.”  Mr. Haskins did not, however, make any clarification on the existence of said NKOTB poster above his bed.]

2. What do you want this band to be when it grows up?

Asking a musician what he wants to be when he grows up is like asking Yul Brynner what kind of shampoo he favors; there’s an assumption that musicians intend to grow up at all. To answer your question, we wanna be a firefighter.

3. Describe your feelings about Montreal and  Philadelphia cream cheese.

Well, the Montreal Cream Cheese Fiasco is part of a larger, sadder tale, but the short version is that I like Philadelphia cream cheese. When we were last in Montreal, I got a half-dozen Montreal bagels (which are incredible) and a tub of Philly cream cheese to take along on the next leg of the tour. But the Quebecois hold a long-standing disdain for anything other than local cream cheese, so when they smashed the window of our van, stole my laptop and iPod, along with my bag of bagels, they purposefully left the Philly cream cheese (they had to actually remove it from the bag they took) as a silent comment. It’s not every day that a felon also criticizes your dairy choices.

4. Who/what might be a few inspirations or influences that might really surprise people?

I don’t know if it’s surprising, but I’ve been listening to Fela Kuti, Sun Kil Moon, Serge Gainsbourg, XTC’s English Settlement, Indian classical music, the Pogues, and Paul Simon’s first solo record a lot lately.

Barton Fink also rolls around my mind a lot, especially the scene where Jack Lipnik, the studio head, tears into Barton for making his wrestling screenplay too “fruity.” “Nobody wants to watch a movie about a guy wrestling with his soul! I mean, sure a little bit for the critics. But you’re making it the carrot that wags the horse!…We’re talking about men. In tights. Both literally and figuratively!” Not sure how that influence works its way in to TOC songs, but I’m sure it does somehow.

5. What did you dream of being when you were a kid? (How’d that turn out?)

I dreamed of being taller, since I was five-five until about eleventh grade. It’s turned out okay, though I doubt I’m going to get any taller now.

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Check back for more high fives and head out to Cat’s Cradle this Friday to hear The Old Ceremony throw it down. And by all means, be sure to give Django a high five when you see him!