The Untitled Interview #8: Starring Will Canzoneri (Darker My Love)

My oh my how I do love me some Darker My Love. Chances are, if you’re reading this, you will too. Over the course of two albums they’ve honed a nice little sound indeed, all retrosexual with lots of fuzz and soul, soul, soul. And they sure do sound like California, though at this point that can mean so many things (most likely involving sun-related adjectives) I’ll let you interpret that as you will.

The thing you need to glean, my friends, is that Darker My Love is dynamite. They are also touring with the one and only Dandy Warhols, which is a cause for joy if ever there was one. Go and see them in your citay, I know I’ll be seeing them on September 22 (and yes, it is in fact marked on my calendar) at the 9:30 Club. In the spirit of the recent release of their second album, 2, and their potentially Bacchanalian tour with the Dandys, I contacted Camp Darker and was gifted with the following from lovely Will Canzoneri, he of much keyboard-tickling. Read on, and go to the show. As ever, you can thank me later.

Les Enfants Terribles: How the hell are you?
Will Canzoneri: Mortified.

LET: What was the last song you listened to?
WC: Well, right now I'm listening to this record by a band called Jelly. I found it in the dollar bin at Amoeba. It's from 1977. You know Amy Madigan, the actress? You know, the mom from “Uncle Buck”. Turns out she was a singer before all that, in a slick-ass late 70's L.A. Rickie Lee Jones/Nicolette Larson kinda studio thing. Tom Scott-arranged horns, cream-of-the-session-player crop. I picked it up because she looked real cute, and then I realized it was her. This is the only time I'll ever listen to it.

LET: What album most made you realize that you wanted to make music?
WC: All Summer Long by The Beach Boys. Probably the album cover more than the music. It looked like endless fun, frolicking on the beach with your bros and some babes in California. I was 9. Turns out, of course, I was right.

LET: Beatles or Stones?
WC: Really? One or the other?

LET: What're your top 5 albums (of this minute, this year, or ever)?
WC: Of lately:
Beau Brummels / Bradley's Barn
The Chills / Kaleidoscope World
NRBQ / Tiddlywinks
Rotary Connection / Aladdin
Dennis Wilson / Pacific Ocean Blue

LET: Favorite music-related movie?
WC: What's that old Richard Dreyfuss movie where he's an angsty classical pianist and he gets laid by his hot archrival in his motel room? Yeah, that one.

LET: What city or venue would you like to play, but haven't yet been to?
WC: Europe. That's a city, right?

LET: What's your favorite song to perform in concert?
WC: Our cover of Can's "Mother Sky," which we don't seem to play anymore.

LET: Half-full or half-empty?
WC: Whatever it was, I drank it.

LET: Apart from your band, of course, who among your peers do you think is making the best music these days?
WC: There's a guy here in LA we know named Aaron Embry who has a project with his wife, among others, called Amnion. Rob and I first saw him when he was playing keys for Daniel Lanois a few months ago, and we got them to play with us at our record release show here at the Troubadour. Amnion is my musical wet dream. I mean, literally, it's that amazing, perfect-in-every-way shit I hear in my dreams that I can't put together in my waking life. That show was the first time I'd seen ‘em live, and they fully infiltrated me in a way I haven't been in a good 5 years or so. I'd say it's kind of a cross between Donny Hathaway's live album and the New Radicals, with the songwriting intelligence quotient upped by 5. And if you haven't copped to the fact that New Radicals did some really sweet shit, then Amnion might not be for you.

LET: What's the first thing you think when you wake up in the morning?
WC: I shoulda gotten up earlier.

LET: The greatest record store in the world is:
WC: Can't deny that it's Amoeba.

LET: What's the longest flight you've ever been on?
WC: The longest I was on a plane was when I flew Continental from Boston to Phoenix. We had a stop in Cleveland, where it was sleeting, and I was stuck on the plane at the gate for - I kid you not - 7 hours. 7 hours of "we should be pushing off from the gate any minute now." They wouldn't let us off, and they wouldn't feed us. Nothing. Stale-ass air, miserable passengers, deadbeat flight attendants... and I got nothing for it.

LET: This one's for Rob. What's your favorite and least favorite thing about Richmond, and why did you leave?
WC: I'm putting Rob on speakerphone here:
"I actually lived in Midlothian, which is just outside Richmond... but I used to love going to the Richmond Braves games when I was younger... I saw a lot of great players play before they were in the majors. Worst thing is the humidity. The reason I left was cause my dad got a new job in Massachusetts. I then got made fun of for saying "yes ma'am" and "yes sir" to all my teachers so I conformed to a "wicked vocab" after that."

LET: You are all about to embark on a nation-wide tour with the Dandy Warhols. Please list five words describing what the experience of this tour could be like.
WC: Courtney Taylor-Taylor-Taylor-Taylor.

LET: If you could share the stage with any musician, living or dead, who would it be, and how come?
WC: I dunno, probably some Beach Boy. Pick one.

LET: Shaken or stirred?
WC: I've always wondered if I'd start drinking martinis when I'm older.

LET: Best song ever written?
WC: The chorus to Billy Joel's "The Stranger." The sheer skin-crawling awfulness of the verse - so sleazy and plain bad it makes you feel like the slimiest slime ball piece-of-shit there ever was - makes the chorus sound like the pinnacle of human achievement.