DB Clifford

DB: How are you?

CONFRONT: I’m pretty good actually, thanks for asking.

DB: I’m sorry what is this for?

CONFRONT: The name of our magazine is Confront Magazine; we are a new online magazine with a very specific purpose.  Our motto is Dare, Defy, Provoke.

DB: I like that.

CONFRONT: Actually it is Dare to Listen, Defy the Stereotypes and Provoke Change.

DB: Well, that is just wonderful.

CONFRONT: Basically what we want to be doing is we want to make sure we allow the mainstream to evolve and we want to be one step forward and make sure our readers are aware of all the music styles that are out there.

DB: That’s what I’m for too, so we’ll work very well together then. Wonderful.

CONFRONT: Talking about mainstream, what would be your definition of mainstream today?

DB: Whoa, that’s a vast question…well do you want me to be like talking about a specific style, or…?

CONFRONT: The way you want to go!

DB: Well, for me what mainstream is, is what media decides mainstream to be.  Right now, it’s like Justin Timberlake and Fergie and all of that stuff, but luckily we are in a world where mainstream can only come from what isn’t mainstream like me and smaller bands, so hopefully in about five to ten years, what is mainstream now will be a thing of the past and there will be a lot of new stuff around.  Who knows…? I might be mainstream…

CONFRONT: For sure.

DB: But there is nothing wrong with mainstream though.

CONFRONT: Of course not.

DB: And I think that what’s mainstream now, probably ten to fifteen years ago would have been considered really weird and different so, I’m glad to see that there has been an evolution.

CONFRONT: That’s the reason why we’re here right!

CONFRONT: So now the questions I’m asking you are questions that we consider being our Confront questions, they’re question we ask all of our interviewees.

DB: Cool.

CONFRONT: So here we go, first and last CD bought?

DB: Oh, the first CD that I bought, was Nirvana ‘Nevermind’ and the last one that I got… oh wow…

CONFRONT: It can be something you got on iTunes, or even something that was given to you.

DB: Oh ok…well the last CD that is recent, that I would have bought if it had not been given to me, was Ron Sexsmith’s new album.  Which I’ve come to be a big fan of.

CONFRONT: Of course.

CONFRONT: And what would be your first and last concert attended as a fan?

DB: Right, first concert that was really memorable, was Jamiroquai, and I can give you the date because it was my mom’s birthday, December 14th, 1994 in Bordeaux, France, and it was on the Space Cowboy tour and I was just blow away.  I just could not believe that that band existed, and I would not be where I am, if it wasn’t for that band, for sure.

CONFRONT: Obviously.

DB: And the last gig I attended was Justin Timberlake, I got free tickets for it…

CONFRONT: And you liked it?

DB: Yeah I thought it was good, I mean I’m not really into that kind of music, I’m more of a musician music kind of guy… so you know his band is very generic, they play what they’re told to play, but I mean I thought he was really good he has a lot of charisma, and he is an amazing dancer so…and he is very humble which is cool.  You know like he actually made a little speech saying that he is kind of aware that this is a chance in a life time so I thought this was pretty cool…

CONFRONT: Great, thank you.

CONFRONT: So now what would be your guilty pleasure musically?

DB: OH…to be honest with you, Justin Timberlake’s new album is kind of my guilty pleasure right now, because I would never normally listen to that but it’s so well produced and that’s why I listen to it, it’s because of the production, I think Timbaland is just a genius, so that’s kind of my guilty pleasure at the moment, I know it won’t last very long though because I get sick of that kind of stuff pretty quick so.

CONFRONT: What would be some of your guilty pleasures in the past?

DB: Oh wow, there’s a lot… well the other day I downloaded on iTunes Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World”, it’s just so corny, but I used to love that song.  So I guess, I have so many, it would be tough for me to choose.

CONFRONT: You were raised in France and England. Born in France from an English mother…You were said to be a child prodigy of piano early on and then you went on to play drums, bass, guitar, saxophone, you went to a music school in Bordeaux, France…Talk to me about that time in your life, being at music school, how was it for you?  Did you like it??  It was in France obviously, do you speak fluent French?

DB: It’s my first language actually.

CONFRONT: Oh me too.

DB: C’est bon.

DB: I grew up wanting to be, you know that series FAME on TV.

CONFRONT: Oh Yeah.

DB: As a kid I wanted to be in that school.  That’s what I wanted to be, and you know growing up, it turned out that I’m not a very good dancer, you know I don’t live in the Bronx on anything so…the CIAM, which is the name of that music school I went to in Bordeaux, kind of became my priority, because at first I thought of going to Berkley in the states, or at least do it in France, so that was two wonderful years of my life.  I was surrounded by musicians, I was playing music all day long, and weirdly enough the first year I was there (I was there for two years) I did not tell anyone I was a drummer because I knew that if I did, there is always a shortage of drummers, so I knew that if I did I was going to end up way too busy.  But the next year around I did a gig with a band I was playing with at the time as a drummer, so they all found out I was a drummer.  So as I expected the last year I was way too busy…but it was two wonderful years of my life.
You know I grew up in a country with nothing else to do but play music all day long so I spent from the age of twelve to nowadays, recording songs all the time and producing stuff and arranging it by myself.  The first thing I did must have been very crappy, but whatever you know.

CONFRONT: It’s a great thing and then you moved on after?

DB: Yeah when I was in the CIAM, I was in a local band playing drums and the bass player of that band turned out to be one of my best friend, and him and I had a little band called Supernova, and we did a demo pretty much in a barn, that we recorded super low file, you know just like having fun and then it turned out that a year later all these labels in the states wanted to sign us, which is kind of incredible, coming from a small village in France.  We get flown out first class and next thing you know we’re having lunch with Dr. Dre and Lionel Richie.

CONFRONT: WOW

DB: It was kind of crazy and for us we were like ‘Whoa!  What’s going on?’ you know.  Anyways, then we got signed on Interscope, which we did not know at the time, but turned out to be the biggest record label in the world.

CONFRONT: Yeah.

DB: And unfortunately that was kind of the end of that, because as soon as they signed us, nothing really happened, they let us run for a couple years, and that’s kind of how I came down to Victoria, and then my mom died about a month after that, so I mean that was kind of the beginning of everything.  If it wasn’t for that first experience in the States, I don’t think I’d be where I am right now.  So I’m not at all, upset or bitter about it all, if anything I’m glad it happened the way it did.

CONFRONT: Well that’s a great, because if anything you’ve learned from it right?

DB: Exactly, I feel like it’s kind of the basis now, you need to kind of have this first bad experience so…I’m glad.

CONFRONT: Great.

CONFRONT: You recorded your first demo in 2000 and right now the new album is coming out very soon, ‘RECYCLABLE’.  How do you feel you’ve evolved as a musician?

DB: Let’s just say, as you said yourself, the first one was a demo, I think that one thing that I learned and that was a big issue, is that because it was a demo the label in the States wanted us to redo it, and honestly, like if you’ve ever done any recording, the first recording whether you like it or not is always the best one. You can not re-record a song.

CONFRONT: Yeah.

DB: It just does not sound as good, the magic is not there anymore, some people might agree with me but whatever… and so the one thing I learned was that if you’re going to do it, do it final and do it well, so this album that I did by myself, I went in there not thinking it’s a demo, it’s an album, I’m going to lock myself up for six months and I’m going to do an album, and that’s what I did, and that’s what’s coming out on the album, which is like 95% of exactly what I recorded at first.

CONFRONT: That’s great, that makes you feel good as a musician…

DB: It’s wonderful, yeah and as a producer, and as a writer because that’s exactly what my vision was…

CONFRONT: So now signing with Sony/BMG, of course you signed with the Canadian side of the label, this must have been a great step for you, or did you feel bittersweet because of the whole Interscope incident?

DB: Not at all.  I mean, I learned so much from that first experience, I’ve learned that you don’t sign with the people that will give you the most money, but with the people that love your project the most.  Sony/BMG Canada, as much as it is a big name and a big label, it’s still the Canadian branch, so it does have a indie kind of spirit which I think is wonderful because it means, they have to be creative, they can’t just, you know, blow money out the window, because they can, which is what they do in the States most of the time, unfortunately.  So when I signed with them I knew, that ‘Ok, this is the best of both worlds’, because I’ve got the name behind me and the prestige of being with a big label, but all these people are going to have to be very devoted to this project and I know they would only sign me if they got the album, so that’s why I signed with them.  And I did have offers from big labels, in the States that were you know, offering me a lot of money and stuff and I didn’t do it because didn’t want to do it that way.

CONFRONT: As long as you’re happy with your decision and it works out, that’s the principal thing.

DB: Exactly.

CONFRONT: Your new album is as you described it, ‘opinionated, romantic and naïve’…can you develop on that?

DB: Well basically the idea was that, well obviously, there is two parts to writing a song, there is the music part, and there are the lyrics.  For a musician like me, who has been doing music since the age of 5, that’s never an issue.  I can come up with bloody chords all day long and beats all day long, that’s easy.  Writing lyrics on the other hand, is more of a challenge, that’s why I came up with those three words, because I thought, what do I want to be, what do I want these lyrics to express.  Opinionated obviously, because I want to talk about stuff like religion, life, death and everything in between.  Romantic, because I can’t help it, I love love and you know my mom died before I did this album so there was a lot of love involved in that.  And I’m just a romantic guy I mean I can’t help it, just look at me (he points to his wedding ring).  And finally naïve because, I think, that my ideas and my concepts are very naïve in a lot of way, because they only function in a certain kind of world.  So I guess these three words kind of make sense to me, I actually wrote them on a piece of paper and stuck it on my screen and that was my guideline, if ever I was in doubt, if what I was writing worked with these three words, it works with the album.

CONFRONT: Great, I love this concept.

CONFRONT: The first concert you said you attended was Jamiroquai, your voice on some of your songs has been compared to their sound.  Obviously they’ve been an influence for you, but tell me are they the only ones who have influenced you?

DB: Well the thing is that Jamiroquai was kind of the gateway into music for me.  In a sense when I discovered Jamiroquai, I discovered through them Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Weather Report, you know big names like that, all of the older stuff that they have been influenced by.  They made me discover new stuff I did not know about, by who they had been influenced.  And now when I listen back to them, I realize that I do prefer the older stuff because it was more genuine and real, but they were a huge eye opener for me so.

CONFRONT: Your song “Simple Things” is very inspiring and it is said that the lyrics were inspired by the Sound of Music song “Favorite Things”.  What would be some of your favorite simple things in life that bring you back to reality?

DB: Well I like very, very simple things.  I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs, and so for me simple thing are good company, like my wife and my dad, having a cup of coffee with a friend, that’s always going to cheer me up.  Or I like watching a good movie, that I’ve seen a million times before…and you know I’m a cancer so I love having my nest, I feel safe at home, listening to music or watching a movie, or reading a book or cooking, I’m all about the food.

CONFRONT: Well we have one fan question.

DB: Oh cool.

CONFRONT: Samantha, who is from Montreal, she heard the songs “About a Girl” and “Give me Another Day”, songs all about love, and she was wondering, what inspired you to write these, because as she was explaining in her e-mail, for her these emotions are not easy to express so she wants to know how you do it?

DB: Well I don’t really know, to me it’s all about the music first, I’m always inspired by a chord or something like that, it’s a process from there to writing lyrics about specific feelings.

CONFRONT: You have a MySpace page.  How do you feel about this relationship with your fans?  Do you feel it’s too much or do you feel it’s a good thing?  How do you feel about that?

DB: Well to me MySpace is great, because you can put a face to yours fans, or people that like what you’re doing, because I don’t really like the word fan…so I think that’s brilliant, for me the only difficult part is to keep up with all the comments and messages when I’m on the road…but that’s just a technicality but I think it’s a great concept.

CONFRONT: Thanks.  One last question because we’re running out of time here… what would you want your legacy to be?

DB: I’m only going to be making three albums.  I hope people will stop comparing my stuff to others and I hope those three albums will represent my musical broadness and then I want to move on to other things because there is so much more to do than pop music…

CONFRONT: You want to explore other avenues.

DB: Exactly.

CONFRONT: Well thanks a lot, this was great.

DB: Well no, thank you, this was nice.