Caribou

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On May 5th I had the privilege to sit down with DJ/electronic musician Caribou (born Daniel Victor Snaith) and discovered a world full of numbers and musical beats.

CONFRONT: Hi Daniel

DANIEL: Hi Judith

CONFRONT: thanks for giving us some time in your very busy touring schedule and allowing us to have an interview

DANIEL: no problems, it’s our pleasure

CONFRONT: Great, so first I would like to start by explain to you what we are. Well our magazine is called CONFRONT magazine. We are an online music magazine that some friends and I started almost four years ago. We want to bring music to the world!

DANIEL: this is awesome

CONFRONT: let me start with some fun questions we ask all of our interviewees, we call them the CONFRONT questions!

DANIEL: cool, cool

CONFRONT: What would be the first and the last CD you remember buying?

DANIEL: the fist and the last… the first, I personally bought…

CONFRONT: yes

DANIEL: I spend money on… I think it most have been a Pink Floyd album or it might have been a Yes. For sure it was one of those two! I was fascinated by all the track mastering stuff when I was a teenager.

CONFRONT: cool

DANIEL: and the most recent one would be a vinyl… and I bought this 12 inches by an artist name Iconika

CONFRONT: cool and what would be the first and last concert you remember attending… but as a fan of course?

DANIEL: I didn’t really go to concerts when I was a kid…

CONFRONT: could be concerts you attended as a teenager too

DANIEL: oh yeah ok… well I come from outside Hamilton, so it would have been Tristan Psionic and the more recent one… wow well  I’ve seen more people Djing then actual concerts

CONFRONT: DJs are awesome, which DJ have you seen spin live recently?

DANIEL: one of the recent ones would be Ricardo Villalobos at Fabric a little one ago

CONFRONT: Great, I’ll make sure to check it out! So if we go to our next question J I know that by calling it a guilty pleasure, it makes it sound like we don’t have to right to like that specific type of music… I would describe it more a something that your fan would not expect you to like! So do you have any guilty pleasures musically?
DANIEL: I’m a bit fan of all the pop trance type of stuff. Like taking a Supertramp song and speeding it up and making it very trance vibe. I love that kind of stuff.

CONFRONT: wow sounds very different, would love to hear that.

So let’s get to the serious stuff…you went from studying maths to doing electronic music…what made you decide?

DANIEL: well as far back as I can remember I’ve done both, it was never a one or the other decision for me, both math and music have been part of my life since I can remember. I grew up surrounded by mathematic, my parents were mathematicians but also they were interested in music and played music themselves.

CONFRONT: so yeah for you it’s never been one or the other…

DANIEL: exactly, except that now I’ve actually made a choice… because I don’t do maths anymore…

CONFRONT: for sure… what would be you influences musically?

DANIEL: the very first influence would be all the soulful artists from back in the 60’s and 70’s like Cold Train and Marshall Allen who I got to play with recently in a festival and this was like a dream come true for me

CONFRONT: of course WOW!

DANIEL: I know  technically we’re not suppose to meet our heros but he was just so amazing at 85 years of age.

CONFRONT: of course this much have been such an experience

DANIEL: yeah

CONFRONT: You once said in an interview that you’re “not the type of person who takes physical things apart and plays around with them, but [you] like taking mental ideas apart and playing with them. That’s what appeals to [you] about what [you’ve] spent you’re life doing!” Does this represent you’re way of making music? What made you want to do music?

DANIEL: yeah

CONFRONT: do you have a process when it comes to writing, doing music?

DANIEL: no not at all, that what I mean by playing around with ideas and making them into something.

CONFRONT: this is great. Most people who don’t really know you will ask… how did you come up with Caribou as a stage name?

DANIEL:  well how… I was on tour in the prairies, and one time we sat in the field and took acid…next to the highway and that’s when the name struck me…

CONFRONT:  this is a cool story. There is a lot of DJ’s out there…do you have any advice for your fans? Or even just for regular kids who do want to do music for a living? Make their own beats?

DANIEL: I’ve always said, do what you love doing and keep doing it constantly! Work hard at it. I think also one think important is to be original, be your own DJ, don’t try to mirror you’re favourite DJ. Try to catch people’s attention.

CONFRONT: Last but not least, what would you want your legacy to be…

DANIEL: I’m not doing this for it to be around in a long time from now… I’m just doing this because I love it. I know I might be naïve but I feel like I’d love to leave an impression that I was a great person, that I’ve had great friendships. Music is a bonus in my life

CONFRONT: great! Thank you so much for your time

DANIEL: thank you

If you’d like to learn more about Caribou you can check him out at:

www.myspace.com/cariboumanitoba