Artist Interviews

Q&A: Dakota

By | Published on Tuesday 25 August 2009

Likened to Keane, The Feeling and Scouting For Girls, Leamington Spa four-piece Dakota have their eyes firmly sighted on mainstream audiences. They’ve even pre-empted their critics by referring to themselves as ‘ponce rock’, but list their influences as Foo Fighters and The Doors, suggesting their might be a bit more of an edge on them than those previously mentioned contemporaries. They released their debut single, ‘Wild Child’, last month, and return later this year with their debut album, ‘Here, There And Everywhere’. You can catch them live at the Water Rats in London tomorrow. We caught up with frontman Ben Talbot to find out more.

Q1 How did you start out making music?
My grandmother was very musical and I grew up listening to her playing music. She taught me to play the piano at three years old.

Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Unfortunately I got my heart broken by an ex-girlfriend. I find that I write from experiences I am going through at the time, and at that time I was broken hearted.

Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
As I said, I get ideas from experiences for lyrics. The music and melodies can come to me at any time anywhere, sometimes at the most strange of places. I just play with ideas and see what turns up.

Q4 Which artists influence your work?
Having grown up in a musical household, I listened to many kinds of music but I would say the bands that have influenced my work the most are Blur, Pulp and The Smiths. I have actually done a cover of one of my favourite Blur songs, ‘To The End’.

Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the same time?
Hopefully sit back, relax and enjoy. The album is very personal to me as all the songs have a very personal story behind them. I would like to think the album is a snapshot of my life at that time.

Q6 What are your ambitions for you latest album, and for the future?
I would like my music to be heard and enjoyed by as many people as possible. It would be great to get success with this album that would enable us to go on and release further albums as I have much more to come! It would also be great to go out and do a bit more touring as I feel as a musician, playing live is what it is all about.

MORE>> www.dakotaband.co.uk



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