DRAGONETTE… Canadian electronic band

Dragonette is a amazing, Canadian electronic band from Toronto, Ontario, formed in the 2005. The band consists of singer-songwriter Martina Sorbara, bassist-producer Dan Kurtz and drummer Joel Stouffer.

Martina Sorbara and Dan Kurtz met at a Canadian music festival and formed a duo named The Fuzz, making music together in their basement recording studio for fun. The duo formed Dragonette after these initial recordings, and supported New Order on only their second live performance.

Dragonette have collaborated with several house DJs for releases, to varying degrees of success. Although Basement Jaxx’s 2006 song’’Take Me Back to Your House’’ only featured Sorbara on vocals,it was promoted by the band.

The band have since recorded several tracks with French DJ M.Solveig including the songs ‘’Boys & Girls’’(2009),’’Hello’’(2010),‘’Can’t Stop’’ and ‘’Big in Japan’’in 2011. All of these tracks appear on Solveig’s 2011 album ‘’Smash’’.

Solveig and Dragonette won the Juno Award for Dance Recording of the Year for the song ‘’Hello’’ in April 2012.

Dragonette released a self-titled EP in 2005 before being signed to Mercury Records and relocating to London where they recorded and released their debut studio album ‘’Galore’’(2007),to moderate critical appreciation. A second studio album ‘’Fixin to Thrill’’(2009).The group’s third album ’’Bodyparts’’(2012)

‘’Royal Blues’’ (2016)is the fourth brightness studio album by Canadian electropop band Dragonette, all the songs (13) were written and produced by Martina Sorbara Dan Kurtz and Joel Stouffer.

Interview with MARTINA SORBARA

ATHENS CALLING. Hello Martina! We are happy to meet you and we would like you to know that we love the music of Dragonette. In fact, how we can characterize your music… Electronic? New wave? Synthpop? or something else?

MARTINA. I guess the broadest definition of our music would be Pop. But if we want to get more specific maybe we’re alternative electro pop? Seems like almost all pop music is electro now though… so maybe just Alt pop….

ATHENS CALLING. It is December 2016 and ‘’Royal Blues’’ is the title of Dragonette’s new album. How did you come up with the title of this album?

MARTINA.Royal Blues came from opening an old notebook I had. On a page I had written “royal blues” and ‘boots and shoes”. I can’t remember why I had written those things down because the notebook was very old. But those words inspired the song “Royal Blues” and I thought that was a great album name as well.

ATHENS CALLING. How much time did you need to prepare ‘’Royal Blues’’?

MARTINA.It took a long time to write. A lot of traveling and a lot of digging into ourselves. We explored the new process of writing with other people which is a very delicate thing. It takes a while to get into it but it is very rewarding to experience other creative processes. And that exploration lead us to many other fruitful collaborations with other artists as well.

ATHENS CALLING. 13 lovely songs are on ‘’Royal Blues.’’ Which one of the 13 songs is your favorite?

MARTINA.I have many different favourites for different reasons. I love singing “Body 2 Body” live. But I love “Royal Blues” too. “Detonate” and “Future Ghost” I’m very proud of as well.

ATHENS CALLING. ‘’Let the Night Fall” is the title of the first song on the album. Can you tell us about the story of this song?

MARTINA.That song is telling the story of one of those first warm spring days where everybody is out on the streets and letting the day take them where it takes them. There’s at least one of those days for me every year. No plans, just gorgeous wandering.

ATHENS CALLING. Another song with fantastic music and Martina’s amazing vocals is ’’Body 2 Body’’… What is the story here between the man and the woman?

MARTINA.It’s the story of being trapped in love with someone. Where you can’t pull away from them and you can’t stick together. It’s a repeating cycle… not wanting to lose the other person and not being able to commit to them either.

ATHENS CALLING. One of our past favorite songs is “Boys & Girls,” a song recorded by French DJ and record producer Martin Solveig featuring the Dragonette. Tell us about Martin Solveig, the story of the song, and about your collaboration with him?

MARTINA.We met Martin on tour in Australia. He told us that he had been spinning our track “Fixin To Thrill” and that he’d love to collaborate some day. Not long after that he was in touch with an idea for the song “Boys and Girls.” Since then we’ve written many songs together.

ATHENS CALLING. Returning to ‘’Royal Blues,’’ we want to know in which cases does one have ‘’sweet poison’’?

MARTINA.When you desire the thing that’s bad for you. The thing that feels good but is deadly.

ATHENS CALLING. Now we would like to know if you plan to come to Greece anytime soon to give a concert for the Greek people?

MARTINA.We would love to come to Greece! We’ll come as soon as we can. It’s such an amazing country. I just salivated thinking about eating greek food.
Lets make it happen.

ATHENS CALLING.Many many thanks for the interview Martina, and give all our love to the other members of Dragonette Band.

MARTINA.Thank you!