How did you find each other to begin your collaboration as Red Light District? Juliette: We met years ago on a Los Angeles based music e-mail list before I even moved to L.A. What’s it like working with each other? Juliette: Shok and I created a few songs together in an informal way, but the catalyst for Red Light District was a burlesque show in which I was booked to sing. I wanted to sing something original and we wrote a song called “Hexes and Moonshine.” That was also the first time we played live together. Shok: We often find a sound or have a single theme and then everything explodes from there. Most of our songs go from zero to completion within a few hours. Then we return later and add some bits or remove the unwanted sections. We tend to laugh lots while working. Having fun collaborating on creative projects is important. Your sound is an interesting mix of the old vaudeville/cabaret sound with a modern twist. How did you come to be influenced by that sound? Do you listen to a lot of music from that era? Who are your favorites? Juliette: As a little girl, I always loved music and movies from the 30’s and 40’s, and I fantasized about being a big band singer. My favorite singer of all time is Mel Torme. Shok: I grew up in a diverse home. My mother had a slew of jazz, funk, and disco albums. My aunt had lots of psychedelic music. My father had a great collection of jazz albums. My grandmother was a performer and Marlene Dietrich impersonator. Some of the artists of the old era who influenced me include Al Bowlly, Ray Noble, Paul Whiteman, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Billie Holiday, most certainly Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe aka Jelly Roll Morton, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Bix Beiderbecke maybe a little bit of The Dorsey Brothers. Quite a few of the folks mentioned here are from Pennsylvania, which is where I was born. What about your current favorites? Juliette: I love Nick Cave, Mono (the Japanese one), and too many others to list. I tend to listen to a lot of trip-hop and downtempo. Ever since I saw John Turturro’s film Passione last year, I have been listening to a lot of amazing Neopolitan bands like Spakka-Neapolis 55. Shok: Depeche Mode, Prince, Peter Gabriel, IAMX, Brendan Perry, Jeff Buckley (I still listen to him though he is not current but on my current rotation), Massive Attack, The Glitch Mob, The Young Echo Collective, Elysian Fields, Gotye, Jonneine Zapata, Cascadeur, Trentemøller, UNKLE, Brian Eno, Boom Boom Satellites, Big Black
Delta, Brendan Angelides (Eskmo / The elaborate sounds over to the bands on Welder), Woodkid, Apparat and Spindrift. 4AD, Wax Trax, including Meat Beat Manifesto and then those who followed such as Juliette, you have an amazingly devel- NIN, Future Sound Of London, etc. I started off by listening closely to what I oped voice. Have you had any training or is it all natural talent? How did you was hearing in these songs and in the same way you may recreate a still life picture with get into singing? pen, or brush. I would do the same Juliette: Awww, thank you! I’ve had pencil, with either pots, voice, synths, guivoice lessons here and there but nothing tars, or othercooking random objects until my sound on a regular basis. My first memory of sing- would match the intended sound object.I ing is terribly embarrassing, so I suppose I have a rather extensive library sounds should share it here. When I was small, I I have created over many years.of Besides saw a production of the musical Oklahoma having a wide array of instruments, I get (one of my older sisters was in the pit or- hired to create sounds for companies. I chestra) and I fell in love with it. I learned also am a huge fan of discovering sample all the songs and would sing them at the top origins. of my lungs in the backyard. I’m sure the Juliette: Shok’s sound library is massive. neighbors wanted to poison me. How do you translate these into your live shows? Step into a Shok: I enjoy performing and love betime machine and mix ing entertained as the audience so it is important that we do the same for an authe eras of dience when in the role of performer. We could easily have our show on a laptop the 1920s, 30s, and run instrumental versions of songs as now and the future a duo. However, that is boring and lazy. We have a full live band including a horn and journey section: trombone, trumpet, and sax. An upright bass player, guitarist, as well as piato a dusty circus nist/ accordionist, also round off our lineup. Juliette sings, the aforementioned players carnival where sing backup as needed and I am on acoustic drums and trigger additional sounds via a dark cabaret drum pad sampler (Roland SPDX). performance I take certain sounds that are signature to our specific songs such as a sound I may envelops have created with a synth or kitchen appliance and store these as samples into my you with their drum pad on stage beside me. This way I neo-vaudeville style. can also have some of the larger percussion I used as sound sources in the studio, still heard in our live show, since moving a You also are an accomplished actress. huge drum for only one song, might be a bit Do you find that the acting helps you much....might. musically and vice versa? Are they mutually beneficial to each other or do they You also do a lot of collaborations and production for many big names. Who sometimes create conflict? been some of your favorites you Juliette: I think they are definitely mu- have have worked Who would you love tually beneficial, especially because I’m not to work with inwith? the future? a confessional songwriter. I write the lyrics Shok: I have worked quite a bit with for RLD’s songs from the perspective of a seductive femme fatale who is much more David J. (Bauhaus /Love And Rockets). confident and sexy than I am and more than We have been friends for many years; a little bit wicked. In real life, I am of course however, our first collaboration was a remix in 2002 for Codec & Flexor on the now a saint who never does anything bad. defunct Ladytron label, Emperor Norton. Shok, you play many different instru- We worked again with our friend Johnette ments and create some unique sounds Napolitano (Concrete Blonde) on a projcalled Tres Vampires, this also led to for your music. How do you come up ect David and I putting out an EP a few years with those new ideas? ago (with Jill Tracy) as well as remixShok: Thank you. I have always been ing KMFDM for a box set. Oddly enough, enamored by sounds. This started before Daniel Ash, David’s old bandmate and I I was a musician. I was fascinated by the have recorded quite a few songs togethway Lucas and his team developed sounds er too. We also composed music for a for Star Wars. This continued through Pink TV show. Floyd and Peter Gabriel to Depeche Mode’s