Caravan Of Thieves - Life is a gypsy carnival

The image Caravan Of Thieves use to describe their own music says it all: "If Django Reinhardt, the cast of 'Stomp' and the Beatles threw a party at Tim Burton's house, they'd call Caravan Of Thieves to play". Built around the husband-and-wife duo of Fuzz and Carrie Sangiovanni, the Connecticut band stages an irresistible bacchanal of gypsy atmospheres, swing echoes and macabre suggestions. Following the release of their second album, "The Funhouse", we asked Fuzz and Carrie to tell us about the very personal philosophy of Caravan Of Thieves.

Caravan Of Thieves started out as an acoustic duo: can you tell us something about your bohemian days?

We were just getting to know each other, both personally and musically. We'd only just started going out, but right from the start ours was a serious and exciting relationship. So there was a lot of passion and emotion in the music, and we had a great time playing together. We'd go anywhere, out in the parks, on the streets, at festivals, wherever we could, just to play. We were always out among people, and that shaped the way we wrote and performed our music, always trying to involve the audience somehow.

What did you learn from your street-performance experience?

We learned how to quickly grab the attention of passers-by, both through what we experimented with to introduce ourselves, and from watching what the other street performers around us were doing. Some of them were really great, especially the breakdancers in New York.

How did the band's current line-up come together?

We were playing at the University of Hartford, in Connecticut, and Ben Dean was playing violin in the other band on the bill that night. We asked him to join us for a couple of songs, then for a few shows, and things went on from there. Once we'd come up with the idea of Caravan Of Thieves, we asked Ben to become part of the group. We also felt it was essential to have a solid, energetic double bass player, and Brian Anderson was a musician we'd met on the local Connecticut scene, so we asked him to join the band. Something clicked between the four of us right away.

When did you become passionate about the sounds of the swing era and gypsy music?

Fuzz: I've been a fan of 1930s swing and gypsy jazz for fifteen years now. But before Caravan Of Thieves I mostly played electric guitar in R&B, blues, rock and funk bands, so that musical passion of mine hadn't really come to the fore until four years ago, when we started this project. Once Carrie and I decided to go for an acoustic format and add violin and double bass to get instrumentation similar to the Hot Club De France, we dove much deeper into that style... swing, gypsy music, and so on.

Carrie: Even though I'd heard this music in films and around and about, I only really fell in love with it once Fuzz introduced me to it after we met, and even more so when we decided to make it the main influence in our songwriting.

What was the recording process like for your new album, “The Funhouse“?

We went into the studio with the intention of capturing the energy and feel of the band live, and we think we managed to do that. But we also experimented a bit and added some new sounds and ideas that weren't part of our live performances. Ukulele, banjo, resonator guitar, pots, buckets, all added to the overall colour. We also invited fans, families and anyone we could into the studio to recreate something of the live atmosphere of our shows, to sing along, stomp their feet and clap their hands, especially on songs like "Raise The Dead".

What differences do you think there are compared to your debut album, “Bouquet”?

With "The Funhouse" we feel we've taken our sound, our songwriting and our performance to a new level compared to when we recorded "Bouquet". "Bouquet" captures our original concept in its first form (we recorded it when we'd only been a band for eight months), so it still has a certain magic. But we always try to refine and improve what we do, and "The Funhouse", both poetically and musically, feels sharper, more colourful, and more fully realised in sound.

The new record also features an orchestra of kitchen accessories: what's the strangest thing you've used (or would like to use) as percussion?

Our favourite instrument was probably a footstool that appears in the chorus of "Eat You", with a sound somewhere between a marimba and a wood-block.

The concept behind "The Funhouse" is about life as an amusement park, where happiness and fear are always intertwined. For you, how is it possible to live without being afraid of being alive?

We like to live each day as if it were the last, to accept that truth, to accept death as inevitable. But we never dwell on it too much. There's so much beauty in the world, you just need to know where to find it. It's not in the things we're sold every day, it's not in money, success, power or fame. It's in our hearts and in the hearts of others, in nature, in the real world outside of cities and human development, whatever little of it remains.

Your songs are full of macabre imagery and dark humour. Can horror stories be a kind of metaphor for life?

For us, life will always contain as many pleasant moments as moments of horror. So whether you want to consider it a metaphor or a fact, reality keeps existing regardless. But dark humour or a satirical approach is how we make it interesting to listen to. It's how we see it through art. It's our interpretation of the horrors of life. Yes, they're right here among us. We can't avoid them, but we can at least stare them in the eye and laugh in their face.

Speaking of mystery, if you could summon the ghost of an artist from the past, who would you choose?

Apparently we have quite a few we summon from time to time… Frédéric Chopin, Django Reinhardt, Duke Ellington, Emily Dickinson… we've got several on speed dial.

Did you have fun shooting the video for “Raise The Dead“?

Yes, it was a truly fun and unique experience. It was great to see all the supporters who joined us during the making of it. Not just supporters of our band and our music, but supporters of the concept, of the idea of dressing up, being creative and getting into character. A lot of the costumes, design, make-up, and so on were all done by our fans, friends and families that we'd brought onto the set. And then the three-hundred-year-old cemetery and the turn-of-the-century vaudeville theatre we used as locations were magnificent.

Your shows are very theatrical, and on stage you also wear old-fashioned costumes… How do you experience your relationship with live performance?

We like to think of the stage and the performance as a place to bring out our alter-egos, our fantasies. We think the stage should always be an exaggeration of life, bigger, louder, more colorful, even more ridiculous at times. That's what makes it interesting. Something you'd want to go and see.

Your songs often change live. Do you enjoy reinventing your music?

The music, the sound, the concept, the songs are, for us, constantly under revision. Never finished. We think it's a healthy artistic approach not to be afraid of changing or scrapping ideas, even after they've been recorded and sent out into the world. Plus, being at a concert and listening to an album on your own headphones are two very different experiences. What we do in the studio doesn't always translate to the stage, and vice versa. A room full of people, that energy... What people usually want to feel live is more dynamic, interactive, emotional and visual, so we have to tweak the arrangements to bring those elements more into the picture. And that's what we do.

You like to play unexpected covers, like Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" or Michael Jackson's "Thriller". What's your favorite song by another artist to play? And for you, what's the key to truly making someone else's song your own?

We really love playing Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer". Mainly because we have a close, personal relationship with two of them (Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz). Plus, the rearrangement we did of the song is a lot of fun musically, and the lyrics are dark but at times also comic.

We usually approach covering a song with the idea that we have to change it drastically. That's why we pick songs that sound so different from us. At least most of the time. That way we have the chance to make big changes: tempo, mood, chords, sometimes even melodies. The songs we choose to cover still need to share something in common with Caravan Of Thieves — a somewhat cynical lyric, a classical or jazz harmony, that sort of thing. We learn every aspect of the song, then start taking it apart piece by piece and putting it back together with a swing feel, a gypsy vibe, an acoustic quartet arrangement, violin, etcetera.

If you could use a time machine, what year (and place) would you choose?

Living in Vienna between the late 1700s and early 1800s would be an ideal time and place for music and art. It would be nice to meet Beethoven, even if he treated us badly.

What are your plans for the future?

Making a new album, sometime in the next six to twelve months. Building a bigger, better show on stage, with more junk to use as percussion! And touring more, possibly outside the United States, in Europe, maybe Italy?

Fuzz: I have family ties in Italy, my grandparents came to New York from Naples and Sicily, maybe I could find some long-lost distant relative!

Hoping to welcome them sooner or later on Italian shores too, Caravan Of Thieves agreed to give OndaRock readers their unpredictable cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody" as a free download: the best invitation into their haunted amusement park.

Caravan Of Thieves – Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen) [download]

(11/06/2012)

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google