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Daughterboy Jao.
 After listening to Daughterboy Jao's debut, 'Simple Matters', you might be rather surprised to hear that frontman Oliver Jao Smith isn't all that interested in the rock scene. "I go out to clubs a lot," admits the singer/guitarist.
Although 'Simple Matters' would sit quite nicely alongside your Who, Jet, White Stripes and Strokes albums, it turns out that Smith is more comfortable going to check out DJs like Carl Cox than sweating in a mosh pit. "I like that side of the culture, you know, more than rock culture," he admits. "So yeah, a lot of my friends are in the dance scene, so I hang out with them more than the dudes that hang out at rock clubs.
"A lot of people find it really weird, and I don't understand why they find it weird," complains Smith. "Because it's an interesting culture, it's one of the last sort of new cultures that has evolved. And you go to, I hate to call them 'rock' parties or 'band' parties, and you go there and everyone just sits around bitching about each other. But when you go to clubs everyone gets loved up and cruises around, and digs the music and has a good rave, you know what I mean?
"I dig the music, so that's all there is to it," he further explains. "I was sort of making dance music before I was making rock music. Years back, in the late nineties. It was the more sample-based music rather than the rock music that I was interested in. Even though I was playing in a band, that was what interested me more."
It's hard to avoid sharing in Smith's jaded view of the music industry after talking to him. Despite the pearler of an album he and songwriting partner Emma Forrest put together, he can astutely see the changing trends in music. I ask if he's willing to follow those trends. "Yeah!" he replies. "When everyone grabs their guitars and their eighties guitars and rocks out, I'll be going full Moby-style, full on techno! Nah, I'm not going to go against the grain. I'll just go with the flow. The next flow is early 'eighties, sort of My Bloody Valentine vibe, early Cure sound. Already on it. Over it. Move on."
Well, yes he's being sarcastic. "But yeah, I'd definitely like to do that, probably under a different moniker."
We talk briefly of their upcoming tour supporting Thirsty Merc (who he has a healthy respect for), which will be followed by their own headlining tour. But soon conversation steers itself back. "You can smell it a mile away," Smith says. "These days the cultural binges, they build up slowly and you can smell the garbage coming, and then it hits you in a big wave. Then you get a sense of the new things that are starting to creep up. So I guess after this early 'eighties wave there will be an early 'nineties/shoegazing wave," he suggests. I can't help but agree, Oliver. I think I caught a whiff of it already...
Eddie Chan
 | 'Simple Matters' is out now on EMI, and Daughterboy Jao play with Faker and End Of Fashion at the Enigma Bar on Sat 16 April. |
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