You mentioned exiting university and trying to find your place in the world. Do you kind of feel that you’ve found it now?
Oh not at all. I discovered more how to deal with the fact that everything is chang- ing always and you can never have a handle on everything that’s happening and what you need to do, and it’s changing again. But you can learn to be comfortable with that, and I think the album sort of traces the first pains of that, and then sort of arriving at that place too, which for me is not really arriving anywhere because I’m still moving.
It’s a fairly deep concept for an album, and a really cool concept. Where will you go from here?
(laughs) well I guess that is the question. Where will we go? I mean, I’m always writing songs, and always kind of fooling around with ideas. I imagine that as this album cycle comes to a close in 18 months or something like that, I’ll start to have a pretty clear idea of what the next album will be, and we’ll see. It could be anything from another dance record, to a house based record, or it could be something that’s just rock based. I really don’t know what’s going to come out.
What else inspires you when you’re writing music?
I mean, I guess Popular Science is something that I read, Popular Science type non- fiction type of stuff. There’s a book by Ray Kurzweil. Stuff like that. Also I read a lot of science fiction. So you know like Bradbury and Asimov. Those kinds of things influence the way I think about things a lot. I think that definitely made it into my music. But beyond that the things I’m thinking about and music, I go out to a lot of dance events and I see a lot of shows. I’m always analyzing the music that I’m hearing and trying to figure out what things people respond the most to and stuff like that.
What’s the plan for the rest of 2013? Can I assume there are a lot of plans in the works to tour? I see your festival schedule is pretty full already.
2013 is going to be a crazy busy year. I keep looking at my calendar and we keep adding new shows. I’m going to be home a total of five days in the next six months.
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I have a lot of shows coming up, and a lot of them are unannounced. Most of the time I’ll be on the road, but at shows I’ll also be testing remix things that are com- ing through and stuff like that too. So yeah, it’s going to be a crazy year. Every day I keep seeing my days off get eaten up, but it’s all good.
Basically just to wrap up, you’ve achieved so much in the last little while. What’s your advice to those aspiring to be successful?
As far as my advice, first of all if you’re going to do something you have to love it, and if you love it, you have to be ready to do it four or five hours a day, and really put a lot of hard work into it. But if it’s love, and you love it, then it shouldn’t be difficult to do that I guess. Beyond that I think it’s just a matter of being open to opportunities and be willing to deal with all different types of people. As much as it is a lot of hard work nothing would have happened if I hadn’t met a lot of people and let them help me out in whatever way they could. So I dunno, work hard, be nice, take your vitamins.
As Robert DeLong continues the touring cycle in support of his debut album, inevitably new ideas are forming, new sounds are being tested and new experiences are inspiring creation. The world keeps turning, and our lives continue to change as well. The beauty and the problem with life, is that we have to live it in real time. Years of experience can merit one statement of wisdom. In the case of Robert DeLong that statement is two simple words: Just Movement.
WORDS BY K LEA
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