Dirty Projectors Live on The Interface Q&A: Courtney Love, Action Flicks & Alec Baldwin

Just before Thanksgiving, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based enigmas Dirty Projectors stopped by Spinner's The Interface to play a rare acoustic set.

Performing songs from the new album Swing Lo Magellan and EP About to Die, the band shared their strange brand of soul-meets-indie-meets-jazz hits with fewer instruments, amping up the intimacy and the vocal prowess that made them famous.

We also spoke with singers Dave Longstreth and Amber Coffman, and bassist Nat Baldwin about the band's rise to fame, their favorite action heroes and who would be best suited to play Courtney Love in a biopic. Check out the interview right here and watch the full performance by clicking on the button below.



You guys were on "Letterman" recently. Did you meet anyone famous?

Amber: Alec Baldwin. He was super nice. [Laughs] I don't know, he introduced himself in the makeup room and he was asking all kinds of questions and was very friendly.

Nat: I wish I got to meet him, but I didn't.

Are you related to Mr. Baldwin?

Nat: No, no.

Dave: Half brother? You guys have different fathers?

Nat Baldwin: That's what me and Niles, my brother, used to say growing up. We'd say [the Baldwins] were our uncles.

Dave: Yeah, when he was just coming off stage his eyes, he sort of looked like he had just killed an animal [laughs]. Something in his eyes. Once the elevator doors closed Nat was like, "It was pretty hard not to say hello to Alec Baldwin just then." But I kind of had the opposite reaction where I was like, "I don't want to say hi to that guy." But then we watched the show last night at a bar and watching his rapport with Letterman, I understood the look that we saw in his eyes a little bit more.

Dave, you were inspired by "Die Hard" for your film "Hi Custodian." Who are some of your favorite action heroes?

Dave: I love Jason Bourne. Great, great, inspiring character. Sometimes I think back to the tours that we did in Europe in 2007, 2008 and I can see damp cobblestones in the dark, lit by a streetlamp or some, you know ... a weird corner of a restaurant that I must've been in and I don't know whether it was in Berlin or ... Stockholm or Manchester. I flatter myself [laughs]. I feel like Jason Bourne.

You guys are playing at Carnegie Hall soon! What does that mean to you guys?

Dave: Playing Carnegie is going to be amazing. It's going to be really exciting. We've been to a couple shows there. We saw Joanna Newsom there.

Amber: So amazing.

Dave: Every seat in the house I think probably feels incredible and it's a great honor to be playing there.

Do people assume that you're rich because of the success you've had lately?

Amber: Probably.

Dave: I don't think so.

Amber: No, I think some people probably do. I think there's a huge misconception about rock bands and their financial situations when people are seeing them in magazines and on TV and stuff. We're definitely not rich.

Dave: It was like that for 40 years, though, right?

Amber: Yeah it used to mean different things.

Dave: If you saw somebody on the cover of a magazine or up on a big stage or something [you'd think] "they must be just raking it in." It's like that article in New York magazine about the G. Bears [Grizzly Bear]. You know, the economics of being a musician. At this point you do it because you love it. None of us are getting rich off of doing it, sadly.

Amber: [Laughs] Well, I mean it would be nice if it didn't feel like a major struggle. But we definitely do it because we love it, but it would also be cool to like, you know, feel like it was a little easier sometimes.

It's so much harder for bands to make money these days. How do you guys stay positive about the industry?

Amber: I mean, I have mixed feelings about [streaming services] because people are checking out your music that might not otherwise spend the money to hear it, but you know, it's tough because nobody really makes money from selling albums anymore. And that's why it's such a different time -- partially why it's such a different time from the '90s or any time before that when getting a lot of press meant that you were doing really well. People used to sell records and it's not happening anymore.

Dave: It's funny that before the interview you were like, "Let's keep it light, let's have fun and then you ask these incredibly heavy questions" [laughs]. You know, it seems like as a culture we're deciding that music is not worth anything, or a recording isn't worth anything. And you know, I don't think that we seem to be arriving at that conclusion through some sort of coherent or organized discussion. We're just coming to that conclusion because the technology exists that makes it so. And we're all adopting that technology.

OK last question: We heard that one of you wants to star in a biopic.

Amber: I like to say that I want to play Courtney Love in a biopic. It's a sort of a joke but it's sort of not.

Dave: Yeah, you're building in this layer of distance between your sincere feelings and what you're willing to admit.

Amber: Well you know I'm just going to throw it out there and people can make what they want of it. Be it a joke or be it sincerity.

Dave: To me it seems dead serious. She would be good at it, right?

Nat: It'd be amazing.

Dave: I mean who else could play Courtney Love in the imminent, or inevitable Courtney Love biopic?

Nat Baldwin: Who else is there?

Amber: Let's not talk about it.

Dave: Sheryl Crow.

Amber: Just let it be me.

Nat Baldwin: Sheryl Crow as Courtney Love would be so funny.

Dave: Adele.

Amber: No. No.

Dave: What about the woman from the xx?

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