Awesome acts from around the world have selected Flavors to host and aggregate their online presence, integrating services like SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Tumblr, Facebook Pages and more to connect fans with their music and news.
In honor of upcoming Record Store Day, we’re featuring some of the amazing bands and solo artists who, to our delight, are part of the Flavors community.
Up first is American dream-pop duo DEDE, comprised of singer Deanne Reynolds and Tim Kvasnosky.
Flavors: Your music was described by one blogger as “nouvelle-pop” and indeed seems influenced by French pop of the 60s. What were some of your direct influences?
Deanne: There is definitely heavy French influence, but we were also inspired by other things happening in music from other places in the 60s and 70s. We really dig Serge Gainsbourg’s “Melody Nelson” record, how it’s a mixture of 60s American soul and funk, with a French harmonic sophistication. The aesthetic of that specific record was a huge influence. In addition, we really love Johnny Harris’ production and Brian Wilson’s songwriting and arrangements. I also love the vocal stylings of France Gall, Brigitte Bardot and Francoise Hardy.
Flavors: Where would you suggest someone who hasn’t really delved into that genre begin listening?
Deanne: Serge Gainsbourg, Francoise Hardy, Shirley Bassey’s “Light My Fire,” Johnny Harris, Beach Boys “Pet Sounds,” John Barry.
Flavors: How has your experience as an art director come in handy for your new role as pop musician?
Deanne: I’m an extremely passionate visual artist, and one thing we really wanted to create was a visual experience for our listeners that matched the sound of the music — a world for our audience to live in.
When we finished the record, every time I would listen to it, all these different images and scenarios would pop into my head. I started putting storyboards together and grabbed a crew of my artist friends, and that’s how our first video “Secrets” was born. Since then we’ve created an element to our live show using projections of op-art inspired designs that we’ve created. It’s great because of my past experience, it’s allowed us to keep this whole project extremely DIY.
Flavors: What has been your favorite aspect of the project so far?
Deanne: For me, it’s living in the experiences. From the first arrangement of the first song, to creating the different visual worlds of DEDE, to the live performances. I feel like it’s a new entity we’re creating, and watching it continue it grow and evolve is a really exciting, satisfying thing.
For Tim K, it’s being in the studio and making the music.
Flavors: What are your plans for the coming year?
Deanne: We just came off of a successful trip to SXSW, and we will continue to play a bunch of shows this year. We’re working on new music and finishing another video as well as in pre-production for a third. I’m working on a gallery show of DEDE in LA. We’re are going to play in new cities we haven’t yet played, to share our music with new people.
Flavors: Why did you choose Flavors to power your official website?
Deanne: We chose Flavors because it was the right balance of being aesthetically sophisticated and simple to manage from a technical perspective. We heavily believe in a DIY philosophy, and this was a high-end way to have our web presence be represented properly.
Flavors: How has being on Flavors helped you?
Deanne: It’s allowed us to quickly connect our content and social networks directly to our audience. It’s also given us a great tool to represent our whole visual aesthetic online.
