Hi guys, Here I am! Missed me much? I would’ve if I were you. Know why? Because I love boats (you’ll know why later)… And today’s entry I would like to dedicate to an awesome duo called Vienna Ditto (one of them also loves boats). You might’ve heard of them before because they’ve been played and supported by National Radio quite a few times already, plus if you google them there’s quite a few cool links popping up.
Nigel has kindly agreed to have a quick e-breakfast with me today and here’s the outcome…
Good morning Nigel! I’m flattered you’re awake so early just for chubby lil’ol me. Let’s start with you telling me more about Vienna Ditto. Who are you?
Hello! We’re Hatty Taylor, who sings and does crazy synth solos; and Nigel, who plays guitar and does more pedestrian things with synthesizers and pretty much everything else.

Wow, crazy in a nutshell then! How did you come up with the band’s name?
By accident; when we had a drummer, he mixed up my ‘potential band names’ list with my ‘things to do in Europe’ list. I did something in Innsbruck and had to do the same thing in Vienna. I’m afraid I forget what.

Aha, so no more drummer then. Now we know why at least. How dare he mixing your lists together and coming up with a great band name! Shame on him really. Hopefully he’s learned his lesson… How would you describe your sound to those who haven’t heard your music yet?
A big synthy mess with some twangly guitar and a lady singing the gospel over the top of it. Somebody said it was ‘Portishead doing a Tarantino soundtrack’ which is also fine by us.

Oh I love mess! Just look at the state of my room! Portishead and Tarantino aren’t so bad either, of course… Can you tell us more about yourselves as individuals and how you got into music?
Well we’re both about 5’5”, Hatty’s young and glamorous and I’m old and glamorouser. Ooh I guess we both used to sing in choir at school; I was really into some classical pieces and Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds; Hatty was into The Smiths and we were both weaned on a diet of breakbeat hardcore. I got a guitar when I was about 14 and obsessed over it for a while; I ended up teaching guitar and taught Hatty when she was about 11. She had a great voice so when we bumped into each other about eight years later I asked her to sing on some electronic rock ‘n’ roll tunes I was making.

Wow, talk about fate! Unless one of you stalked the other for eight years to then “randomly” bump into the other… So what’s the most proud and memorable moment in your music career so far and why? 
The first tune we wrote together got played on Radio One. That was F*ckeeeeeeeen brilliant.
And what’s the most embarrassing memory in your music career and why?
I had to dress in tights and play Elizabethan madrigals at The Chelsea Flower Show to commemorate the rediscovery of variegated rosemary (which was caused by fallout from Chernobyl, so they said).  That’s me, I should imagine Hatty would say ‘Vienna Ditto’.

And here I am not knowing what to say. I’m just imagining you wearing tights at the Chelsea Flower Show and I’m lost for words… So how does being in a band affect your personal lives? No tights or flowers anywhere in sight anymore?
Um… I live on a boat so I have to go down the pub to use the internet, and being in a band is kind of internet-heavy. So being in a band has made me an alcoholic. Seriously, where do you think I am now? 
We’re supposed to be having e-breakfast you rock star you! Ok, let me use this opportunity of getting some dirt out of you mister Alcoholic (with capital letters of course, cos Alcohol is COOL!) Can you tell us one interesting fact about yourselves that nobody knows about? 
Hatty worked for a few months as a female Elvis impersonator.
And what about you? I guess the tights will suffice for now… Have you made any notable sacrifices in order to pursue music?
Ah funnily enough, I was thinking about this earlier, but from the other end of the equation: neither of us have much going for us except this strange little operation. I’m not sure either of us could get by without it and it makes the rest of the week just about bearable. 

I get you. I feel the same about the gym… Nah, not really. I keep telling myself that I like my chunky frame and bouncing around on my belly all day makes my week far more bearable too! So what kind of fan base are you aiming for?
Minted baby boomers! We get quite a wide range of folks who come to our gigs and buy our records, age-wise and wealth-wise…  There seems to be a thing now where people are putting on gigs all round the UK in a very DIY fashion- but really well- and it’s drawing a good three, possibly four generations. It’s DOPE. It’s less about being a hip, happening band and more like a barn dance. Community styles. 

I couldn’t agree more… Dope is very good and brings all the generations together! Oh, is that not what you were talking about?… So what do you guys prefer doing: recording or performing live?
Gosh. well… Probably playing live because there’s always a kind of madness to it, you get to shout a lot and dance about whilst sweating profusely. And you get to go to interesting places and meet people, and we like people; generally… Recording is more like writing a diary after, and it’s quite an insular process but we get really obsessively into it, even though we don’t really know what we’re doing most of the time. We like playing live more but couldn’t live without recording.

And what does your writing and recording process look like then? 
So… I suppose we generally write things on an acoustic guitar. The words come in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way, using some of those old beatnik tricks, like eyeball kicks and cut-ups, but then you have to read them back and figure out what your subconscious it trying to tell you, and that’s what the song is about.
I’ve got a little old drum machine and we add that early on to ensure everything doesn’t get too ‘singer-songwriter’ and wistful. We build a rhythm track up out of that with junk percussion, played badly by yours truly. Last single that involved whacking seven shades out of my narrow boat in the dead of night; the snare drum was a massive steel door that covers the engine bay, and the reverb unit consisted of Prudential’s headquarters and a branch of Homebase.                                                   
This time round we snuck into… [OOPS I could get myself into trouble here] a lovely but slightly spooky old hall in Oxford with a fantastic acoustic. Also in the dead of night as it wasn’t exactly sanctioned by the authorities.  It was funny though, we’d tiptoe in, whispering, and then proceed to pound the heck out of drums and saucepans and stuff, and then sneak back out again, whispering… 
After that we add a bunch of old synths and keyboards and other funny things like an old Persian santoor and this weird bamboo tube that you hit with a stick whilst cupping the end with your hand-it makes a noise like a cartoon kangaroo. Finally we add far, faaaar too much echo.

If that’s what you guys had to go through to write and record your new single, no wonder you called it “Feeling Good”. What’s the song about and why did you choose it as your latest single?
It’s all about some problems that some friends of mine have had with their Bolivian/Afghan boy/girlfriends. We chose it because it was bouncy, and we needed a bouncy little thing to advertise the thing I’m going to mention in the next answer…

How do you know what I’m about to ask you? Are you psychic? I’ve been called psycho a couple of times. I guess those two aren’t far apart from each other, right? Ok, so my final (and very predictable) question… What’s in store for Vienna Ditto in the upcoming few months? 
We’re releasing ‘Feeling Good’ on 9th June, then we’re going to finish off our debut album, which we’ll release in the Autumn, with a tour of the UK and, hopefully, a few dates in Europe. 

Big thanks to Nigel from Vienna Ditto! 
To know more about the band, check them out here: Official Website
Oh, and for those who haven’t heard the single yet, press play NOW! 

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