It’s never easy being the new guy. Fortunately for Allan Kumpulianen, though DAPPLED CITIES may have formed in high school, inter-band relations are nothing like the quad hierarchy. “It seemed like I was bumping my way into their little niche, but they were very welcoming,” he says. “We haven’t really done much touring yet, which is when I get to know what they’re really like.”
Dappled Cities noted Allan’s talents while he was temping for Expatriate, so when original drummer Hugh Boyce opted out he was the obvious replacement. As Allan explains, he entered the fold at the perfect time: avoiding the $10-a-day, five-men-to-a-bedsit squalor of their New York months and jumping straight into the fertile period where embryonic songs began to take shape.
“Yeah, I missed out on the poverty stage,” he smiles. “We spent most of last year songwriting and arranging. We had four or five versions of each song ready to record. Everybody was pretty open to change so we tried as many different things as we could.”
Exuding a sense of confidence which imbues the record, Dappled Cities had a clear vision for Zounds which occasionally found them at loggerheads with co-producer Chris Cody (TV on the Radio).
“He’s pretty strong-willed and he’d been working hard for the last few years without a break,” Allan explains, “so he was kind of difficult to work with at some stages. We’re all happy with the end result and that’s the main thing. I think it’s standard practice for a good producer to be a little bit psycho at some point.” Thankfully though, there were no Spector-esque moments of lunacy. “There was no gun on the console,” laughs Allan.
In all, the recording and mixing process stretched out to over a year, this time allowing Dappled Cities to tweak and hone Zounds to their exacting standards. “It was a bit of a luxury to have the time because from the outset we had the idea that everything was going to be well thought out and organised to the finest degree. I think that really comes out on the record,” Allan says.
Singer/guitarist Dave Rennik has said both the band and Dangerbird Records had high expectations for Zounds. Allan maintains Dappled Cities didn’t feel any pressure from their US label, primarily because they had Beck’s frizzy-haired foil Justin Meldal-Johnsen as their A&R rep. “He was a really great guy to work with,” Allan says. “He just offered some ideas and steered us in a direction that he thought would be better, but he never forced anything.”
As for the tour, Dappled Cities are itching to hit the road as “it’s been a good couple of years since we’ve been touring.” Plus, Zounds is an album created to be played and appreciated live. “The idea was to carry it across to the live show,” Allan explains, “so we were conscious of that all through the recording.”
