| Interview: an exclusive indoor-picnic date with BREANNE DÜREN. |
| Written by Shahlin Graves |
| Saturday, 26 November 2011 00:20 |
 Twenty-four-year-old Breanne Elizabeth Dürenberger - more commonly known as singer-songwriter and keyboardist, BREANNE DÜREN - is quite possibly the most endearing human being that has ever gifted us with the present of her presence. Aside from her OWL CITY band-mate Adam Young, of course. We invited Düren on a post-soundcheck indoor picnic at the Auckland Town Hall... and to our delight, she accepted our invitation...   COUP DE MAIN: So it's your second time in New Zealand and you're playing a solo set tonight, how excited are you? BREANNE DÜREN: Yeah! I'm so excited, I would never have imagined that I would be here doing this, so I'm really excited. I was actually kind of glad to see the room and to see how intimate it is - not saying that it's small - but I feel like it's really going to fit the set well because I'm just going to be playing solo. This is completely me just sitting down at a keyboard, it's going to be very intimate and acoustic-feeling. CDM: I know it's not cool to like singles, but I'm really excited to see 'Gold Mine' live! BREANNE: Nice! It's going to be acoustic <laughs> but it's gonna be really fun. CDM: All the better to hear your vocals... BREANNE: Yeah, this way it's kind of nice I don't feel like I have to sing over a big band. CDM: With it being your second trip here, have you had time to go exploring much? BREANNE: We just kind of walked around the area and then went down to the water, we didn't really get too far. I think there is some of our group that explored more, but it's hard when you're jet-lagged and you don't know where you're going and where you are. But even just seeing what we have, has been really fun.   CDM: You released your 'Sparks' EP earlier this year, do you feel like those songs are progressing in a different direction to your 2008 self-titled album that you released? BREANNE: Yeah, I do. Are you talking about the stuff way back when I just started recording for the first time ever? I think it definitely went in a different direction, that's how we artists that are just crazy and neurotic and constantly changing our minds and directions [work]. I definitely think that I was influenced by the music of Owl City and the specific fan-base and wanting to explore the context that I could put my voice into, just given the voice that I have. CDM: You're currently writing a new album at the moment? BREANNE: I am! It's kind of fun, we get weeks off here and there between the tours, so when I'm home I have a good friend of mine that helps me make some demos and get ideas down. But when I'm on the road I'm definitely journaling a lot and writing a lot of mostly lyrical ideas - you get a few ideas musically for melodies or for parts of something. I feel like I'm trying to tell my story more now with the full-length. CDM: Do you have a vague idea of when it'll be released? BREANNE: I'm not really sure, honestly. I think that hopefully early next year we'll be recording it and so as far as the release maybe sometime next Spring, or something like that. I can only guess. CDM: What's your favourite lyric you've ever written and why? BREANNE: It would probably come from 'Gold Mine', because I feel like lyrically that song really represents the place that I was at when I wrote it and even now too, self-discovery and trying to figure out what it is that I'm doing and what it is that I have to offer as an artist. So the lyric that says: "I only got one life to give / only have so long to live / won't throw this away." That's me in a nutshell, so to speak - so that's my favourite lyric.   BREANNE: It's so weird looking back at it now, it was just like this happenstance-fate thing. He had a friend who he was kind of working on music with - Swimming With Dolphins, if you've ever heard of them - his name is Austin [Tofte], he kind of knew me not really well, but knew that Adam was looking at finding a girl to sing on one of his songs. This was a few years ago now and Austin was like: "I know this girl Breanne, I think your voices would sound good together if I can get in touch with her." So he got in touch with me and then I was of course very excited to do it, that's how we got connected and we sort of stayed in touch. I mean, he definitely makes his music by himself, so I did the vocal-thing and then watched it all take off like crazy. It was doing really well on Myspace and that, [then] he signed a record deal and said he was going to be going on tour - he knew that I played keys as well as sang, so he asked me to go on tour with him. It was definitely a musical relationship, we didn't really hang out too much, he's definitely an introverted guy and not too much of a socialite in that way, but being on tour obviously we've gotten much closer - very much like brother and sister, everyone on tour is kind of one big family. CDM: What's your favourite thing about each member of the Owl City touring-band? BREANNE: Oh my gosh, everyone is just so great! Really though, we are just like one big family. Laura [Musten] is probably my best friend on tour, she plays violin, we've really really gotten close, and Hannah [Schroeder]'s such a sweetheart as well, she's the cellist. Daniel [Jorgensen] is awesome, he and Adam are actually best friends and he is from Minnesota as well - so I knew him before tour too from way back, just through music and stuff. And Casey [Brown] is the newest member, he's our new drummer - he just joined this Summer so [I'm] still getting to know him more, but he's amazing. Everyone's just fun, we pick on each other like a sibling would, we play pranks on each other and have lots of fun with each other.  LYKKE LI - 'Little Bit'  MORCHEEBA - 'Enjoy The Ride'  MANDY MOORE - 'Candy'  SHE & HIM - 'In The Sun'  FIONA APPLE - 'Extraordinary Machine'  BREANNE DÜREN's 'Sparks' EP is out now - and you can hear her vocal-talents on the Owl City songs, 'Honey And The Bee', 'The Saltwater Room' and 'Air Traffic'.  |
