When we talked to Belgian's Vito Deluca from the recently one-man-made Aeroplane, he was attempting to chow down on a bowl of Special K. We could go into all the little subtle DJ-references that go along with this coincidence, but the fact is that Vito seems to be more dedicated artist than your traditional trashbag DJ. The self-confessed perfectionist recently chatted to us about making music on his own, a new record, upcoming Australian tours and soggy cornflakes.
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So where are you right now?
I’m on my couch trying to eat cereal in between phone interviews! I’m getting so many calls off Australian journalists that I don’t have time to eat.
What sort of cereal are you eating?
Special K. What else?
That’s my favourite too.
Well, it’s just floating in milk right now.
I don’t mind if you eat whilst I’m talking to you. As long as you tell me about the big year you’ve just had whilst recording your new record, We Can’t Fly. How’s it been since you released it last September?
I’ve been talking to a lot of people about it. I’ve had a lot of people disappointed by the direction I’ve taken because it wasn’t what they were expecting. It’s a lot different, and I say that it’s a good thing because you can’t make the same music all your life!
How have you dealt with the old fans who were surprised at the new direction you took? You’ve said already that you feel as if you’ve been freed from the pressure of the dancefloor.
There’s not much I can say to them. Music and taste is totally subjective. What do you say? I’m tempted to say “Well, then keep listening to 'Paris' with Au Revoir Simome." But then, there’s all these people and new fans from before who didn’t know what the old music was like – and they love it.
So you’ve got some new fans?
For sure, I’ve gotten on some new fans and media attention. Before, Aeroplane was on blogs and magazines for sure, but now with the new record I’ve been on Belgium television. The new album has definitely opened some new doors that weren’t accepted before for me.
Well, obviously one of the reasons for this change is that you split with your partner Stephen. I’m sure you’re ridiculously tired of talking about it to press and you’ve said it was an amicable parting. So how’s “flying solo” doing for you?
I love how the expression “flying solo” is now the one that everybody says!
It’s on your press release. Go figure.
Oh… all I’ve heard in interviews is: “So, now that you’re flying solo….” It can get repetitive. It would be lying to say that it isn’t easier with Stephen. It is easier and that’s the reason why we decided to split. It was for something better. I’ll admit that I’m a pretty hard person to work with and I have lots of my own ideas. It is hard for me to give up on them. When I recorded the new album I wasn’t very open to somebody else’s input. When you play an instrument it’s so hard to listen to people telling you how to do something specific. You don’t want somebody else saying that “you should play it like this”. Stephen was more about the DJing and the gigs, and for me it was more about the studio and creating the music.
So you’re happy that you're more in the studio now?
Yeah! The new album is more about the instruments purely because I’ve now had the opportunity to actually play them. People think that the experience of being a DJ is about the gigs, but for me it’s been more recently about the reality of the studio. There was so much psychedelic music there almost wasn’t enough room for the other stuff!
Well, you still do have some lead stand-out vocals. My favourite is from Merry Clayton, from my favourite Rolling Stones’ song, 'Gimme Shelter'. I never knew who that voice was until I heard about your new song, 'I Don’t Feel'. How’d you track her down?
'Gimme Shelter' is my favourite Stones’ song, too. There were two things. I used to call her “the black chick at the end” because I never knew who she was either. And then, I knew about Merry Clayton from her records in the '70s. I never put the two together. Then one day I was listening to the radio and the presenter explained who she was. She sung all these famous songs such as 'Sweet Home Alabama'! So I searched about her, contacted her in Los Angeles, and three days later I was talking to her and she said she’d love to do it. It was actually quite easy!
Did you give her free reign from there?
Well she loves gospel but it would’ve been a bit too easy. So I decided to go for something a bit different and I knew she could really bring it to a new place. I worked with a girl in LA who wrote the lyrics and vocal melodies that we discussed. So we showed Merry what we wrote and she gave it her own personal touch. It was a big diva result.
Do you have any other favourites from the album?
Well what is your favourite?
Merry Clayton! But we're talking about you.
I think my favourite is 'London Bridge'. It’s basically the first song that I’ve really pushed myself that far. It’s the first song that I’ve really sounds like perfection to me, as in it sounds exactly like how I imagined it. The guitar is perfect, the horn is there, the drums are big, the bass line is really there and the tempo is my favourite. It’s just good to me!
I’m sure as with many other forms of artists, you always begin with a notion of what something is going to sound like and then you get to the end and it just isn’t sometimes. Is that right?
It’s so right. That’s the biggest challenge – to not lose the goal you set yourself. Sometimes when you’re working you’ll come across challenges that are impossible. And you have two choices: fight and really make it sound like what you wanted. Or just make it mediocre. With this album, 99 percent of the time I chose to fight.
So you’d call yourself a perfectionist?
Oh yes. I’m sick. A perfectionist is one thing, but I’m sick. It’s something else. And the problem is that you can’t have perfection sometimes when you play with your hands. You can’t be as perfect as a machine. It’s a perfect way of imperfect. So sometimes I just have to let life interrupt. Although I once fell asleep playing a bassline.
What? How did that happen?
I just don’t know. I fell asleep playing and I never really stopped. It was when I was working on some remixes a few years ago. I woke up and there was all this audio bass line recorded that I’d done whilst sleeping. I was like… “What. The. Hell."
You put yourself into a trance!
That’s just it. It sounds really lame but it really was. It was like my subconscious was so obsessed with that bass line that I could just play it and sleep. It would be great if I could do that with lots of other stuff.
Well, you’ve done so many different remixes that it may come in use.
What, you think too much?!
No! OK… It’s borderline. You’ve done a lot. I can’t even find a complete list because there’s just so much on the internet. Did you even do Yoko Ono? What’s your favourite to remix?
What? Rewind, rewind! I wish I’d done Yoko Ono!
Ahhh… Shit. The internet likes to lie. [laughs]
OK, I did remix her once in a DJ set. But I have done….Robbie Williams, Grace Jones, Friendly Fires, Cut Copy, MGMT, Das Pop, Cobra Dukes, Allez Allez, Sebastien Tellier, Lindstrom & Christabelle. Um, probably some more that I can’t remember quite right now.
Have you got a favourite out of that list? Or maybe somebody coming up you really want to mix up?
It’s very hard to come up with somebody you really want to remix. I did it once with an artist whose song I loved. I actually loved the original so much that anything I could do different wasn’t good to me. I had to end up telling the artist that I was very sorry but I couldn’t do it! Right now, though, I do love the song 'I Love You So' by Cassius to potentially remix.
Do you ever take a song you don’t like and change it?
I guess you can. As a DJ sometimes you take a song and take it apart into its little bits and do change it around. You can hear your own tiny little moment where you can make it into something amazing. When you get the multiple parts of a song to remix it, you can break it down into these bits and hopefully find something for yourself, something so original. That’s the way I like to work: by revealing that new song in the background. That allows me to take a song I mightn’t like and make it something totally different.
You’re coming out very soon to play Field Day and Summadayze. Who are you most excited to see play next to you?
You know, I’m most excited to see Public Enemy and the Cool Kids. It’s not my genre of music and not something that I listen to at home, but I just know it’ll be interesting. I also want to see Jamaica. I actually grew up listening to hip hop so it should be a nice revisit!
I am excited about them too. Well I am now going to let you go eat some cereal, Vito.
Oh yes. It’s gone soggy. You have a nice day!
Emilia Terzon
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Aeroplane will be in Australia this 2011 for Summadayze in Melbourne and Field Day in Sydney. For more visit fuzzy.com.au or futureentertainment.com.au .