On Touring With Gorillaz With Up To Ten Buses: 'It Was A Huge Production'

When asked what she thinks James Ford, who produced Little Dragon's latest Season High set, brought to Little Dragon's sound, Yukimi Nagano ponders, "Um, I'd say he sharpened it up. You know, most of the sounds were all there - and most of the songs - but I think [for Little Dragon] sometimes it's a bit of a process sort of finishing things up, just because we all kind of have really strong wills in the band and, you know, everyone kind of has, sometimes, a different vision. And that can be really a bit of a headache when you're just trying to be fair, and so it was really nice to have someone come in from outside and sort of have a bit of perspective, and not have the history that we have with each other; just be, like, you know, 'How about we try this?' And, yeah! It just became easy; it felt easy so, yeah! I'd say that he sort of put it all in focus."

Little Dragon first met Ford when they toured our country together as part of the 2011 Parklife line-up (Ford with Simian Mobile Disco). "You meet all the artists at the airport in the morning and checking in and you sort of buddy-up with different people," Nagano reveals of touring festival life. "We were fans of [Ford] and his projects, and we shared that love for electronic music so, yeah! When he came up as someone to sort of work with for this record it felt so natural, because we'd met him before and liked him already and, you know, we knew he had similar taste, so... He came over to Gothenburg and stayed with us for a while and we worked together."

Providing an example of how Little Dragon tend to struggle when it comes to finishing their songs, Nagano chuckles, "I think we have one song that Hakan [Wirenstrand, keyboards]'s worked with for, like, seven years or something and it's never come out on an album, but he keeps working on it and, yeah, it might just be one of those songs that never comes out. But, definitely, you just have to sometimes sort of just make a decision and just be like, 'Okay, is it done or not, you know?' Because otherwise we could go on forever."

Their self-titled first album dropped in 2007 and Nagano reveals, "I met Erik [Bodin] when I was, like, 14, 13, yeah! We've been friends for a long time." When asked whether Little Dragon were ambitious from the get-go, Nagano opines, "I don't think we had that confidence, really - in the beginning, with our music - but we definitely talked a lot about music, um, we talked a lot about shows we went to — and listened a lot to music — and kinda wrote music, and we were happy if our friends liked it... You know, the idea of actually releasing our music on a record was just too big of a dream to even, like, dare believe at that time — in the beginning." Although she admits their first-ever album release was "very exciting", Nagano points out "it was also very overwhelming". "I'm sure that a lot of artists can relate," she continues. "Your first sort of encounter with the music business and labels, and promises that don't follow through, and expectations that, you know, change and stuff - it was very much a roller coaster ride in the beginning, on many levels, and, I'm not gonna go in detail with it, but we had a lot of disputes with our label at the time as well so it was difficult but super-exciting at the same time."

Little Dragon have also collaborated with a lot of artists over the years and Nagano singles out their "De La Soul collaboration on and the Anonymous Nobody... their latest record" as one that she's "kind of excited about". "It's [got] a classic sort of vibe to it, it has strings and it's a long sort of song but it's, yeah! I thought that came up really nice," Nagano says of this track, which is called Drawn.

De La Soul and Little Dragon bonded while touring the globes as part of Gorillaz' Escape To Plastic Beach Tour in 2010, for full support slots as well as guest spots during their respective Gorillaz collabs. We're curious to hear more about the logistics of touring this travelling circus, which recruited a slew of other featured artists including Bobby Womack, Mos Def, The Clash's Paul Simonon and Mick Jones, Gruff Rhys, Shaun Ryder, Snoop Dogg and musicians from Syrian National Orchestra For Arabic Music. "I think it was, like, eight buses, or ten, I dunno," Nagano estimates. "And trucks. It was a huge production. So it was a while ago now, but, you know, yeah! It was massive. It's kind of a memory for life, that tour; it's one of those things that will always stick with us."