Producer and musician Daniel Lanois talks about turning his latest album into a film, cutting out the middleman to distribute his own music, and why he's fascinated by Michael Jackson's feet.
South by Southwest indeed. Belladonna was conceived when Lanois made a sojourn to Mexico last year, but while the music herein is undoubtedly derived from a border state of mind (the sundown mariachi elegy of ‘Agave’ being a sort of musical equivalent of Marquez’s In Evil Hour), it’s also capable of migrating through various time zones.
Pioneering ambient artist, film-scorer, and producer of choice for everyone from Willie Nelson to U2, Daniel Lanois has assembled one of the most impressive CVs in modern rock. And with his new album, Shine, having just hit the racks, he’s far from done yet, as he tells Peter Murphy