Wyrm Baby Wyrm: Interview with Little Dragon

The folklore has it Little Dragon’s name was inspired by lead singer Yukimi Nagona’s volcanic temper. When asked, her response is a shrug. Sure, that’s what she’s been telling journalists for years – for so long, in fact, she can no longer recall the truth of it.

“It’s weird – I’ve said that so many times I don’t remember whether those events [her tantrums] happened or not. We’ve stated it so often in interviews I have started to lose track. I definitely have my moments with the guys in the band – then, so have they with me. We’ve known each other a LONG time, been through a lot together.”
Unless you are an uber-fan – and their numbers are growing – it’s possible your introduction to Little Dragon was via Nagona’s studio get-togethers with, among others, Damon Albarn and Outkast’s Big Boi. Actually, she corrects, those hook-ups were full-blown band endeavours: it was, for instance, Little Dragon, not Nagona, that guested on Albarn’s Gorillaz project. A tight bunch, the group have always insisted on doing things together.
“The collaborations are, without exception, Little Dragon affairs,” she says. “It’s important that the guys are with me. You might not see them – nonetheless, they are there. Maybe they have added their pieces to the music. Or maybe they are in the studio guiding me through my vocals.”
Formed in Gothenburg in 1996 (when Nagona was just 14), it wasn’t until 2011’s Ritual Union that Little Dragon truly achieved lift-off. Combining funk, pop and experimental electronica, the album basked in five-star reviews and saw the group embark on 24 months of increasingly gruelling touring. Eventually, the adrenaline began to sour a little. Yukimi and her band-mates wondered if the blur of gigs and after-parties would ever end. There were occasions it felt it might not.
“It definitely reached a point where we were ready for a change,” she says. “It wasn’t terrible – but you can’t stay out there on the road forever. Eventually it starts to be not healthy. You need to try something different.”
So they retreated to their Gothenburg studio and started to think about what they wanted to do next. From this period of contemplation and recalibration has come LP number four, Nabuma Rubberband.
“Was it an easy album to make?,” she wonders, almost to herself. “I would say it was a mix of highs and lows: at points there was an element of struggle. It felt euphoric too. You get highs and lows when you are writing – not every day, but it happens regularly.”
Nagona has stated that Janet Jackson was a major influence on the new record. It’s a neat line – 10 years on from ‘nipple-gate’ a JJ revival is probably overdue – but you wonder what exactly it was about Jackson that Nagona glommed onto? Why not Mary J Blige, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill?
“If you compare her to other R’n'B vocalists, there is something almost eerie about Janet Jackson – she is minimal but very poppy and sensual. She felt unique to me.
“I wasn’t always aware of that she possessed these qualities. There are artists who you sort of take for granted – then one day it hits you that you had underrated them, that they have something special you never sensed before. There definitely was a moment where I viewed her in a new light.”
As festival season approaches, Little Dragon are gearing up a busy summer. Actually, they’ve already broken their festival duck for 2014, having performed at Coachella in California. With its movie-star guest-list and prohibition on drinking outside designated areas, Coachella has become an object of fascination (in Europe especially). This year however there were the first stirrings of a backlash, with a headline turn by Outkast condemned as over-hyped and a general sense that the fest was merely a VIP party with some music in the background.
“It’s big, that’s for sure,” says Nagona. “It has that vibe of people coming from all over. In fact, it feels so massive that it’s almost difficult to take it all in. We had a good time - we kept it simple: got there and did our show.”
 
Nabuma Rubberband is released next month. Little Dragon play The Original Stage at Forbidden Fruit on Sunday June 1