Dengue Fever is anything but your average indie-rock combo. Based in Los Angeles, the exotic six-piece outfit is fronted by Chhom Nimol, who sings in her native Cambodian dialect, backed by guitarist Zac Holtzman, his brother Ethan (keyboards), Senon Williams (bass), David Ralicke (horns) and Paul Smith (drums). Some photos of the boys in the band from their three previous albums look like they’ve come from Homeland Security’s no-fly list. In reality, Dengue Fever may be the best U.S. cultural ambassadors to Southeast Asia since the glory days of jazz stars Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and John Coltrane 50 years ago. The band’s “new” album, Dengue Fever Presents Electric Cambodia (Minky), spotlights vintage performances by its favorite Cambodian artists from the late ’60s/early ’70s. Dengue Fever will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with them.
Zac Holtzman: One of the things I like to do besides play music is TIG weld. A friend of mine in S.F. has a bike company called SyCip. He took me under his wing and showed me how to design bike frames. I’ve built a few, and ridin’ on them is pretty hard. One is a stainless-steel cyclocross bike that I call my Delorean. I was a bike messenger in S.F. for a couple years, and my Delorean kept me safe. Once, it rained a month straight. I had a dozen pairs of wet shoes drying out. I was a vegetarian at the time, and even with eating two dinners a night, I wasn’t getting enough protein. I went back to chicken and fish. These days I’ll eat anything but pork or veal. But if someone asked me to go wild-boar hunting, I’d go and eat what I killed. One person I know shot a bunch of squirrel with a sling shot when he was a kid. His dad froze the squirrel and over the next year made him eat it all! If I had a kid that did this, I think I’d make them eat one of the squirrels to get the point across. And call it good.
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR8ifNIbJho
