Even if you've never heard of Arling & Cameron, there's a good chance you've heard their music. A combination of loungecore kitsch and European nightclub style, the dynamic Dutch duo's music falls into the same retro-futuristic vein as Fantastic Plastic Machine, and has begun finding its way into films and commercials. Arling & Cameron's latest release, Music For Imaginary Films, puts the cart before the horse in that respect, creating a variety of alarmingly plausible film scenarios for which the pair provide suitably authentic music. Though it's a step beyond and/or away from their "easy-tune" roots, it also suggests that the pair could easily find work in Hollywood scoring some very real film projects.

Splendid's George Zahora caught up with Gerry Arling and Richard Cameron during a recent promotional tour and got the lowdown on the whole Music for Imaginary Films project. Remember, kids, no matter how much Arling and Cameron indicate otherwise, these aren't real movies...

Splendid: Until recently, you've been a studio-only act. What did it take to get yourselves from a studio act to a live "band"?

Gerry Arling: A good idea. You can't reproduce the album's sound, of course, so you have to have something special to make it worthwhile.

Splendid: And what did you come up with that's special?

Arling: We've got a specially-made video...a theremin player...we had this crazy German guy --

Richard Cameron: The flute player --

Arling: Yeah, the flute player. There are lots of things going on.

Splendid: So since you can't get everything to be exactly like the way you did it on the album, would you say it's more important to capture the "spirit" of the music?

Cameron: Live performance is a thing of its own. It has a dynamic of its own.

Arling: So it should be just...I think, a nice feeling. Whatever it takes.

Cameron: That's what we try to achieve -- that people just have a nice time. Our ambitions are very low-key in that respect. We don't try to impress them with big effects or things like that --

Arling: No --

Cameron: We try to create an intimate atmosphere, this happy atmosphere, and whether we do it with a live act or as DJs, the goal is the same -- to get people in a good mood. And of course, playing live has a completely different impact than playing records. In the end, though, what it comes down to is that people should...

From the Liner Notes: "...The show's formula, with the main character (played by Fred McMurray's twin brother Martin) as the last man on a post-apocalyptic Earth who plucks his ukulele on a rainy beach and opens his heart to a different animal each episode, came from necessity: each animal mysteriously died at the end of the shooting day."

Splendid: Enjoy it.

Cameron: Yes. Enjoy sort of a warm atmosphere.

Splendid: Very different, then, than coming onstage, putting on a DAT and acting like you're playing it all live.

AUDIO: New Day

Arling: Oh, we use DAT tapes, of course; otherwise it would be much too expensive. But we try to add our own ideas, to show what we like and what we're about with different thing.

Cameron: We try to add an extra dimension to the music that really makes it a once-in-a-lifetime experience. That's what a live experience should be --

Splendid: The chance to have a unique experience.

Cameron: Yes.

Arling: So I don't see a problem playing a DAT tape as long as you do something special with it, and make an effort...

Splendid: That's what I was getting at, because I remember a number of groups in the late eighties and early nineties -- Severed Heads, for instance, and Orbital -- who'd come onstage, start the tape and then stand at the back of the stage, not facing the audience, and twiddle knobs for an hour or so -- which didn't offer much of an "experience" to me.

Cameron: That's what we didn't want. It was very much a live performance --

Arling: Live meaning sharing. Communicating.

Cameron: Yes, that's it. But we don't see any point in bringing the computers or the hard disc recorder or the sequencing systems on tour, when what comes out of them is basically the same as you'd put on a DAT. We did, however, make special arrangements, and remixed the sounds for live performance, so it's not as if we just came in and put on our CD -- we made our tape specifically for our live show, and added the theremin to it, and bass and guitar, and I make some sounds and sing...

Splendid: It's an important difference in the dynamic.

Arling: Right. Otherwise you might as well stay at home.

Splendid: Right, stay at home and listen to the records and have some friends over.

Cameron: What we do now, Karin (Ras, his partner in Drive-In) and me -- Karin's not here, she's asleep upstairs -- when we DJ, we also try to add an extra dimension. We made a compilation of film clips -- you know that the new CD is about films?

Splendid: Yes.

Cameron: So we knew that there had to be a visual element to whatever we did, so we made a 45-minute video compilation of scenes from films --

Splendid: Scenes you created from the Imaginary Films?

Cameron: No, from existing films. But it's very funny to watch how, for example, if we play a two-hour set, and the video is played three times in a row, each time the same images get a completely different meaning when we play different music behind them. It's really sort of a good learning experience, almost --

Splendid: And I'd imagine it was interesting to see how the images interacted with the music, and how the different combinations altered the mood.

Cameron: And they always do, of course. Music always interprets image.

Splendid: More and more groups have started to include video in their live performances. Is it pretty much essential now for there to be something on a screen for people to watch while you play?

Arling: I don't think so...

Cameron: It's not essential.

Arling: Not essential. It started out, of course, in big stadiums, so that people could see something...and now they're using it as part of a show.

Cameron: But the whole multimedia aspect is, I think, something you should look into if you want to do new things. It's not something you have to do, because there are a lot of people who do things as they always have been done and are very happy with it -- there's still the "traditional" rock show, the traditional jazz show. But if you want to do new things, especially the possibilities that are offered to us now -- for instance, this video was created in our home, with some pretty simple equipment. Equipment you couldn't buy for normal price five years ago. So very much in the same way that computers changed the way we record, with hard disc recording and samplers, they've made it much more simple and accessible to do high standard things without spending a huge amount of money. So our idea now, having done this, is to work with synchronized video in our upcoming shows. We already work with music on tape, and it's very easy to cut images to it, so that's what we're going to do.

Splendid: So you'd take images from existing sources and synch them to the beats?

Cameron: That's right, yes.

Splendid: Tell me about Music for Imaginary Films. How did you decide to make this record? I know it's not the "official" follow-up to All In, so what inspired you to take this side road?

Arling: We were trying to come up with interesting concepts, and this was one of them. But it was very elaborate, and to do it right cost lots of money. Our older music is also based, very often, on visual concepts -- a story or whatever.

Cameron: We've made a lot of records together -- this is our 6th album, I think. We haven't always worked as Arling & Cameron.

Splendid: Right, I knew that.

Cameron: We usually work under pseudonyms, like Popcorn and Easy-Tune. All of our albums were concept albums, in a way, and Music for Imaginary Films was another concept we wanted to try. When we were first in America to "shop" All In (Offer it to US record labels -- Ed.) we were talking about this record, and did an interview with the New York Times in which we talked about it. And once it was in print, there was no way back -- we somehow had to find a way to make it!

Arling: And the interesting thing was also to make this great-sounding record and still be us -- to make this combination of traditional music writing and being Arling & Cameron, which I think really worked well.

Splendid: I think it's interesting, and it's one area where you really did well, that all of the films, all of the music sounds...plausible. You have to keep reminding yourself that there's not a film that goes with it -- especially something like "Hashi (the drug-sniffing canine)" or "The Only Guy", which seem like things you could rent at the video store. They really evoke a feeling of specific times and places and styles.

Cameron: It's a very thin line -- before you know it you're in camp territory, or kitsch, and that's something we really didn't want to do. That's why the project took quite a long time, because it involved all this live...

AUDIO: The Only Guy

Arling: For example, "The Only Guy" -- it's a funny-sounding music piece, but it's really traditional. It's not just meant to be silly.

Splendid: It seems to take its genre really seriously. I think it works because within the realm of whatever music you're trying to create, you're very serious about getting the style right.

Cameron: We didn't set out to make authentic pieces, though. It's not that we did research and really wanted to recreate something --

Arling: Although "The Only Guy" is...

Cameron: ...the most closely...

Arling: Linked to a real style of music. You could say that of "Hashi", too.

Cameron: And "Herrmann," in a sense.

Arling: "Herrmann" in a sense, too.

Splendid: Definitely "Herrmann." I really like the mood it creates.

Cameron: A lot of the other songs, though very heavily inspired by other styles, aren't authentic pieces.

Splendid: But had history gone another way, they could've been, which I think is the point you're making?

Cameron: The could have been, yes.

From the Liner Notes: "...Contrary to the wishes of the show's painfully naive creators, Hashi never joined the Lassie sweepstakes to become the dog icon of the 70s. In fact, the only entertaining thing about this television pilot which tells the tale of a JFK airport sniff dog, is the title track and its trippy descent into cosmic maelstrom."

Splendid: And there were posters done for the films, too, to heighten the illusion. How did that get started? Did you approach the artists, or did they approach you?

Cameron: We approached some of the "cream of the crop" of Dutch graphic designers and asked them to do posters for us, because we wanted to give it a visual dimension also, and making the film posters for each song was the most feasible thing to do. Making the trailers came up --

Splendid: Probably not cost-effective?

Cameron: No, and making the actual movies, of course...

Splendid: Maybe later.

Cameron: Yes.

Splendid: How much input did the artists have? Did they just get a copy of the track they were working on, and proceed to make a poster from what they heard?

Cameron: We gave them the titles --

Arling: Just the titles.

Cameron: And the names. For example, on the "New Day" poster we had the complete cast of Happiness, but with "Senior" added to all the names. Things like that.

Arling: I think they were pretty free...

Cameron: They were completely free to do whatever they wanted. We only rejected one design.

Splendid: Which one was that?

Cameron: It was for Spacebeach. Not the one that's on the cover now, of course, but another artist did a design for that and we rejected it.

Splendid: Did you ever find yourself surprised by the approaches that the artists took? "Herrmann," for instance.

Cameron: "Herrmann" is beautiful. It came out completely different from what I imagined -- I pictured something more sort of German impressionist sort of "M".

Splendid: And instead you get the spacing of the letters, which almost suggest another meaning to the title...

Cameron: And that inspired Steve Korver, the guy who wrote the liner notes, to go on about the cabalistic connotations of the title.

Splendid: Some of the songs are clearly tongue-in-cheek. The one I keep coming back to is "Hashi". What was your inspiration in writing the theme song for a drug-sniffing dog?

Cameron: Well, the inspiration I guess was Lassie, in the first place.

Arling: It's difficult to explain...just a great idea...

Cameron: It's like explaining a joke. It's very difficult. I was staying at Gerry's house, and we woke up one morning, we made breakfast and (the idea) was there within a minute.

Arling: The basic song was written in as long as the words take. That's pretty quick -- you can't do it quicker. But then you have to arrange it... that's how we work usually, by starting with a synopsis of the song and then fleshing it out.

Splendid: And "Hashi" is another song that's played with such conviction, because if you stop to think about it even the meter of the song is kind of ludicrous --

Arling: It's very quick.

Cameron: The idea is that it's a television series --

Splendid: That's the impression I got -- it didn't seem as much like a film.

Cameron: A series produced by a big American television corporation. They wanted to do a television show based on the success of "Lassie," but to pull it into the seventies, because "Lassie" was a fifties show and they wanted something 70s. Something with a dog, obviously, something that appealed to youth of the seventies... And they were thinking about things that interest young people, and they came up with...drugs. Of course, it had to be a family show, so the drug angle couldn't be them using drugs, so...it seemed like a good idea to do it about a dog that was sniffing drugs.

Splendid: When you spell it out like that it seems no less plausible than any other show on American television.

Arling: That's true.

Splendid: I'm surprised no-one's spoken to you and said "Hey, we want to make that."

Cameron: Well, maybe they still could. I wouldn't be surprised if some of our ideas are picked up, but I hope they'd have the decency to acknowledge that they got it from us, because I think it's pretty difficult to really protect your ideas from others.

Splendid: Although at least you've got several thousand copies of the album out there to prove that you thought of the ideas first.

Cameron: Yeah.

Splendid: I gather that "1999 Spaceclub" is intended to involve Buck Rogers and nightclubbing, but is it also sort of a nod to Arling & Cameron fans? Something to say "Yes, we're still A&C, we still make the music you've become accustomed to?"

Cameron: It's the song that started off the album, sort of.

Arling: It's also the first idea we had, and then we really started getting creative and wandered off in all different directions. It's the most...popular, I think. It wasn't originally made for Music for Imaginary Films because the project wasn't really clear yet. It's just a song ---

Cameron: A song we originally made for the Red Hot Foundation, for a compilation that never took place, so we used it here. It already had live horn arrangements so it fit in well.

Arling: We used it to start the album because it sounded so impressive, with the horns. People liked it.

Cameron: The second one we wrote was "Spacebeach". We had two songs and we thought "Wow, this is going to be really good!"

AUDIO: Hashi

Splendid: "Spacebeach" leaves me thinking of Moonraker for some reason.

Cameron: Yeah, I can see that.

Splendid: A lot of artists have gone down the "Imaginary Film Music" route, though they've all approached it differently, and many of them -- Barry Adamson, Graeme Revell, In the Nursery -- have wound up actually doing film music. Is that an aspiration of yours?

Arling: Definitely.

Splendid: Any inroads in that direction so far?

Cameron: Well, we've had our music used in films, but we've had no offers for film scores yet. Karin and me were offered the chance to select music for a Dutch film but we didn't do it. Gerry would've worked on it also, scoring some music.

Splendid: If that came along, would you stop being Arling & Cameron, cease making the pop music?

Cameron: No, I don't think so.

Arling: I didn't think about that though. You make music in a concentrated period of time, but there's time left to do other things.

Splendid: So if I could offer you a film to score right now, what would the ideal film be?

Cameron: Modern artists make soundtracks, like David Holmes for Out of Sight. I was pretty impressed with that because he stayed pretty close to what he does on his records. He didn't go out of his way to sound "film-soundtrack-like". That made it seem very feasible for us to do it as well.

Arling: But you mean a genre?

Splendid: Yes. For instance, if David Arnold called you tomorrow and said "I'm doing the music for the next Bond film, and I'd like to collaborate with you."

Cameron: But usually John Barry writes the song, no?

Arling: No, Dave Arnold has been doing them, he did the last two.

Cameron: But then he would write the song, yes?

Splendid: I gather that he collaborates.

Arling: Yeah, the theme song is usually a collaboration... I'm a fan of Dave Arnold -- not of all his stuff, but he does good stuff. I'd like to work with him. If it'd be good, I don't know.

Cameron: A new sort of Simpsons-like cartoon show would be really good, too. Or a Hollywood film like Pleasantville, or something by Tim Burton --

Splendid: Something with a skewed perception, where things aren't quite what they are here and now?

Cameron: Yes. That would be really nice. It would really fit well.

From the Liner Notes: "...Music and story attempted to fuse in this flawed cinematic experiment which sought to pay ultimate tribute to the blistering Hitchcock soundtracks of Bernard Herrmann. But no number of his trademark contrasts and flourishes, can save the Repulsion-on-acid storyline, which doggedly observes a loner (yes, his name is Herrmann as well) in a constant state of facial flux as he does inner battle with a variety of religious, gender and control issues."

Arling: But you don't have many options when you're starting out.

Cameron: But you never know what happens. They used our song for Gap Kids. We didn't think about that ever, and there are some other things lined up now.

Arling: You never know.

Cameron: "Voulez-vous" was used in The Sopranos --

Splendid: Which must be flattering.

Cameron: Yes, I know the series, I'm really proud of that. All these things happen and they're not things that we ever thought would happen, so we're getting less and less surprised. Not less excited, but less surprised by the things that are happening to us.

Splendid: People are starting to beat a path to your door now.

Arling: Well, they're starting to, maybe.

Splendid: Okay, if Music for Imaginary Films isn't the "real" follow-up to All In, what is? And when will we see it?

Arling: We are just starting to be ready for starting the next album. The other one took so much energy out of us, and even started to strain our relations. But now we are working well together again, and we have all these ideas, and we try to make more serious efforts at writing. Not only to start in the studio and see where it goes, but to prepare more.

Cameron: The thing is, because we wrote the songs in the studio, at the end of the day there's a finished song and it will end up on the record, and there's only so many songs that fit on a record, so basically the first twelve or fourteen ideas that we had would end up on the record.

Arling: But we have more ideas.

Cameron: We have a lot more ideas than that, so we're thinking...not so much of to "demo" --

Arling: No, that's the wrong word.

Cameron: To sort of collect ideas for songs and then made selections.

Splendid: So in the past you haven't just recorded, recorded, recorded and then chosen the best of a batch of results?

Cameron: No. We released pretty much everything.

Arling: Except for two-tracks.

Splendid: Do you have full studio setups at home for trying out ideas?

Cameron: We have studios at home but we don't really record there. Not for records.

Splendid: For trying out ideas.

Arling: Yes, just for little "sketches".

Splendid: It must be getting easier, though, as technology becomes cheaper and better.

Cameron: Oh, yes. It's not a matter of equipment, though. It's having to deal with the technical side -- it takes a lot of energy out of the creative process. It's better to have a guy there who does all that stuff so we can just concentrate on the music. It's comfort.

Splendid: So how long do you spend in the studio at a time? Do you put in an eight-hour day, or a twenty-four hour marathon?

Cameron: We'll start at 11:00 or 12:00 in the morning, and then stop at 10:00 or so. In between we'll take half an hour off for lunch and about 45 minutes for dinner.

Splendid: And at the end of the day you have a song?

Cameron: Yes. A lot of the songs on All In were made in a day -- but not on Music for Imaginary Films!

Arling: Oh, no.

Splendid: You had to be a bit more perfectionist on that one, I'm sure.

Arling: Yeah, or else it wouldn't work.

Splendid: Are you looking forward to going back to a more relaxed recording method?

Cameron: It will be a combination, I think.

Splendid: You'll be more exacting because of your experiences recording Music for Imaginary Films?

Arling: I think it's also all about excitement. You have to be excited by your music, and when you take a long time on one song it's really hard to be, at the end, excited. You should just go for the first excitement and put it on.

Cameron: That's the main driving force for what we're doing -- each song we do makes us really enthusiastic. I couldn't have been more enthusiastic twenty years ago when I started making music than I am now, still. It's just the driving force.

Arling: It's so important.

Cameron: Like if you look at each other after an hour and you're set up and it's like "Wow, this is going to be great!"

Arling: That's the main thing.

AUDIO: Herrmann.

Splendid: It's nice to see that you're excited by your music, rather than looking at it as a job. You're still having fun all the time.

Cameron: We often think that we made a hit, or --

Arling: An evergreen.

Cameron: Yeah, we call it an "evergreen". It's not always the case, but at that moment --

Arling: You believe in it.

Cameron: Yeah, you're like, "Wow, this is such a great song." And I must say, I listened to the Popcorn album, Stereo Showcase -- I don't know if you know it?

From the Liner Notes: "...with hindsight through jade(d)-tinted glasses being 20/20, modern folks naturally scoff at the concept of a three hour musical based on the teachings of Norman Vincent Peale and his Power of Positive Thinking. Leavened as it was with lashings of sacchrinated syrup, it was inevitable -- even in 1951 -- that a Broadway production of New Day: We're So Happy would die before it hit the boards."

Splendid: I'm afraid not.

Cameron: It's only released in Europe and Japan. We made it in '94, '95. If you listen to that, the tracks are still so very contemporary...and very creative in a way. Sometimes it takes a couple of years distance to really appreciate what you've done.

Splendid: It must be good to go back to things you did several years ago and find that you're still proud of them.

Arling: I can't recall one track I don't like. I think I like 'em all.

Cameron: I recall a couple of tracks that --

Arling: You hate?

Cameron: Not that I hate, but that...it has more to do with atmosphere rather than the actual track. Some of the tracks, I don't really care for the atmosphere.

Splendid: Any plans to release the Popcorn stuff in the US?

Cameron: No. There's still backstock, you can still order at at DRIVE-IN -- the website of our Drive-In record label. I think that the best that could happen is that we'll maybe reprint a couple hundred of them. What we do think about, though, is making a compilation of back catalog stuff, but with sort of...not really remixes, but updates of the songs. A selection of the best songs, updated.

Splendid: Like a George Lucas/Star Wars sort of thing where you fix the parts you didn't like? Update them?

Cameron: It's hard to tell what will happen. They might turn out to be remixes, but they're good as they are.

Splendid: But I'm guessing it's hard to resist the urge to tinker with them -- to try adding and changing stuff.

Cameron: That's true.

Arling: I would like it if we had the discipline not to do that. Not to update. We always try not to change songs, even if we remix. We always try to stay with the song, but it always fails somehow.

George Zahora is Splendid's Editor. He is willing to resort to violence if bands don't answer his questions to his satisfaction. Arling & Cameron are lucky that they met him on a good night...

[graphics credits:: logo: michael byzewski; photos: george zahora; "The Only Guy" poster: Joost Swarte; "Hashi" poster: Greet Egbers; "New Day" poster: Jan Bons; "Herrmann" poster: Goodwill ::end graphics credits]