How would you best describe The Dresden Dolls?

AMANDA: The simplest way to put it is to say that we're a piano and drums duo that play theatrical and cabaret influenced rock.

BRIAN: We put on the tag 'punk cabaret' very early on. That seemed to encapsulate the spirit all around of what we do - this sort of intimate, theatrical, rebellious and individualistic tendency that we naturally follow through our performance and through our musical impulses.

Nowadays, when a lot of people think of cabaret they might think of something pretty tame…

AMANDA: That's why the punk is there, to offset that.

I think the original cabaret had more of that element but people forget that nowadays.

AMANDA: Yeah, cabaret has come to mean something really abominable nowadays.

BRIAN: But overall, we're performance rock. You know, whether that's the guys from the '60s or the '80s or glam or whatever you wanna -

AMANDA: Well, I don't call it that, just because I don't think that the performance part is really essential to the music. When I hear someone say 'performance rock' I think of something that depends on the trappings and the performance to get the point across. I think that if we had no costumes, no make-up, no show that the music would still stand by itself and independently make the same strong statement. The rest of it is great and it's fun and it definitely enhances the show but it but it's not the core of what we do and why we do it.

Yeah, your sound is very powerful and the lyrics and music are so unusual, the way you combine different influences and elements.

BRIAN: I think it's an amazing feat in itself just to have found a way to express the music visually in a live setting. I remember when I first heard it, when I first heard Amanda play, I thought to myself, "God, this is some of the most bizarre music I've ever heard in my life," you know, because it wasn't so out there that you could call it experimental.

AMANDA: No, they're still just rock songs but they're a little twisted.

BRIAN: The tone of the music and the place it springs from is a very immediate and very strange sort of realm and that's immediately what caught me. It very much catches you off guard with how with how snappy and catchy it is but the sentiments being expressed are -

AMANDA: There's always the barb.

BRIAN: Yeah, exactly, that draws you back in. It doesn't let you just get away with having a sort of passive experience. It really challenges you to think, hopefully.

I think you've succeeded very well on that level. Who are your influences, not just in your music but also what drives your artistic force?

AMANDA: I have so many it's almost hard to talk about it. When you look at just the album itself there are so many genres and so many styles represented. It's everything from '60s girl group music to The Legendary Pink Dots who are a huge favorite of mine, to '80s new wave, to musical theater and Kurt Weill and Weimar cabaret kind of music.
       The thread that ties everything together is that I'm really a sucker for a catchy tune, so any kind of music that has substance and is also melodic and emotionally profound is what's spoken to me and that's often genre defying. It can be musical theater and it can also be Nick Cave and it can be The Beatles and even though musically those things sound very different there's a thread that runs through them that connects them all together. I think Brian and I also have that in common. We're both really turned on by passionate performers and emotionally honest music.

BRIAN: We share that. The main difference comes in our own natural tendencies and our roles within the band. Amanda is very much turned on by songwriters and song craft and I've always been more mentally and emotionally turned on by music that really searches, especially in the role of supportive drummers.
       For myself, listening to a lot of jazz and obviously a lot of very emotive and passionate music. I was a huge fan of Nick Cave, Birthday Party, Black Flag and a lot of bands like that and musicians who really can express their own identity. That's why I really love Neil Young & Crazy Horse too. Those guys aren't like player's players but the way that they emote as one is really incredible.
       I've always been turned on by groups like the John Coltrane Quartet. So that's where I apply a lot of my knowledge within the band as how can I best musically support Amanda's songwriting and orchestrate the music so that it has the kind of punch and drive that she doesn't have on just the piano. Again, The Doors too, was like a very close relationship with that where the drums were constantly embellishing and punctuating the lyrics and the point of the song.

AMANDA: Yeah, we really compliment each other so perfectly, it's hard to believe. I didn't really even need a band. I needed this. I needed someone who could support and rhythmically drive the music and Brian needed someone who would provide him the forum to do just that: the freedom and the space to be able to express himself through his drumming and not just join a band where he's a timekeeper. So we both really get what what we want through the band, which is a miracle.

Your performances do really well with a small intimate audience, but you've also played with larger bands like B-52s and Jane's Addiction, havn't you ?

AMANDA: Yeah, the band is gonna grow as the size of the venue grows. I'm sure there's gonna be a point at which we'll flesh out the stage show and start using video feeds, live feeds and working with artists to make the show bigger and better. And we'll get to a point, I'm sure, where we say, "This is too big. The point's not getting across so let's cap it," and stop. We haven't gotten to that point but I think those will be good problems to have if we get there.

In your biography you mentioned something about having a dream of touring around the US with a big European style Spiegel tent with a bunch of different types of performers. Do you think that might be the future of festivals, something that's on a more intimate level?

AMANDA: It's the future of our festival.

BRIAN: What a beautiful dream. Absolutely. Well, it gives one total control over the atmosphere and environment over the venue and the kind of atmosphere you want to provide for the place. And for us, we've met a lot of great bands that we are hopeful for hooking up with in the future and being able to coordinate some sort of festival like that.

AMANDA: If you're going to different cities and running your own show and setting up your own venue everywhere you go then you don't need to dance with the devil. And that's definitely somewhere on our agenda.

BRIAN: It seems possible. Like Cirque du Soleil, which has now become a huge thing, I remember when it started out, it was a similar thing - a tent with a bunch of performers and it took off immediately because it was so different than anything out there. And even now, there are other circuses and performances like that but it seems like something that is really untapped still, especially with musicians.

AMANDA: Well, bands have done it. Radiohead did a whole tour like that, where they just rented a giant tent. You know, said screw all the Gillette Stadium and the Dunkin' Donut Pavilions and they managed to do it and that was on a huge scale so it's possible.

BRIAN: Keep the dream alive.

AMANDA: Punk cabaret.

What is the music scene like in Boston? Are you guys really well known there or are you kind of like considered obscure freaks?

AMANDA: Oh, those are two different questions. We're very well known in Boston but the scene is a little weird.

BRIAN: The scene, I feel, is very active and very healthy and constantly fluctuating. There's a lot of really great little art spaces that put on fantastic jazz and experimental music and stuff so it's just a matter of weeding through it to find the good, and that kind of thing. There's definitely some nice diversity in Boston.

AMANDA: And there's just starting to be some cabaret acts, you know, we certainly weren't completely unique, coming out of Boston. There's a band called Beat Circus that does a 9-piece sort of Vaudeville circus kind of music.

BRIAN: Kind of jazz orchestrations. It's like Raymond Scott old style.

AMANDA: Certainly the burlesque scene has been pretty big in Boston as well, just as it has in LA and New York. We've kept those people in the loop and tried to involve burlesque performers wherever we go. I'm very excited about that, watching that whole scene come alive.

Yeah, it L.A. it's become huge.

BRIAN: L.A., San Francisco's been wonderful, Seattle's great. It's nice, there's a great little core group of people in a lot of the places that we go to. And down South too. A lot of people say, "What about the South and the Midwest? You guys must be way over their heads." And it's not the case at all.

AMANDA: We're actually embraced even more. Like the straighter the town the better audience we get usually.

BRIAN: Like Missouri has been one of the strongest states so far that supports us.

AMANDA: Salt Lake City too.

BRIAN: Yeah, Salt Lake City. But yeah, it's nice going to places like that where you don't typically expect that sort of response and get an overwhelming reception from these people. It's wonderful.

You have a lot more history on the East Coast, whereas L.A., there's a lot of really cool things going on but there's no real history. It seems like everything started around the '20s. There's nothing much older than that.

AMANDA: Yeah, one nice thing that I love about Boston and New York is that it doesn't feel that new and me being a complete nostalgia freak and a history buff, it's really nice to walk into a building that's built 200 years ago and look at all the old architecture. It's also why we love Europe so much. Talk about old. It puts Boston to shame.

BRIAN: Now Egypt, baby, that's where we're headed. They've got the whole old thing down. That shit is old.

Amanda, the art direction in the "Girl Anachronism" video combined with your very versatile face seem to allude a bit to the images created by photographer/artist Cindy Sherman. Are you or the video director Michael Pope by chance a fan of her work?

AMANDA: I know her stuff but it didn't even pop into my mind, doing that. I used to do a lot of photography and theatre and you know, being the egocentric person that I am I did tons and tons of dead self-portraits and all that kind of stuff. So the idea of doing that was also sort of a no-brainer for the song. It's a very schizophrenic song so the idea of having me as the actress playing every character referenced in the song made a lot of sense.

BRIAN: Very Eddie Murphy of you.

AMANDA: Not to mention we didn't have to hire any other actors. We were doing that on less than a shoestring budget.

I think with the resources you had you made a very cool video.

AMANDA: We can't take any credit for that. It is 100 percent Michael Pope.

My French wife jokingly wanted me to ask if two are related to Marcel Marceau. Amanda, I just discovered that you actually trained under him a few years ago.

AMANDA: "Trained under him" is a wild exaggeration. I did one one workshop with him. And we just saw him several weeks ago. We saw his show and I met him again. Of course he didn't remember me or recognize me after the show. Brian didn't get a chance to meet him.

BRIAN: No, I flat out didn't want to. I'll be honest. I didn't like his show. Well, I was sort of split. I really loved the second act, the stuff that he did with his students. But I was just like, what is so engaging for 45 minutes of like an old man puttering around ?

AMANDA: And I, of course, was like close to tears the entire time and thought it was wonderful.

BRIAN: I thought it was terrible but I really loved what he was doing with his students. That really grabbed me. I thought it was beautiful. I guess it was just more modern. But maybe I'm just jaded or whatever like that. I didn't find it engaging at all and I don't ever wanna be like reckoned to being a mime. Clown, fine but mime, no fucking way. Please, keep that term away from us. Seriously, because it goes far beyond just the sort of pantomime kind of thing and I have a very visceral reaction, as you can see.

AMANDA: We go to a support group once a week.

BRIAN: I'm still recovering.

It's good that we're getting this on tape because I actually have a friend who I've mentioned you guys to and she's like, "I don't like mimes." I told her you're not mimes.

BRIAN: Nobody likes mimes. They're not funny.

AMANDA: I like mimes.

BRIAN: But I can't help the fact that I also don't speak too. People are probably gonna look at me and go, "Shut up, you're a fucking mime," because I don't talk and I do a lot of gesticulating and sort of acting and stuff like that and there is a lot of pantomime in the performance.

AMANDA: No one ever called Bowie a mime. We should leave it at that.