Django Haskins is no stranger to the thrill of live musical performance. As the leader of the eclectic Chapel Hill-based band The Old Ceremony, he has gone from entertaining North Carolinians to culling followers at an international level.
Describing one of his favorite sets, played at an artist’s hovel in Berlin, he paints a picturesque scene:
“People right up on top of us — it was really sweaty and smoky, and you couldn’t see the walls of the room because people were right up in your face. The PA was the size of two shoeboxes. There was this German guy, incredibly impaired, who kept falling onto my microphone stand and rolling into me during songs, screaming about Kurt Cobain. It was just a wild scene, definitely one of my favorite shows we’ve ever played.”
For Haskins, the excitement only continues from there.
The Old Ceremony is arguably one of the most successful achievements of the Triangle’s independent music scene. Formed in 2004, the band, consisting of Haskins, Jeff Crawford, Dan Hall, Mark Simonsen and Gabriel Pelli, has gone on to release several albums that have enthralled fans and critics alike, earning them mentions in publications such as Paste Magazine and Daytrotter.
Partly due to these accolades, The Old Ceremony found its audience expanding from the Triangle to the rest of the U.S. and then into Europe. As of now, the band is riding the release of its new album, Fairytales and Other Forms of Suicide, alongside the new success of being signed to Yep Roc Records.
“The band started out eight years ago with a real concept, which was to try and play this specific style of music that was kind of dark, kind of jazz-influenced — songs that didn’t really fit in the regular rock band kind of setting,” Haskins said.
He explained that this concept is what lies behind the band’s usage of non-traditional rock instruments, such as the vibraphone, horns and the violin, in a rock-based context. The new record features a good dosage of such instruments, but with a more dark and folk-influenced feel than some of the band’s previous releases.
Haskins attributes the folky shift both to his parents, who were folk musicians, and to an inspiring recording session that took place during the recording of the band’s last record, Tender Age.
During this specific recording session, the band sat around Haskins’ living room with just a few microphones and acoustic instruments, rather than in a traditional studio environment.
Reflecting on that event and its influence on the band’s current sound, he waxes lyrical of the warm, airy ambience of those recordings, describing their sound as “something that we continue to play around with.”
Haskins said the darker lyrical content of the record is an effort to “take apart ideas about mythologies and fairy tales and think about how they can get in the way of us seeing the world as it is.”
In other words, it examines how gilded dreams distort and potentially ruin reality. It’s an idea that seems to be a modest proclamation amid the clamor of success.
A major step in continuing the band’s longtime success, particularly with its most recent release, was signing this year with Yep Roc Records, which is based in Haw River. Haskins describes the band’s new label as an exciting turn, citing how they allow his band to exercise artistic and creative control.
“They look for songs that will last rather than a flash-in-the-pan kind of thing,” he said.
Glenn Dicker is the co-owner of Yep Roc Records who brought the band and the label’s relationship to fruition. He said that the band’s great sound, along with the record company’s penchant for signing Triangle artists, were both pull factors in the label approaching the band.
“We’ve known about those guys for years, and considered all of them friends,” Dicker said. “We’ve always admired Django, both his writing and as a guy.”
He remembers a riveting performance by The Old Ceremony at the opening night of the Haw River Ballroom in Saxapahaw in May 2011 as the decisive moment at which he realized that the label needed to bring in the band.
Tomorrow, The Old Ceremony plays with Megafaun at the Cat’s Cradle to celebrate both the Yep Roc Records signing and Fairytales. Frank Heath, co-owner of the Cradle, is ecstatic about the event. He has worked with the band many times over its history, and has always been impressed with its songs and command of the stage.
“We’ve always had wonderful experiences with The Old Ceremony,” Heath said. “They’ve done everything right in terms of learning their music and how it works for their audience.”
In the end, Haskins stays humorously modest about The Old Ceremony’s rise to fame and its continuing success.
“To stick around for a long time requires either a lot of delusion or an incredible amount of stubbornness. I think we tend towards stubbornness, but we have our moments of delusion too.”
Contact the desk editor at diversions@dailytarheel.com.
To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.
