Dead Can Dance

THE SPIRIT OF DEAD CAN DANCE

- J. Poet, Sunday, September 18, 2005

You may not know the music, but you'll never forget the name of the band or the ghoulish images that skitter through your brain the first time you hear Dead Can Dance.

The band is the partnership of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry, composer-songwriters whose sound spans continents and centuries to bring forth moody music that echoes cultural influences from Ireland to the Middle East, from the 12th century to the present day. DCD makes music that could belong to any or all cultures.

In 1996, after a decade of cult-artist status, DCD had a No. 1 hit on Billboard's world music chart with the album "Spiritchaser." Gerrard and Perry completed a world tour to ecstatic notices from fans and critics, then went on an extended hiatus that many feared was the end of the road. Perry retreated to his castle in the Irish countryside and Gerrard went back to Australia to tend to her family and write music for motion pictures, including "Gladiator," "Whale Rider," "Ali" and "Layer Cake."

"(Performing live) invigorates you, but life on the road wears you down," Gerrard says by phone from Seattle, where she was rehearsing with the rest of the DCD ensemble for their current American tour. "The frequencies hitting your ears and the volume can tire you, but you're so elated onstage you don't notice it. The next morning you implode. You do five gigs in a row, have a day off, then seven in a row, day off -- it's a strange kind of torture. You love it, but it destroys you."

That said, Gerrard goes on to explain the reasoning behind the band's reunion.

"It may sound pretentious or self-important, but the things happening on the planet today are making people suffer," she says. "I understand culture and spirituality, but I don't like nationalism or religion. Nationalism is a political device and religious people quickly forget the basic tenets (of Christianity), which include thou shalt not kill, for one. We offer our music as a gift to provoke a deeper sensibility in the consciousness of people; we hope to bring people to a state that's not just entertaining. We ask the audience and ourselves: What is spirituality? What is it to be an artist? What is it to be human?

"Those are questions that must be answered from the inside out, not from the outside in. Brendan and I have a difficult relationship, there's no doubt about it, but (the songs) we've created are like our children. If we can overcome the things that separate us and offer the music as an olive branch, perhaps we can create some positive energy and open the pathway of the heart to a deeper understanding of the spirit. We can remind ourselves that we're all multidimensional creatures."

Gerrard and Perry will be playing many new compositions Wednesday and Thursday at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, songs that have been road tested during the European leg of their tour.

"About half the set is new stuff. We save the older pieces for the encores, if we get them," Gerrard says archly. "We haven't written together in a while, but we've both brought in things we've written on our own. We don't know if there will be a new album yet; we'll have to wait and see how Brendan is feeling at the end of all this."

Gerrard will be singing in her newly discovered lower register, a gruff almost other-worldly tone she discovered while recording "Immortal Memory," her 2004 collaboration with Patrick Cassidy.

"Years ago I sang on a track using that voice and someone asked, 'Who is that terribly depressed man?' " Gerrard says. "But Patrick loved it. He said, 'You sound like a young boy, like a child, like an old woman, like an old man,' and really, we all have all of those things inside of us. I don't do any vocal gymnastics to make the voice better as I age. If it comes out rougher, then it's true to what's happening. Singing is who I am. I didn't train for it, any more than I trained for anything else I did. I probably should take better care of myself physically, but it goes against the grain."

At the end of the current tour, Gerrard will be putting the finishing touches on her next solo album.

"I'm working with Michael Edwards, a keyboard player and programmer, and Patrick Cassidy, but it's not like anything I've ever done before," she says. "All the compositions are mine, so it's a real solo album. Still, I'll be showcasing their input because they're both brilliant." (Both Edwards and Cassidy are part of the current DCD touring ensemble, along with John Bonnar, keys; Lance Hogan, guitar; and percussionists Simeon Smith and Niall Gregory.)

If a new Dead Can Dance album isn't in the cards, Gerrard has plenty to keep her busy. In addition to her solo project, there are soundtracks to compose and, back home in Australia, a family to raise.

"At the end of the day, success has nothing to do with money," Gerrard says. "In a perfect world, I wouldn't have to play my music to anyone outside my radius because everyone would be playing their own music. But we don't live in a perfect world, so I share as widely as I can and try to maintain some sense of sanity. The money lets me stay at home to be a good parent, but it has nothing to do with making music.

"I have a friend who is an opera singer and she never sang publicly in her life. She sang in hospitals to people who were sick. I was interviewing her for a documentary film I was making, and she could have become the most important opera singer in Australia, but at 88 she was merely a wonderful old eccentric.

"She told me: 'I have achieved what I've wanted to achieve, one to one. I hold a person's hand as I sing to them, and I can see the intimacy between us written in their eyes. I'd never change that for a stage.' " •