Danger Mouse: the executive producer

Danger Mouse in his backyard (Credit: Christina M. Felice)

It was only four years ago, but it seems like it's been ages since “The Grey Album.”

Danger Mouse, born Brian Burton, has come so far in these few short years it’s hard to remember the magnitude of the pop culture spotlight that trained on him following the release of “TGA,” his crafty melding of the Beatles’ “White Album” with Jay-Z’s “The Black Album.” Spending an afternoon with Danger Mouse that March in Miami during the Winter Music Conference, I discovered a fiercely intelligent thinker with an unwavering focus on realizing ambitious artistic dreams.

Since then, he’s been nominated for Grammys and produced a ubiquitous pop hit that perched on the cultural landscape like a monument (“Feel Good, Inc.” by Gorillaz). That ended up only being a dress rehearsal for Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy,” the kind of moment-defining melody that transcends the usual boundaries effortlessly enough to be coined an instant classic.

What makes Gnarls Barkley so special is that the project allows Danger Mouse and Atlanta rapper Cee-Lo (of Goodie Mob fame) to fully fly their freak flags. Lyrically, Cee-Lo can explore the dark recesses of his stress-addled mind. (And if you’ve never seen the episode of MTV’s “My Super Sweet 16” featuring his daughter, well, let’s just say there’s ample reason for said stress.) Sonically, Danger Mouse can explore a panorama of sound, as on the duo's latest LP, “The Odd Couple.” Leaning back with a snappy backbeat of “Charity Case” one moment, he’s just as quick to dazzle with a dense forest of digital wizardry on the aural opus “She Knows.”  It’s an intriguing artistic journey shared by two endlessly fascinating figures.

Recently, I found myself at D.M.’s stately Los Feliz studio, where he’s just finished producing Beck’s latest effort, “Modern Guilt.” D.M. turns Beck’s dark-lit psychedelia into a dense collection that marries the melancholy mood of “Sea Change” to not just a girl, but the whole wide world. This time, Beck is having pre-breakup anxiety with life as we know it. When the polar ice caps melt into NYC and gas is $25 a gallon, “Modern Guilt” will hearken back the good ol’ days of right now.

Through it all, Danger Mouse's presence is cool to the point of calming. Quietly posing for a quick flurry of photos in his green backyard, he patiently endures a volley of open-ended questions.

You’ve become such a prominent producer in a relatively short time.
Well, I’m thinking about moving away from producing. [laughs]

Do you mean doing more collaborative projects like Gnarls Barkley, as opposed to what you did with the Black Keys on “Attack & Release”?
Well, that relationship [with the Black Keys], once it got started, will go on for a while. We’re talking about doing something again real soon, like this year. With people I’ve already worked with, the door is always open. Ongoing collaborations are just more rewarding for me personally. Now that I’ve kind of figured out who I am as an artist and what I can bring to the table, I’m more confident going forward.

How important is environment for you in terms of recording? You went to Akron to record the Black Keys…
It’s kind of important, just from a preference point of view. I can work in a lot of different environments.

Would it have made a difference if you recorded the album here?
No. Whatever makes them the most comfortable, I can always adjust. They have families and stuff, which I don’t. I can run around a little bit more. But I love working here in my place. I have tons of cool stuff that I’m really good at working with. This is my favorite place to work.

Is it a 24-hour-a-day process? Was it just the Beck album straight through, or do you move between projects at the same time?
Each one is very different. For the Black Keys, I went to Ohio for a few weeks and just did the whole thing. Beck took a little longer. Since he lives in town, we were getting together for weeks at a time. That was a really great experience for me, just watching the way he works and how he writes. It’s pretty amazing. Making that record was really inspiring for me, especially working so closely with him on it.

Do you see the two of you working together again in the future?
Yeah, absolutely. Once we started going, it felt like we had been working together for a while. It was really easy. It’s always great when you meet a person that you get along with and have things in common. For he and I, it was great timing the way it worked out. We’ve known each other for the last couple of years, and this was just the right time to get things started.

You recently worked with Van Dyke Parks on the Shortwave Set album, right?
Yeah, that was fantastic. It’s pretty wild watching him work. I went over to his house and it was a cool little collaboration. John Cale happened to be around and put something on the song too.

How different was making the new Gnarls Barkley album as opposed to the first?
It wasn’t that much different. It was more intense. We knew each other better, and it was a lot more personal. The subject matter went a bit deeper. The process was pretty similar, in that half of it was recorded together and half of it was done apart. We put more hours into this record, but over a shorter period of time overall. It still took us a year to finish, and that was longer than we wanted. Sometimes it just wasn’t there, especially the mind state to do some of the darker parts of Gnarls Barkely. It’s not the easiest thing to just conjure up.

There are definitely some deep moments on this new record.
It’s never a conscious thing. We never talk about it in advance. I’ll just send him music that I’d want to hear him on, and he reacts to it. We take it from there.

Scott T. Sterling is Music editor for Metromix Los Angeles.