Danny Preston (keyboardist of Future Pigeon and Whiskey Biscuit) and his wife Tiffany had no intention of starting a band in their early days of sampling beats and experimenting with electronic music together. It wasn’t until a friend requested a basement performance from the married duo that they realized they had something special that warranted being performed outside of the confines of their home.

In an exclusive interview with ChinaShop the Prestons discuss how they unintentionally stumbled upon their electronic project, Rainbow Arabia. They attempted to estimate how long they have been married, and explained that it was their dogs that brought them together.

What influenced your album Boys and Diamonds?

Tiffany: That record was a little bit all over the place. We didn’t have much of a direction; we were just kind of letting ourselves go wherever we wanted with that record and not confining ourselves to any one sound. We were like, “Oh this sounds good. That’s what were gonna do.” It definitely got a little darker on that record.

Tell us more about your band being inspired by the purchase of a Lebanese synthesizer…

Tiffany: We were listening to Sublime Frequencies at the time and Danny was really influenced by Omar Souleyman. He saw a video and he thought all the beats were coming from a drummer but they were coming from this Lebanese keyboard that had these beats on it so he ordered a Lebanese Casio and all those beats kind of laid the groundwork for our first EP, The Basta.

So this began as a side project from your day jobs?

Tiffany: Yeah.

What were your day jobs?

Tiffany: I don’t have a day job anymore. The new record is my new day job but I was working in retail.

Danny: I charter jets. It’s a crazy job and you get weird requests. I got a call from Paris Hilton Entertainment today. They were like, “Paris needs a plane to go from Frankfurt to Amsterdam.” It’s a fun crazy job and I can do music in conjunction with it and go on tour so it works.

Whose idea was it to start the project or was it mutual?

Danny: It wasn’t even mutual. It was mutual that we wanted to write music together and stop playing in our previous bands and we wrote some music together but weren’t even thinking about starting a band.

Tiffany: When we first started jamming, I was like let’s do something totally…

Danny: Freaky!

Tiffany: Because we weren’t that into electronic music at the time so we thought let’s just try to do something with cool beats. For us, it sounded new but it actually wasn’t because there were other bands already doing it.

Danny: But we didn’t know that!

Tiffany: We just started listening to bands that were similar to us and were like, “Oh shit!” We kind of just hit this thing that was already happening with electronic music.

Danny: Yeah and we were doing it and were like, “Oh cool we got something going.” We were just playing in our basement for a while and we wouldn’t play for anybody until our friend Pat from These Are Powers was the first person that heard us.

Tiffany: Yeah. Our friend came and he stayed at our house and they were playing this show at The Echo and we were like, “Oh we’re going to jam you know” and then they came downstairs and were like, “Dude this sounds good. Why don’t you just play a show with this?” We were like, “What? Fuck It OK” and then we have just been playing ever since.

How did you develop such an interest in world music and edgy beats and all that?

Danny: Well world music – I’ve always been into collecting music from reggae to African to Afrobeat and all that forever. I was always into old electronic, like 80’s music and new wave and Depeche Mode and New Order, that type of electronic music. That’s what I thought was electronic music, like MIDI and the new stuff. We were just oblivious to what was happening.

Tiffany: We were getting into it and then we started getting more programs on our computer and figuring it out. We were making beats on all these dinosaur machines. And our producer showed us an easier way to do this.

Danny: I was using 80’s drum machines…

Tiffany: He was up on the more modern technology and schooled us on the new stuff.

Now you’re pros…

Danny: No. Now we have a drummer.

Tiffany: On our last record, what happened was we got so crazy into making those beats that it really held us up a lot because Danny was learning all these things and I was very limited on how I did it. I was cutting and pasting and taking hours to do this when there was probably easier ways to do it. We did it the hardest way. The next record we were like, “Oh fuck this. We gotta have someone do this and play drums on this.”

Danny: I think that’s what made it what it was because we were making beats that were totally free form not on a grid and it was all samples and loops and stuff. I think that made it interesting for people because they probably knew but didn’t know what we were doing.

Have you gotten to tour internationally at all?

Danny: We just got done with a big tour.

Tiffany: Four months of touring.

Where did you go?

Danny: All over Europe – Scandinavia, Portugal, Spain, UK, Turkey, Russia, Japan, Ireland. Istanbul was probably our favorite.

Why was that?

Tiffany: It was cool. The club we played was cool but the city has all these rugs and food and cafes and everybody has a cat – every store – and the cats have these cool necklaces on.

And they just let them wander around?

Tiffany: Yeah and it doesn’t smell or anything and they are really nice. It’s cat Heaven there.

Are you cat fans?

Danny: We’re dog people.

Dillon: Cats are so in right now though!

Tiffany: Cats are in.

Danny: Istanbul is right where Europe, The Middle East and Asia meet so you really see the collide of cultures.

Tiffany: Culture Collide! We got to use the buzzwords.

You guys live in Echo Park. Do you frequent many of these venues that the bands are playing at this weekend?

Tiffany: Oh yeah. This place is our old stomping ground but we haven’t been here for a while.

How long have you guys been married?

Danny: Um…

Tiffany: You want to hear something funny? Last year we were in Seattle on tour and Butchy, who was playing with us at the time, asked us how long we were married. I was thinking about it and Danny was like, “Oh my God. Today is our wedding anniversary!”

Danny: And I think what did we say? 8 years? 7 years?

Tiffany: 7 Years?

Danny: I don’t know. We don’t think about stuff like that.

You’re just into the music?

Tiffany: I love that answer because that can go with so many different things. “Have you eaten? I’m just into the music.”

Where did you meet? Do you remember that?

Tiffany: [Laughs]. Yeah we met at a party at Danny’s house. He had a basset hound and I really wanted a basset hound at the time and I was like, “Oh my God. Whose basset bound is this?”  Danny said, “It’s mine.” And I was like, “Ohhh, hey.”

Danny: Then we went dog walking and were friends for a while and the dogs told us we should go out.

What kind of dog did you have?

Tiffany: I had a pit bull so it was a funny match. They were a tough time.

Danny: The basset hound was the dominating one. The pit bull was just like, “I could eat you but I won’t.”

The critics have called your music “fourth world pop.” How do you feel about that description?

Danny: Fourth world pop I’ve always kind of related to the 80’s revival world music thing that kind of happened so yes and no but I think it’s very relevant.

What are you guys into hobby wise when you’re not making music together?

Danny: We don’t have time for hobbies.

Tiffany: I like dogs.

Danny: We hang out with the dogs.

Words and interview by Nicole Pajer (@NicolePajer). Photos by Catie Laffoon (@CatieLaffoon).