About That Motherf*cking Dada Life

Since storming the scene in 2008 with their massive jam “Do the Motherfucking Dada,” Swedish progressive house duo Dada Life—Olle Cornéer and Stefan Engblom—have carved out a corner of EDM all their own. They call it Dada Land, and it’s a place defined by an absurd (and make no mistake, fully self-aware) sense of humor, music that sounds like an approaching swarm of bees (in a good way), and an apparently endless supply of bananas and champagne.

Hope you enjoy our chat with Engblom about life as Dada Land’s co-ruler.

Dada Life has a very specific style and ethos; everything you do has always been really cohesive. Can you put some adjectives on your aesthetic?
The thing is, we think it’s more than just being a DJ and making music. For us, it’s a whole life, and that’s why we created Dada Land and why our name is Dada Life. It’s about listening to music, and having fun, and getting those wonderful feelings when you’re at the club or if you’re listening on your headphones. It’s about living that Dada Life.

But what does that mean, “living that Dada Life?”
Happiness. If we play onstage and see a person in the crowd who has a big smile on their face and we can see that it’s pure happiness, we try to capture that moment and bring that feeling back to the studio and make a track out of it.

Your gigs are so elaborate, with the champagne and bananas and everything. You’re doing an event in Southern California next month that’s a whole two-day campout with hot air balloons and big lineup of activities and artists. Why invest that much effort?
We want people to experience Dada Land and Dada Life, and for us, to have come this far, we can make it happen. We have the opportunity. Who doesn’t want to go on a bounce castle or go on a scavenger hunt while amazing music is playing? You know when you were little and you went to a big birthday party with cake and a bounce castle, and it was pure happiness? We want to bring that back to everybody. You’re so happy when you’re little. You don’t think; you’re just happy.

How are you feeling? You had some health issues a few months ago, right?
Yeah, they actually removed my whole large intestine.

Oh my god.
Yeah, it was a really big thing, and I had so many complications. I was actually in the hospital for one month, lying in bed. Now I’m almost back, but I’ve got an ostomy [a surgically-created opening in the abdomen that allows waste or urine to leave the body] on my stomach, and I have to live with that, but it’s going good. We just came back from a tour in India, and it was the first tour with the whole ostomy and all the medication and everything that I take now, and it worked out.

It’s not a good idea just to send out letters to embassies claiming Dada Land as a sovereign nation.

What keeps you invested in what you’re doing, especially now, when it’s more logistically challenging for you to tour?
We love making music. We love being on the road. For us, it’s a balance. We see a lot of DJs that play so many shows. Like, so so many shows. You listen to their music, and you can hear that they’re out playing too much and the music gets—how do you say it in English—sacrificed. They put the effort in being out and DJing and collecting money.

Is Dada Land a democracy or a monarchy?
I would say me and Olle pretty much rule Dada Land.

What are your national holidays?
We have our Independence Day. The thing is, the first time we had it, we actually sent out letters to roughly 140 embassies around the world, and the Swedish government ended up taking our passports. We couldn’t travel to Miami for Winter Music Conference last year.

What happened, exactly?
It’s not a good idea just to send out letters to embassies claiming Dada Land as a sovereign nation. We were serious about it, but maybe we should have gone a bit more gently. They took our passports, just talked to us about what our goal was. I can’t say much more about what was said in those meetings, but we have our passports back now.

Give me some of the rules of Dada.
Never bring your brain to a rave. That’s a really important rule to Dada.

If you don’t bring your brain, what are you thinking with?
That’s the whole point; you don’t think. If you start thinking, you’re losing fun. For instance, we have pillow fights sometimes during our shows. You have a pillow. It’s happy violence. That’s all there is.

So that’s the definition of happy violence, like, being in a pillow fight?
Exactly. The funny part is that we have a residency at Hakkasan in Vegas, a very upscale club, but once we bring out the pillows, [the audience] forgets all about the tables and champagne and liquor and whatever. They’re just like, “Whoa, pillow fight. Fucking awesome.” They love it. They just smack each other, and it’s pure happy violence. After that, the whole club explodes. That’s what it’s all about.

What is the crime rate in Dada Land?
We haven’t had any problems, never ever.

What are the biggest challenges facing the country?
The biggest challenge for us is finding insurance companies that cover our stupid ideas. You know that we broke the world record for the largest pillow fight ever? It was like, 5,000 people in Chicago. We had that idea for so long, but the thing holding us back was insurance. Then we finally found the location and an insurance company that said yes, and we made it happen.

Who’s responsible for ordering all the pillows?
Oh shit. We had 5,000 pillows, which is so many pillows, and it had to be one specific kind of pillow, because that was the pillow the insurance company said yes to. We had a shipment from Sweden, and four days ahead of the show, they called and said, “We’re not going to make it.”

Some people from our management company ended up calling all of the Ikeas in half of the US and emptied all of their stocks of pillows. We had three trucks coming fully loaded with pillows. You’re laughing, but do you know how many pillows 5,000 pillows is? It’s a massive amount of pillows. Just unpacking them… it was just insane.

That kind of answers the next question I had about the primary import of Dada Land.
The thing is, we have a lot of bananas and champagne, too.

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