Caribou’s Manitoba moniker up in flames

The musician and math PhD may have switched names, but his music is attracting more friends than ever

Monday, 29 October 2007

With albums Up in Flames, The Milk of Human Kindness, and current release Andorra, Caribou—the stage name of songwriter Dan Snaith—has proven that his layered music is far from simple. With a PhD in mathematics, a close call in a legal battle a few years ago, and a seemingly overcritical view about his own vocal abilities, Snaith isn’t such a simple character himself.

Impressively juggling the Up in Flames tour and writing a thesis, Snaith received his doctorate several years ago, and while math and creativity may not seem synonymous, for Snaith, their connection was a discovery made while attending university.

“[Math] changes so much from what people have experienced with it in high school [at the] research level. It’s almost a completely different subject,” Snaith says. “It’s something very difficult to explain because you have to get through all that ground work before you can get through to the interesting stuff.”

However, Snaith isn’t about to argue the mathematicians-are-geeks stereotype. To him, being geeky isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“[Mathematicians] definitely are geeks, but I think the best thing about them is that they’re so interested and obsessive about mathematics and lots and lots of other things,” he explains.

“To me, geekiness just means being really interested in a very specific thing that you love doing, or that maybe is very abstract.”

Ironically enough, one of the most abstract things an independent Canadian musician could have occur happened to Snaith in 2004.

Before Snaith was Caribou, he went by the moniker of Manitoba. In 2004, however, an American musician-turned-DJ named Richard “Handsome Dick” Manitoba—who had been using the name since the ’70s but who actually stopped playing music long ago—threatened Snaith with a lawsuit.

Snaith didn’t have the money to argue Handsome Dick and his lawyer’s accusations in court and wasn’t willing to waste his time over such trivial matters, so he agreed to a name change.

He never heard from Handsome Dick again, but discovered just how small the world can be when he learned that the guy was friends with someone he knew.

“[The] sound engineer on this tour, Teresa, lived directly upstairs from [Handsome Dick]’s bar,” Snaith reveals. “She said she’s known him for a long time and is friends with him—but he’s also an asshole.”

Even with a few jerks lurking in his past, Snaith’s got a few musical friends of his own, including Jeremy Greenspan from Junior Boys. Greenspan helped create “She’s the One” for Andorra during a three-day stay in Snaith’s home.
“We worked on [“She’s the One”] to the point where it’s almost impossible for us to pick out [our contributions],” Snaith admits. “Jeremy wrote the lyrics. Everything else, we worked on together, like we’d be sitting down beside one another at a piano sorting out different parts and stuff like that.”

Unlike his other records, Snaith has injected more melodies into his compositions on Andorra, especially vocals. Having referred to his singing as being “shitty” in the past, one has to wonder if anyone has ever told Snaith otherwise.

“People listen to the record so, they must not dislike them too much,” Snaith hesitates. “I’m just not a singer.”
For someone who has accomplished and experienced what few people have, Snaith remains unfazed. Like the math equations he’s had to work with over the years, Snaith is able to keep his frame of mind balanced—no matter how complicated life gets.

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