Our annual Summer Stars series features a variety of groups making the rounds on the festival circuit. Today we feature Django Django. We’ve also checked in with The Revivalists, Emancipator, Zoogma, Foxygen, The Flaming Lips, Allen Stone, Lord Huron, Shovels & Rope, Passion Pit, John Scofield, The Lumineers, Futurebirds, Tea Leaf Green and moe..

I don’t think any of us wanted to be in a band," Django Django guitarist/singer Vincent Neff says while humbly describing his group’s recent catapult from D.I.Y. art spaces to marquee festival dates. “All of us are into weird songwriters and producers who record in their bedrooms. The notion of a band comes with a lot of connotations of rock excess that turned us off.”

Neff met his future collaborators while at art school in Edinburgh, Scotland. “We were all making music – [drummer] David Maclean was working on dance stuff, [synth operator] Tommy Grace was making weird, instrumental organ music and I was writing songs,” he says. “[Bassist] Jimmy Dixon played in a bunch of groups.” After reconnecting in London around 2009, Neff and Maclean started working on a series of stray tracks and honed in on their current rhythmic, dance-driven, psychedelic sound. “We got Tommy and Jim involved so we could take it live,” Neff adds.

In early 2012, Django Django released their self-titled, electro-psych breakthrough, which quickly caught on with a new generation of indie rockers who were weaned on both electronica and acid rock. “We don’t want people to stand still and watch us – we want to be their background soundtrack at 3 a.m. at a warehouse party.”

As they gear up for a summer blitz, Django Django are also looking ahead to their sophomore album. “We had a quite simple palette the first time around – this time, we have a lot of equipment we can use,” says Ness. “On our first record, we exorcised a lot of our ‘60s influences – we got a lot of that out of our system. But the songs always tell you where to go.”
*

Album for a Hot Summer Night: Amanaz, Africa – a great Nigerian pop album from the ‘70s.

Summer Drink: Margarita, heavy on the tequila.

Festival Stops: Glastonbury, Field Day, Bonnaroo, Melt!, more.