Dengue Fever’s Sennon Williams

Dengue Fever’s Sennon Williams takes a minute to explain the fever that he’s had, and been sharing, for the last ten years.

The name of the band, while it does coincidentally have a nice play on words along the lines of “disco fever” and “dance fever”, actually stems from the keyboardist, Ethan’s, “Journey through Cambodia on the back of truck stricken with dengue fever, surrounded by livestock and supplies”. While being severely affected by the illness, and exclaiming, “I think I’m going to die”, he heard some Cambodian pop music, and worries of his illness abated as a new love was born.

The decision thereafter for the name itself came unanimously amongst the members after consideration of their mutual experiences traveling South East Asia, and Ethan’s trouble just sort of “worked” for a name, especially with Nimol at the front of this wild ride.

The last decade has been really rewarding to Dengue Fever, as they travel the world, sharing their sound, story, and wild performances. The band’s members are “not traditionalists”, when it comes to creation, in the sense that they’re constantly looking to write new music, and not to take influence from others in the field, but really bring together these two cultures of America and Cambodia, and make something rocking and new. Sennon’s on the right track with this, as the band was even able to record an entire album in England at Peter Gabriel’s state of the art studios. The real magic, it seems, occurs both on the road, and back at their home studio: “The Shoe Box”.

Dengue Fever have really become their own family of sorts on the road all these years. Zac & Ethan bring a strong brotherly dynamic to the band, who for the most part have been friends for most of their lives. Nimol, as Sennon puts it, “Is an explosive force that takes over the stage entirely”, and once the band starts performing, even he forgets things like, “What they’re doing”, but seamlessly delivers innovate rocking shows. When looking at live performances, they’re even taken aback to the point of saying “I don’t remember that” and “I guess it should be toned down”, but it never is, and is always continuously phenomenal.

2011′s Cannibal Courtship continues the theme of exotic South East Asian adventure, in it’s name. The name, however is both a metaphor for a codependent relationship, as well as that of say, an insect devouring it’s lover after mating. This is also (like much of Dengue Fever’s treatise) a play on words for the band as a whole, as a dependent relationship of two cultures, “coming together to make something new and unique”.

What do the next ten years have in store for Dengue Fever? Sennon puts it quite simply: “More innovation, creation, and rocking music”. Dengue Fever has gotten as far as they have with those principles close to heart, and the way things are going, surely it will continue. Stay tuned to Dengue Fever for more awesome albums, and tours nearby.