Jamie Cameron and Luke Hayden are the Last Dinosaur.  A dynamo duo with the technical capabilities to produce a debut album with nothing more than a 16-track recorder and the creative attributes that have made said album a DIY masterpiece.  

Faced with the familiar saga of lack of cash flow versus musical aspirations, The Last Dinosaur chose to tip convention on its head and make do with what they had immediately available to them, i.e. time and talent.  Eighteen months later they are proudly wielding a debut nothing short of remarkable, bursting with sounds capable of conveying both intimacy and complexity belying their years.  

The influences wide-reaching, ‘Hooray! For Happiness’ as a body of work is itself difficult to classify, but that is part of the charm as you are taken through 12 tracks each with its own personal quality.  The brevity of soundscaping is such that it’s actually harder to detect an instrument that hasn’t been used, or a genre that hasn’t inspired once its infiltration into your brain is completed.  It’s loud but it’s quiet, raucous and then considered, introverted while extraverted and most important of all it’s a record of overwhelming confidence, which given the circumstances is refreshing.  

www.4ortherecord.com had some questions for The Last Dinosaur and if you need any more convincing to buy this album, then read our emphatically positive review here:

www.4ortherecord.com/The-Last-Dinosaur-Hooray-For-Happiness.html

4or The Record: For anyone that has not heard of The Last Dinosaur or your music, tell us who you are and give us the background story as to how you became involved in music.

Jamie: We are just a couple of Essex kids who have known each since college, are in love with music and stay up very late, experimenting, seeing what happens. We have absolutely no desire to keep creating music in the same style. The greater the difference between one song and the next, the more exciting. There's a good chance this ends up working against us when someone listens to one song from the album, doesn't like it, and then writes us off completely...

4TR: How would you describe the direction in sound your music takes?

Luke: I think that with our music you need to close your eyes and really listen to it. I believe a song should be something more than just sound and words, you should get a feeling from it and it should become a memory.    

4TR: How do you approach song-writing and is it a collaborative work ethic?  

Jamie: Half of the songs on the album Luke and I started together and the other half I recorded alone with a couple of friends helping out on viola and saxophone respectively. Songs usually begin with the seed of an idea that is then experimented with and layered. Sometimes it has taken up to a year for me to discover what direction a song wants to go in. Improvisation is often a large part of the recording process with some songs being or including first take improvisations (like Gusts of Wind Blowing in Different Directions or the incredible sax parts in The First Last Dinosaur Song and the beautiful viola parts in The Song Playing at the End of the Film of My Life). I think this makes for a much more fluid and exciting result. 

4TR: Lyrically where are your songs derived from – is it from personal experiences or are you working from a story telling perspective?

Jamie: All of the lyrics from the album are written from the first person perspective and are about personal experiences. I've always found that music comes much more naturally to me than lyrics and yet very often I’ll have no idea how the final lyrics even came from my hand or head.  

4TR: You have written and recorded your debut album ‘Hooray! For Happiness’, due for release this month – how was the recording process for you and did the finished product surprise you in any way you didn’t expect?

Luke: Recording this album was lots of fun mainly because when we first started recording it wasn’t that we had a plan to make an album. We just liked to record our ideas and to see how we could progress those ideas. Having the songs on my iPod was more of a personal pleasure, something I was very proud of so I’m glad that we are lucky enough to have an album for people to hear. Hopefully they will like it as much as we do.

4TR: Did you work with a producer on the record?  And if so what did they bring to the sound?

Jamie: I record everything at home on a 16-track recorder and a few microphones without any outside help. I've been home recording since I was 16 (almost 10 years) so the idea of relinquishing control of any part of the creative process, from the recording to the artwork, makes me feel quite uncomfortable. There's a good chance I’m a complete control freak when it comes to music.. everything apart from the mastering at least, which was done by the very talented John Golden who has mastered some amazing bands like Rachel's, Sonic Youth, My Morning Jacket, Mount Eerie and many, many others.  

4TR: What does the live environment mean to you and what goes into a The Last Dinosaur show?

Jamie: When it comes to the album, the recordings are so layered that it can become a heartbreaking experience trying to get them to work live without having 15 people playing instruments onstage. There are still 6 or 7 songs from the album that would need a long time spent on them to get them working live. That being said, the songs we do play, whilst being recognisably the same song, have been reworked and have become quite different from their recorded counterparts. Hopefully this will make for a more interesting live experience for the people who are familiar with our music.

4TR: What or who would be the 3 albums or artists who have influenced you most in your career so far?

Jamie: That's probably too difficult a question to answer, but 'Laughing Stock' by Talk Talk is certainly one of the most inspiring albums I've ever heard. I can't quite understand how such an incredible body of work exists and if I thought too much about it I'd probably have a nervous breakdown and never be able to listen to or create music ever again.

Luke: Inlets - Vestibule EP; The Acorn - Glory Hope Mountain; Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans

4TR: You are working with Ill Fit Recordings – how did that relationship arise and what was it about them that made you want to work with them?

Jamie: I've never had much support outside of immediate family and a few close friends when it comes to the music I create. This all changed when I met Rich Thane (from The Line of Best Fit and Ill-Fit) and I'm sure there would be far less people interested in The Last Dinosaur if it wasn't for his continued support and help. One day I'm going to take his beautiful dog hostage until he agrees to manage us.

4TR: What is the 1 song you each wish you had written?

Jamie: There are many, but the first one that comes to mind is 'Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event' by Deftones. It's been almost 7 years since I first listened to it and yet it never fails to give me goosebumps.

Luke: Kidsaredead - Chez Gépy à Rombas 

4TR: And finally, what can we expect from you for the rest of the year?

Jamie: We're currently halfway through a second album called 'The Nothing' which I’m hoping to have out in the last quarter of this year (if we can find anyone interested in releasing it). The newest songs from 'Hooray! for Happiness' are already at least a year old by now and in the meantime I’ve become much more adept at using my equipment, so the next album won't be quite as rough-around-the-edges in comparison. We also have an album worth of songs that we play live that I’m unable to record properly with my equipment, so hopefully at some point we'll find ourselves in an actual studio where we can attempt to do them justice. Those recordings could possibly become a third album to be released sometime next year.. but before then we need to find ourselves a manager or booking agent to help this unorganised head out before collapses in on itself..!

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