Starting off as making music exclusively for movie soundtracks, musician Dan Levy and singer Olivia Merilahti have found a following in the French music scene for their genre-defying jazz-pop under the moniker of The Dø. With the release of their debut long player A Mouthful in 2008, the duo found a wider audience. They garnered critical acclaim from the likes of Pitchfork and Drowned In Sound, becoming regulars on the European festival circuit.

Still, as I talk to Olivia ahead of their arrival In Australia for the upcoming V Festival, she appears flabbergasted at the prospect of their first intercontinental tour.

“I’m really, like, ‘Woah!’ So excited to be coming out,” Merilahti exclaims in her fluent yet very ESL-exam-ready-English. “We’ve never been that far from home, ever. So it’s really crazy for us. It’s like a new planet! We’ve only went quite far to the French Island of Reunion [in the Indian Ocean], but never as far as Australia.”

And whilst a slip on how great the weather will be upon arrival causes Olivia to retract her comments in the light of the recent bushfires, the vocalist begins to reflect on other worries. Merilahti expresses some trepidation at approaching the Same Stage – and the same fans – as festival heavyweights The Killers and Snow Patrol, despite her previous festival experience.

“It’s not the most easy thing to do. Especially if we do play from those really huge stages in front of like, I don’t know how many people. Although we have played at a festival in France, which was one of the biggest [in Europe] and we had a crowd of 60,000. Which was completely, um, how can I say…it was like being drunk!”

As the conversations moves through the troubles of playing festivals, she beings to talk about how different set-lists come into effect when faced by such a large audience in an outdoor arena. “You can’t play the same songs as when you’re playing a club, obviously. So you have to choose the ones that will be heard on that type of huge arena and ones where people are not going to get bored, because of the phenomenon of the crowd. Especially when people don’t know a band like us – we’re not like Snow Patrol or Kaiser Chiefs or Duffy. We’ve never had that kind of promotion or sold as many albums. So, at least we’ll be the underground band!”

The Dø’s international underground status is in contrast to their success in France, yet compliments the life of the band itself. Merilahti finds the formation of the duo somewhat coincidental, given the circumstances. “It was quite unexpected for us to work together. Dan was really used to working on his own and working on projects that were not song or songwriting at all. So all of a sudden the director asked us to work on songs for the movie [2005’s L’Empire des loups ]. And so it was really me with them, because I’d never worked on a soundtrack before.

“But then, it worked out so well that we never stopped working together ever since. But, the idea of a band came quite late. At the beginning it was working mostly for visual projects like theatre and dance.”

In regards to what an Australian audience should expect at V Festival, theatricality has been put aside for a more rocking gig. “At the beginning, when we started working on the live shows, we had the very arty, fake path. And then we could have gone very atmospheric as well. But we wanted it to be a bit more like rock ‘n roll. A bit stronger. More powerful. Because there’s something really hard in our music, even if maybe on the album you can’t really feel it. But that’s something that we really like to have on stage.”

That said, Olivia does not deny the power of the live show to overcome any shortcomings of any band. “We saw those bands that we’d never thought we’d like or we heard the albums and thought, ‘Okay, not really that interesting.’ But on-stage there’s that magic energy that surrounds it. There are bands that I’m not a fan of the albums, definitely not, yet on-stage they are something so almost-orgasmic. Even though the music might be the same, one track to another, it suddenly becomes really huge. It’s incredible.”

The Dø play The Other Stage at V Festival this month, Check out the Festival Page for set times, features, news and more.

Sat Mar 28 – V Festival, Sydney
Sun Mar 29 – V Festival, Gold Coast
Tue Mar 31- The Zoo, Brisbane (Presented by ITM)
Wed Apr 1 – Prince of Wales, Melbourne (Presented by ITM)
Thu Apr 2 – Metro, Sydney (Presented by ITM)
Sat Apr 4 – V Festival, Melbourne
Sun Apr 5 – V Festival, Perth