10 Questions For: Jeremy de Tolly

This award-winning Cape Town-based musician was the lead singer of the much-loved South African band The Dirty Skirts (2004 – 2013). He now splits his time between various musical projects and commercial works as well as is currently singing and writing songs for experimental electronica band Original Swimming Party.

1.  How would you describe what you do for a living?
I am a singer, a composer, a performer, a producer, and an awkward but enthusiastic dancer.

2.  What is your most vivid childhood memory?
There are so many. But the first Kiss album I heard is up there. Or the smell of my grandma’s brandy and tab in Kimberley, brown and bubbly, still fizzing in the glass.

3.  If you could invite any three people, dead or alive, for dinner, who would they be and why?

1. My other granny who I’ve never met, the beautiful French-Ukraine mystery, Maria de Tolly.
2. Chris Hani. He would have been an extraordinary leader, and we need him now.
3. I’d love to spend some time with Nick Cave [Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter and composer] and get some lyric writing pointers, and have a beer if he’s not still in AA.

4. If you ever found yourself auditioning for a music reality TV show, what song would you sing and why?
‘Hallelujah’, the Jeff Buckley Version.

5.  How would you complete this sentence?  The South African cabinet should include a Minister of _____________________________. 
Gratitude.

6.  What would you say is the biggest misconception about you?
That I am a materialist. 

7.  What is your (honest) opinion of Cape Town?
I love this exquisite city, but its horrific apartheid /colonial past still lives with us today, and needs healing and acknowledgment. I live in de Waterkant… where are the plaques and memorials to the people forcibly removed.

8.  What’s the greatest fear you've had to overcome to get where you are today?
That a music career is unsustainable in South Africa.

9.   What’s the one thing you'd like to achieve before you die?
I want to tour the world doing what I love - performing my own work. I’m almost there. But I suppose my final act would be letting go of all desire, and slipping happily into a deep, long sleep.

10.  Which well- known South African personality would you, without a doubt, be able to beat in a street fight and why?
I could definitely take down SA comedian Rob van Vuuren.

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ABOUT #CapeTownMag10Q:

CapeTownMagazine.com’s 10 Questions project gets to know some of the Mother City’s most creative and inspiring people. From television personalities and musicians to politicians and entrepreneurs, we find out more about well-known and up-and-coming Capetonians. You can follow #CapeTownMag10Q on Twitter and Facebook to track recent interviews or read more here about our other awesome 10 Questions candidates. 

A FEW OF OUR OTHER 10Q CANDIDATES:

10 Questions For Music Producer, DJ and Recording Artist Das Kapital

10 Questions For Good Hope FM Radio Presenter and Expresso Morning Show Host Leigh-Anne Williams

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We also caught up with two other awesome South African groups electronic DJ duo Goldfish and Afrikaans electronic band Die Heuwels Fantasties.

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