National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

During the Vietnam War, American culture washed over Southeast Asia like a tidal wave, and American pop music was inescapable. From Saigon to Bangkok, homegrown rock and roll bands sprouted up wherever American servicemen drank, and local musical traditions fused with psychedelic '60s sounds to create a unique new hybrid. But when the American tide rolled out, newly victorious communist governments in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were quick to ban this "degenerate," Westernized music - especially in Cambodia.

Between 1975 and 1979 the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime killed roughly two million Cambodians, and nearly succeeded in wiping Khmer culture off the map. Cambodian music of all kinds - classical, traditional and popular - was hit hard and many of the country's professional musicians were killed. But thanks to the magic of music piracy, much of this music lived on in cheap cassettes, which is how musician Ethan Holtzman first encountered this lost musical universe.

Holtzman soon got his brother Zac hooked on these sounds and in 2002 they put together the band Dengue Fever to explore their mutual musical obsession. With the addition of Cambodian pop singer Chhom Nol - recruited from a Southern California nightclub - Dengue fever was a critical success from the start, releasing three albums - Dengue Fever (2006), Escape From Dragon House (2007) and Venus On Earth (2008) - in three years and touring the world.

This spring the band released Sleepwalking Through The Mekong, a documentary DVD (and soundtrack) that captured a 2005 concert tour in Cambodia. Nat Geo Music recently caught up with Ethan Holtzman to talk about Dengue Fever's long, strange trip.

Nat Geo Music: So how did you first get interested in Cambodian music?

Ethan Holtzman: It started back in 1997, when I was backpacking in Southeast Asia. Since I'm a musician I was interested in collecting music. I was traveling from Siam Reap to Phnom Penh and caught a ride with these truck drivers who had a bunch of old Khmer pop music cassettes. It's a really long ride - something like seven hours - so I got to know those tapes really well. [laughs] But I was really intrigued, and wrote down all the artists' names and when I got to Phnom Penh, I went shopping and bought all these cassette tapes to bring home.

I remember going to one vendor who had dozens and dozens of old cassettes with photos in them. I bought as many as I could and wrote down the names of the artists of the rest. Later, my brother (Zac) moved back to L.A. from San Francisco with more Cambodian tapes that he'd picked up at Aquarius records - this was all music from the '60s and early '70s.

Which is the sound that Dengue Fever recreates?

Right... this was the music that was popular all over Southeast Asia at the time of the Vietnam War. In Cambodia the sound is very psychedelic, straight out of the late '60s... lots of Farfisa organs, reverb-y guitars, real familiar surf and garage sounds that make it easy for Westerners to get their ears around-except that it's all sung in Khmer and played in these Khmer scales that sound kind of eerie to us. But I wouldn't say that we try to re-create this music, we just use it as a jumping-off point for what we do.

Who were some of the artists from this era?

The big two were Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Sereysothea. Sinn Sisamouth was kind of like the Bob Dylan of Cambodia, he was a singer-songwriter who wrote thousands of songs. Ros Sereysothea was the biggest female pop star that Cambodia ever produced-she was the one who really grabbed me personally. Unfortunately, both went missing during the Khmer Rouge period. They killed thousands of musicians, artists, intellectuals and professionals, so it's assumed that they were killed in that era, but nobody knows for sure.

Is this music still popular today?

Yes and no. Cambodians lost so much of their history and their culture during the Khmer Rouge era, and obviously Western-style rock wasn't going to survive. So there's really nobody playing this stuff today. The most popular music in Cambodia now is this cheesy, light karaoke stuff. But a lot of people still know the old music. It's kind of like Cambodia's version of classic rock-you can still find the old cassettes if you know where to look, and people still know the words to the old hits.

So how did Dengue Fever first come together?

Right from the beginning Zac and I wanted to play this music. But we knew that we would need someone who could sing in Khmer. There's a big Cambodian population in Long Beach (CA), so in 2002 we began auditioning for a singer there. We held auditions and a lot of singers turned out, but when Chhom Nimol walked in, all the other girls suddenly found excuses to leave... [laughs]

Because she was already a star in the Cambodian community?

Exactly. She actually comes from a famous musical family. Her parents sing traditional music and her older sister, Chhom Charvin was once of Cambodia's top singers in the 1980s. We had actually seen Nimol perform at Dragon House a bunch of times. She just had this captivating voice. But she was already a star and we figured that she was too big to get involved with us. But I remember when she came to the audition she asked us how come we didn't just come to her in the first place. So we got really lucky right from the beginning.

Was she skeptical about you guys at first?

Maybe a little... I remember that the friend she brought with her to the audition was kind of a Jesus freak and she wanted nothing to do with us. [laughs] But once Nimol figured out that we were serious and that Dengue Fever wasn't going away, she was committed to learning English. She went to school, took classes and everything. She's very dedicated about what she does. She works harder than the rest of us put together, I think.

Have you ever encountered any resistance to a bunch of Americans playing Cambodian music?

Not really. I think people are pretty open-minded. We've been lucky to be embraced by the Cambodian community before we were embraced by anybody else. It's always interesting to see who our audience is. I think of us as a rock band, but we've definitely been embraced by the world music crowd, too. I guess it shows that you don't necessarily have to be Cambodian to play Cambodian music, and that you can blend cultures to create something new and knock down musical labels

So fast-forward to 2005, when Dengue Fever made its first trip to Cambodia as a band?

Right. So we traveled to Cambodia for the first time in 2005. We did a small tour where we played a bunch of different shows in a bunch of different venues-from a live TV broadcast to playing in one of Phnom Penh's shantytowns. We played with some master musicians like Kong Nai, who plays this traditional guitar-lute-like instrument called the chapei, and we did musical exchanges with school kids... and we had a film crew riding along to capture the whole thing. That ended up as the documentary Sleepwalking Through The Mekong.

Were you nervous playing in front of Cambodian audiences for the first time?

Totally. Anything goes in Cambodia. Critics can use AK-47s if they really don't like you. [laughs]

Actually it was great. Every show was totally different. When we played in nightclubs young Cambodians would go crazy. When we played on Television it was totally bananas-kind of like this Cambodian variety show with comedians and sketches and all different segments. We didn't really know what was going on, but they must have liked it because it aired every day after that for the rest of the time we were there. But what I'll never forget was when we played in the Shantytown. Cambodians don't really clap after songs-so after each song it was just dead silence.

Was it a homecoming for Chhom Nimol?

Oh, definitely. It was a total role-reversal, too. She was in her element, and totally taking care of the rest of us. I think it brought out her mother-hen side a little bit. But she also had fun watching us struggle with Khmer words and some of the more out-there food?

Had Cambodia changed much since your last trip?

The first time I went to Cambodia it felt totally lawless, like anything could happen. But in 2005 it felt much different. In a lot of ways the country is still struggling with the legacy of the Khmer Rouge. You can't believe the impact that they had on the place.

Is that part of what drives you to revive and preserve this music?

I think so, yeah... we've definitely found our own voice now, but I'm really glad that we helped shine a light on this music, before it was forgotten by the rest of the world. But there are others who are doing this at a much deeper level, like Cambodian Living Arts. They're an organization that helps preserve traditional music and instruments, and passes the knowledge on to new generations. We linked up with them while we were in Phnom Penh and they're just amazing.

So what's next?

Well, like I said, I think we've really found our own voice now. The first album was all covers, and it was kind of like us just proving to ourselves that we could do this. Then Escape From Dragon House was about us learning how to write together as a band. And Venus On Earth was really about us finding that sweet spot, about who we are as a band. Right now we're just touring and getting the Sleepwalking DVD out, but I think the next record is going to really blow people away.