| Guest Coolgrrrl correspondent Jackie O of Detroit interviews Christian of the Datsuns from backstage at their show in Bordeaux, France!!
If you believe all the hype out there, rock’n’roll is now making a comeback. But I’ll go ahead and assume that you’re smart enough not to buy into all the shit that the Man is trying to push down your throat. You know that rock’n’roll has been alive and well all along, for many years…you just gotta know where to look.
In this case, we’re looking to four fine fellas hailing from New Zealand. They exemplify the classic 70’s rocker look: tight jeans, skinny tees, long hair. Unfortunately, we’re all too familiar with bands that are packaged pretty but have nothing to back it up. Not only do the Datsuns have the rock look goin’ on, they’ve got the sound nailed, too. It’s nothing that hasn’t been done before, but they do it the way it should be done. Hard, fast, and explosive -- these guys come at ya "like a Motherfucker from Hell," to quote one of their songs.
I had the opportunity to talk to Christian Datsun while I was living in France this past year. We spoke before they went onstage at the CAT in Bordeaux to play a killer set with fellow New Zealanders the Cassanovas who opened the show. From New Zealand to Europe to the States and everywhere else, rock’n’roll knows no boundaries.
Jackie O: So you guys started about 7 years ago?
Christian: Yeah, nearly eight.
J: How did you guys get together?
C: Me and Dolf have known each other since we were about ten, and we both used to go see live shows together, so one day we just decided we were a band. It was just the two of us, and we both played bass guitar. When we played shows we would just get a drummer on the day, and we'd be terrible. We couldn't even really play our instruments, but we just wanted to play because that's what we wanted to do. Then we met the other guys not long after that. We come from a small town in New Zealand, and there's not really much to do apart from playing music, wanting to tour, so we saved up our money to tour and now we're in Bordeaux (France) and we're all really sick.
J: Awww...
C: We lived a really hot summer in New Zealand and in Europe it's very cold. I'm getting the flu, everyone's getting a bit sick, we've been touring constantly about a year now and we're kinda, you know, but we're alright, you know, we're still having fun.
J: You guys never have been in any other bands, this is it?
C: This band, yeah, we've had other side projects, but this has always been our main project.
J: You've been on tour a lot the past year, you started this new year in your home country?
C: We were in NZ for Christmas time, about two weeks, and Japan and the U.K., and all through Europe.
J: Ok, so how's the tour been?
C: Oh, the tour’s been going great, getting to see countries that we never thought we'd get to see. You know some of the shows have been great, some of the crowds have been pretty overwhelming. The people, you know, normally we've been touring and no one's heard of us, it's a matter of us trying to convince the audience with our songs and the show. They haven't been listening to the CD, because for us the CD isn't really a thing, it's the shows. The CD is more of a souvenir from the show. Now with the CD they know the lyrics and so it's kinda coming at it from a different side.
J: You've been pretty much all over the world, what country or venue do you like playing the best?
C: Um, I think everywhere has its places. Sweden is a good place to play. We've done some of our best shows in Detroit. The people kinda make the place you go to. I don't think there’s really been one place...Europe is great because of the hospitality, you don't get that anywhere else, they make you dinner here you know, and they have showers here. In New Zealand you would pay about half price for a beer, and that's about all you get. The venues think that they're doing you a favour letting you play, whereas here (Europe) you get totally looked after so it's always nice to come tour here.
J: And do you have a big following in NZ?
C: Um, it's coming, you know we've been touring there for a long times and the shows have been getting bigger, and there's things happening with us on tour that gets back to NZ and so people kinda here about things going on through the media. Um, so it's going really well, yeah, the record just went gold in NZ but gold's only 7 and a half thousand in NZ. But it’s all relative, for us we never...we were stoked when we sold 300 of the seven inch in NZ. We used to tour and play to nobody. We used to tour and play to the other bands on the bill...but then we just save up and go back. Next time those same 15 or 20 people would come back with their friends, then we toured there about five times in a space of like 14 months, then the shows just got bigger and bigger, and now've we've got fans. But we considered venues to be too big for us, what we consider, we're used to small venues we think it's cool. We've done a lot of hard work there and people in Australia really appreciate guitar music and don't really listen to fashion magazines or music magazines, and so they’ve always liked guitar music. It's good, they've got a history of good rock ‘n’ roll bands.
J: Like radio birdman!
C: Yeah, they've just been doing some shows again
J: And what other bands have you been touring with?
C: Um, the last tour we did just before Christmas was with the Hellacopters and Gaza Strippers. We've toured with the Von Bondies from Detroit, the Stripes, the Greenhorns. We've brought our friends the Casanovas, from Australia, with us for this tour, and the first part of the American tour. We've played with lots of bands. We did a U.K. tour with Polyphonic Spree, Interpol, the Thrills. We’re kinda at the point here where we can do our own tour so we kinda like to pick who comes with us.
J: Are you friends with the D4, you've toured with them too and they're from Australia
C: Yeah, we've toured with them
J: So how did you get in touch with the English label V2, a big English label?
C: We toured America after we left NZ and then to the U.K., and people were suddenly kinda interested in us in the industry. So we met a lot of people and a lot of people wanted to put out the record and stuff but we have always put out our own records on our own record label and we still do. Basically, we set up Hellsquad records as a business and we license it to another label, because we were pretty naive at the time, we didn't want to learn about the business side, just make music. So we just wanted to be as safe as we could be, and they seemed like the right people for the job. They let us have everything that we wanted, total control, we make our records sound and look like we want. If they put it out, great. Plus it was only a one-album deal, which means that we've got freedom to do what we want on the second album, and if they don't put it out we'll put it out ourselves.
J: And you guys also have done a BBC session with John Peel?
C: Yeah, a Peel Session...
J: How do you think that helped you guys out in terms of gaining popularity and getting more known?
C: It was great! You know, it keeps people listening. But for us, we don’t really care about how many people we’re playing to. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the studio, but it’s like a big studio and it’s got a mezzanine floor and there’s lots of lights and things, and they have about 30 or 40 people come to watch it. So we kinda just treated it like a show for those 30 or 40 people. None of us even had headphones or anything on so by the end of it so we couldn’t even tell what was going on! We kinda just looked at one another at the end and went, "Wow, that was actually going out to a lot of people, I wonder what it sounded like..." (laughs) And for us it was just an honour to meet John Peel, we’ve always admired his ideals and stuff from back in NZ, and a lot of our favourite bands have done Peel Sessions and they’ve turned out awesome. It seems like everything the BBC does sounds really good.
J: So you mentioned that a lot of your favourite bands have done Peel Sessions, who would those be?
C: Oh, bands like Led Zeppelin and the Who have done great BBC sessions, and Trex, so it was a big deal for us to do a Peel Session. And he was really nice to us. He seemed to really like the records.
J: For your upcoming U.S. tour you’re going to be with the Sights (from Detroit), is that right?
C: Yeah, for the first half the Casanova’s will be with us. You know the Sights?
J: Yeah, I know them.
C: Their record’s great!
J: Yeah it is! You’ve also toured with the White Stripes and the Von Bondies, both groups from Detroit. What’s the attraction to Detroit?
C: They just have a lot of good bands there. Normally to us it doesn’t matter where a band’s from, it’s just that we toured with the White Stripes first, then kinda met the Von Bondies through them, and we met Brendan Benson through touring with the White Stripes as well, ‘cause he was playing shows. I don’t know, we just made friends with them, hung out. Like I said, we wanna tour with our friends, it keeps us sane and keeps us from fighting with each other ‘cause we’ve got other people we can mingle with.
J: Why did you choose Liam Watson, because we know him but better with his garage production and stuff?
C: Well, we knew he was the man for the job straight away, we just hung out with him at first and listened to records and talked about classic rock records and how they were recorded. And he knows so much about how they we recorded in the sixties and seventies, how Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin used to do it, so we knew that we could actually do it with him, and we’re probably gonna do the next record with him as well. He just knows how we should sound, and we don’t wanna compromise anything to production. We’re a simple kinda band, we don’t need to spend months and months or millions of dollars on a record because we’re not that kind of band. For us it sounded good and that’s all that mattered.
J: How long did it take you?
C: We recorded it in just under two weeks, and we mixed it in about three weeks.
He’s got a great studio.
J: What would you say are your influences, between hard rock and garage?
C: I think everyone’s got different influences and everyone brings a different aspect and influence to the band. I think the best way to describe it is like a classic rock band with punk rock aesthetics. You know, like Led Zeppelin or something brought up with more of a punk aesthetic. None of our songs are drawn out. Live maybe they are, but we’ve kinda got short attention spans and not really self indulgent, to a point of what they used to be like, you know like old classic rock bands with long guitar solos or drum solos and stuff like that. We’re coming from more of a punk aesthetic, high energy and stuff.
J: Your stage shows are known to be crazy and high energy as well, like your music. You won the NME award for Best Live Act. Do you having any thoughts or philosophy on your stage show?
C: No, we don’t. We just play. We don’t even talk about our live show. There’s got to be something left to spontaneity, because that’s what rock ’n’ roll is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be not something that’s calculated, or that’s been worked out, for us anyway, plus playing live is the most fun thing for us to do. That’s why we live on the road, to play shows.
J: How do you guys feel about been categorised as one the bands of the new generation, part of "the new rock ’n’ roll revolution" as the media has titled it?
C: You guys obviously know that it’s been going on for a long time, and those people who write that about a next rock ’n’ roll revolution don’t know what’s going on. There’s always been good rock ’n’ roll music and there’s always been bands playing the music. It’s just that they’re trying to pick it apart because people are getting into it. To me I think it’s stupid and there’s always been good rock ’n’ roll music, it’s just that you don’t read about it. It takes people like you guys to write about it. The other magazines are just full of shit.
Visit The Datsuns n the web @ thedatsuns.com
Edited by Melody Licious |
