RC: It's my great pleasure to bring Rock Circus to
Rosebud, it's been a while since we've been here.
But it's well worth the trip this time cause
we've hooked up with a band that I've been just
down with the Datsuns, these guys rock. I've
been jammin with them, playing my guitar with
them, cause it's fun it's catchy, I love it. I'm
kind of pissed at some of the critics. I mean
this ACDC thing I don't like cause you guys are
nothing like that, would you have anything to
retort?
Christian: I'ld say that's a pretty good point. I
think they're a really good band but I don't
think we sound anything like them. A lot of
people might say that because we come from a
country near Australia and they're from
Australia, and that's the only kind of rock band
that maybe people know over here so they're
like wow, they must be like ACDC.
RC: I've seen some critics, they seem to be
inexperienced or an untrained ear. I hear more
of a Stooge by MC5, stuff that really meant
shit back in the day. But you guys are from New
Zealand, Cainbridge, now you all hooked up in a
band called Trinket originally if I'm not
mistaken. Do you wanna tell me a little bit
about that?
Christian: That's what we originally started off
with and then we realized it was a bad name and
we changed it. But that was kind of like in
highschool when we were just playing for fun
and stuff like that.
RC: Keeps the teenage girls in to it.
Christian: Keeps the teenage girls happy, and then
as our sound evolved and we got older we
changed the name. Got a little less pop and
a little more rock.
RC: You guys are notorious for your live shows,
what gets you in that state of mind- you're
all mellow now, I'm trying to get you livened
up a little bit- from what I've seen on your
DVD which comes with the CD. Tell me a little
bit about how this came together, you had a
person join the band when you changed it to
the Datsuns?
Christian: I joined after about a year, but that
was before the name change. I think as far as
the live shows, we kind of put our energy
in to the show which is why we appear so
mellow now, cause we're saving all our energy
for the show. So we kind of walk around like
a zombie for twenty-three hours of the day
and we conserve all our energy and then we
hit the stage and it explodes for that one
hour and then we go back to zombie state,
which is what you see now.
RC: The veg state, I can understand that. Now
Matt on drums, you got a pretty slamming
sound. You're a hitter and that's what helps
amalgamate a live performance. Who were some
of your influences, that kind of turned you
on to that style, a rage of drumming?
Matt: Jimmy Chamberlin, John Bonnim, Ian Paice.
RC: How many bands come through New Zealand on
tour? A lot of classic rock bands tour the
US, I'm just curious.
Christian: Those kinds of bands don't tour New
Zealand at all.
Phil: Very few bands tour through New Zealand.
It was kind of frustrating cause when we
were growing upin school and stuff we'ld
see all these tour dates of bands that we
liked that go through Australia, but very
rarely would they come to New Zealand.
RC: So what kind of guitar styles have you
picked up on, are you more of like the
full or the lead player?
Phil: More of the lead.
RC: More of the...
Phil: Like Malcom Young, rythym player.
RC: See, I didn't want to say that.
Phil: No I think he's great.
RC: He writes a lot of rifs for ACDC, great
guitar player. I have a lot of his guitar
posters on my jam room wall. A lot of
your lead stuff comes from a very blues
rage/rock.
Christian: Kind of like I think as far as our
guitar playing goes it's kind of like
second ot third generation blues. It's
kind of like we're influenced by bands
that were influenced by the blues. We're
not really very bluesy ourselves, but we
like Zepelin and whatever.
RC: Like blues mixed up with a lot of
amphetamines.
Christian: Like somebody once said about my
guitar playing, they're like "imiganine
if Jimmy Page had grown up a punk," if
he had been a punk rocker. I think that's
pretty accurate really.
RC: That's an excellent anology.
Christian: I like that one.
RC: I like that one a lot too. Now you guys
have gotten some major props, I 've heard
David Gruel talk about you. He's hoping
to take you out with him I think, you
don't know?
Phil: Not as far as we know.
Christian: Yeah, he said some nice things
about us, maybe we're gonna do some
things at one point.
RC: I think it was on the Craig Kilbourn show
or something, he was on and he was
talking about you guys.
Christian: Really?! See we're on the road
constantly on this bus, it's like this
little cocoon we don't know what's going
on in the real world. The world could
end apart from Pittsburgh and we wouldn't
even know what's going on.
RC: Most people in Pittsburgh wouldn't either
dude.
Christian: Maybe we're in the right place then.
RC: Also Jack White and Meg from the White
Stripes are really big fans and have
taken you out on the road with them. What
are those two like?
Phil: They're both very nice people and
obviously a great band.
RC: Did they offer you any kind of insight
as far as creativity aspects or how to
get in to that space?
Phil: Not really.
RC: You guys got that shit down.
Phil: They're very inspirational in the way
that they do things and their song
writing and their shows but we're a lot
different, different band, different
music.
RC: One thing I noticed, you had a producer
Lane Watson and Richard Woodcraft come in
and I didn't really see anything...
Christian: We produced the album ourselves and
they engineered it.
RC: So you guys have really curbed the record
label in to thinking we know our shit.
Christian: Well you know the songs on the
first album, some of the songs we've been
playing for quite a while, songs that
we've been playing live we knew exactly
what we wanted to do with them. We didn't
need anybody to come along and screw...
It's the first record, you should just do
your first record by yourself and then
maybe move on.
RC: Well you've had your own label.
Christian: Yeah, Hell's Squad, and the album's
still on Hell's Squad and it's through
V2. Yeah, we still run our own label.
RC: Distributed internationally and you get
some promotions from it. V2's seemed to
do some good things for people. How did
they approach you guys at first.
Matt: We had a bunch of different offers from
different labels sent in, and they just
seemed like the best people to do the
job.
RC: Seemed artist friendly?
Christian: They had a bar in their record
company office, which was a big sway,
we didn't have to leave the office for a
drink. We liked that.
RC: Now the video that we're gonna play In
Love, captures that element of the live
bit. Who directed it and was that what
you were going for?
Christian: It was basically our first video,
Robert Hayes did it in England. We just
went along and he bought some cameras
and he just filmed us playing live at a
couple of shows and they just cut it to
the track. So it was just us doing our
own thing basically which is what we
wanted for our first video.
RC: It's a great video. It's got that raw
rugged feel, and it's done on film
which makes it look all the more better.
Right now let's kick it, this is the
Datsuns self-titled debut In Love. So
all you love birds get together real
quick like.
For More Info Go To www.thedatsuns.com
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