Danko Jones: The Early Chronicles
Interview by Aaron Brophy
Chartattack.com

When enigmatic rock machine Danko Jones and bassist JC saunter into the Chart offices for an interview on the eve of the new millennium, I jokingly toss the half-truth compliment at them that, "Metallica are important, but not as important as Danko Jones." We all have a good laugh at that, but in hindsight, who'd you rather see these days? Metallica have cut their hair, started doing Bob Seger covers and now indulge their we're-the-Yes-of-metal fantasies with all this symphony business. Danko Jones, on the other hand, are slogging it out in the clubs, burning up the stage and winning over the masses the old-fashioned way — with rock 'n' roll. The answer seems clear to me, but I'm already a convert. So with that said, here's some more insight into one of Canada's coolest rock bands:

What's the relationship between Danko and the female species?

Danko Jones: Can't live with 'em [laughter all around]. I don't know. It takes up a lot of our thoughts.

With that said, should guys really, truly be scared to bring their girlfriends to a Danko Jones show?

DJ: No, they shouldn't be scared. Not at all. Not at all.

...but just keep your eye on 'em?

DJ: Oh, yeah.

When you guys started out, your big thing was not to do anything the way "traditional" bands do, like try to get signed, try to get the big record deal. That seems to be changing.

DJ: I think at the beginning — it's been three years now — we really wanted to do the live show. And people were like, "They don't want to record," ''They don't want to do stuff." And we're like, "No, we know what's going on." We've played with a lot of bands that know how to rock things out. We've played with a lot of bands in the States and Canada. We just played the music to get to where we wanted to get to, and we took our time. We did it on our own.

JC: I think we just had a different feeling. It's very personal.

DJ: A lot of it is that we've seen bands come and go, we've seen bands who've started even after us and they're on their third record or bands who started after us and they got really popular right away and we saw how that affected their egos and their heads, and we've had people compliment us and we've had other people put us down and stuff like that. And we haven't even started this ride — it's just starting now. I would say we're completely — I mean ask someone else about this — but I would say we're pretty level-headed about things .

It's funny. People say Shania Twain is only successful because of her looks and her husband, but I've been told that when she was just starting, apparently she was an incredibly hard worker.

DJ: It's true. I see all these people who whine and complain about why they're not getting theirs, but they don't work towards it, and all they do is party and bullshit. We see this and think "Maybe you're just bad."

How important is playing live?

DJ: We've done shows where we've traveled for eight hours to play for 15 minutes. When we started, we'd cut ourselves off. We'd be given 30-45 minutes and we'd just make sure we'd go on later and play for 15 minutes.

JC: It's about impact.

DJ: I remember we went to Montr&#eacute;al and we got caught in a snowstorm. It took eight hours to get to the club. When we finally got there they told us we couldn't play. And the other bands talked them into it. We did a 15-minute set. And people still remember that set. I know people who still remember that show.

Why should people come see Danko Jones live?

DJ: Even people who haven't seen the show and have the EP [My Love Is Bold], they like the EP, but they have to come to the live show because there's songs that I don't think we're going to record any time soon that we play strictly live - that we're not going to record ever. They're part of the live act.

Why won't you record them?

DJ: Those songs... certain songs are very hard to capture on tape. I mean, we've tried. We want to get into it with the right people too...

Maybe your first full-length album should be a live album.

DJ: We've been told that. It would be a risk to take. But it would be interesting...

What are some of the bands you'd want to play a show with?

DJ: The Cardigans. [points to JC] He turned me on to The Cardigans.

JC: She's got such a good stage presence.

DJ: She's sooo good.

JC: When we plan our three-month tour to Sweden... [sentence trails off] It'd be a great bill if Danko Jones and The Cardigans played together. It'd be a good bill because they'd be into it. They like the rock.

Why is it taking you guys so long to put out any material?

DJ: The reason why we haven't put out as much product as other bands in the same time period is because we've been working on just playing live. We've had so much to do that recording gets pushed aside. It [recording] is just not as immediate. And also there's a money thing. You give money away when you record, you get it when you play.

Tell me about this mysterious third record, the Gun Girl EP.

DJ: There are actually four songs on that EP and three of the four songs actually made it to My Love Is Bold. In the future we'll probably re-record "Woman Bound."

JC: We had just changed members in the band. There was a bit of a vibe going around so we made, like, 50 copies. We just gave them around to people. The guy who does our website did the cover. It's a really cool cover.

DJ: He's the one who calls it the Gun Girl EP.

JC: The cover looks great. I think it's an image from a book or a Mexican movie.

Is that the rarest thing in the Danko Jones discography?

JC: There's actually other rare stuff too. Fans Of Bad Production put out a compilation of 30 hardcore bands? Or 25 hardcore bands? Anyway, there were a bunch of hardcore bands on this compilation and I think there was a limited-edition of 500 CDs made.

There's the Vinyl Factory thing too. [A vinyl compilation of high-profile indie acts.]

JC: There's not too many of those out.

DJ: We also circulated a tape in the first year that we were putting around and that has "Samuel Sin," "I'm In Love And I'm On Fire" "Who Got It" and "Dr. Evening" - that version actually made the Sonic Unyon Now We Are 5 CD. But there are two songs on that tape [The Red Tape] that are just on that tape.

JC: The Red Tape. We can name off bands who have that tape. Bands who came up to us and met us after they got that tape and would say, "Hey, we've been listening to that tape non-stop." The Make-Up. They had it before they knew we were going to play a show with them. Trans Am have that tape. We'd send it to bands.

DJ: It was our calling card for awhile. We never sold it though, never sold it at all.

JC: All that stuff was really raw. We're probably going to redo "I'm Alive And I'm On Fire" #&151; we never play it live.

DJ: I was, "And those people haven't even seen the live show!" It was like, "Yearghh!" Actually, it was more like, [politely] "Yes, this is how it should be."

You're single, "Bounce," is one of the best songs I've ever heard on a car stereo.

JC: Yeah, in the new George Romero film, Bruiser, "Bounce" will be playing in a car stereo [during a scene]. He's a big cult director in the States.

A buddy on my hockey team heard "Bounce" and thought it was a new ZZ Top song.

DJ: Yessss!

JC: That's a compliment.

You guys joking? I thought that might insult you.

JC: No, no, that's a compliment. We get boxed in with, but not really associated with AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, ZZ Top. Then they see the show and people are like, "You guys are sticking to this classic sort of thing." That's what they recognize.

I know you guys really care about how your whole image is perceived, whether it's the songs, the live show or whatever. Is that something you spend a lot of time on?

DJ: Yeah. Yeah, a lot. I find a lot of bands just don't work on their songs or their image. "Image" is a bad word depending on the context, but just work on how they are as a unit, how they're perceived, how they're seen. You know, when you talk to a lot of people who play music, I say it's a 50-50 split that a lot of people who play music don't listen to a lot of music. I just find that at this point in time, playing the kind of music that we play, you have to know where all this music comes from.

You guys don't pretend you're doing something that has never been done before.

DJ: I just think that we pay respect to all the music that came before us. All the musicians, in a way that people view as refreshing. I don't know if that makes any sense. I think with us, we not only try to take from rock 'n' roll, but from the whole spectrum of music and even pop culture. The whole spectrum. We like to incorporate it, at least in the live show.

JC: We do things like we say our names [onstage, as shout-outs].

That's a very hip-hop vibe.

DJ: Definitely. I know we take a lot from hip-hop and hip-hop culture because everything's been done already. And I find that hip-hop and dance music are the new music that everyone's hooked into these days.

What's the deal with that New Music interview you guys did where you were reading Playboy while they interviewed your fans?

JC: It was really cool. I think that was the first or only segment ever on the New Music to not feature an interview. I think it worked really well 'cause we're like, "There's no point in really talking to us because we've got no product, we've got nothing to sell, we're not going across Canada any time soon, but it'd be great if people knew what's going on, so let the fans talk about it."

DJ: It would've just been boring, nobody would pay attention to us, if we just talked and then they showed a live clip. [At the time] there was nothing else, no video to go to.

JC: And it's funny, we go to some places and it's like "You guys, you shut the door right on their faces. Right on!" But if you want to make sense out of it, we're getting in a cab, we're getting out of a cab, there's a camera there. It was staged.

DJ: The New Music, that was always one of the things that I looked up to. Laurie Brown was so hot.

I know you guys dig the hip-hop and R&B. It seems like the girls in R&B videos are getting better and better looking.

DJ: R&B videos are the best videos going on.

JC: [laughs] BET, that's all I watch.

DJ: That girl in the Q-Tip video is just beautiful. She's got, like, green eyes or something.

I voted for that as video of the year in the eye [magazine, music critics'] poll.

DJ: That video's getting me out to the store to buy them.

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