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Rocking In The Free World With DANKO JONES · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Yes me, motherfucker. Thank your best shot because I don't give a damn.
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  And when you realize it, my name is Danko Jones and we got
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  a new album called Electric Sounds and check it out. Yeah for Tank,
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  thanks for joining us the same name. Cool, thanks to lot. Why
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  thank I Johns released your lightest album, Electric Sounds on September fifth, games
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  mate, Like how you failed? Mate? Like if you've been doing this
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  for all now? But do you still get excited? Yeah? I mean
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  we're always excited when you know you put out an album, especially you know,
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  the last five albums we put out. It's been more excitement than nervousness
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  because we're pretty confident about it. We just want people to hear it.
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  I'm kind of impatient about people hearing it, so I just want everyone to
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  hear it. So tell us a bit more about the album. From a
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  basical point of anybody, what you've gone forward it. The musical point of
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  view is the same as the last ten albums. It's just a hard rock
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  album and we're hoping that people who like hard rock like it. We do.
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  I mean, we wouldn't have put it out we didn't, So there's
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  that. Oh, this is your limited album, right, So do you
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  have a set process or formula now or does it sort of very from Altward
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  album? Well, no, we had a We had a kind of a
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  process going all the way up to the pandemic, so all the way up
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  to our last album where we were kind of forced to write or finish writing
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  Power Trio our last album apart from one another, where we were sending files
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  rather than being in a rehearsal room together jamming, and that taught us that
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  we don't have to be in the same city even to write a record and
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  even record it. So that's what happened, like this album. In between
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  the last album and this album. Rich our drummer Rich Knox he moved to
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  Charlottetown in another province, Prince Edward Island, but on the East coast of
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  Canada, and jac our bass player, he moved to Finland and we wrote
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  the record apart from one another, we recorded it from one another, and
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  now it's about to be released and we're playing two of the songs live and
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  our shows. Knew right all right, And the album opens with the line
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  guess he's back by the fuck got to take the best shot because I don't
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  give a damn, Like that's pretty much gonna be one of the strongest statements
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  to me, chad I've ever heard from a band. But well, thanks
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  am to do that, and I'm glad to see that it hit the mark.
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  Yeah, like it just comes out very organically and naturally, just playing
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  the riffs and lead. What comes out of my mouth are some bulls eyes
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  and zingers and forgets. Who's back? I believe it was. It leads
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  off the album, and it was the leadoff release of the album, and
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  it seems to have made its mark. I mean, it just got number
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  one in Germany on German radios, so that's like, that's great, Like
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  we're very happy about it. Yeah, we definitely got my attention to start
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  up. Might even I even pressed, like skip back to the side of
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  the song. I'm just so listening to end and by that much of an
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  impact. So I've all done great. I'm happy to hear that relates the
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  singles, Who's good, we decay, I've rolled there a good sonny correct
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  presentation and what do we expect? Oh yeah, I mean we're you know,
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  and to what to expect with the previous ten and the future ten?
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  I mean, we're just a hard rock band. We know our place,
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  we know what we sound like. We've carved out that sound. We're not
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  changing it. Why the script? I mean, it's working and we like
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  it. So what's there to change if it's not broken. I've got an
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  ad midmighte like, Oh, I've had certain songs heroes in the postible.
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  I've never said down. Listen to all albums till this interview, and you
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  guys are just bowls to the whole rock hard rock mate. It's okay.
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  It's scribed to say a band in this day and I still doing that sort
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  of shit. Oh, thanks a lot, Thank you very much. All
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  Right, the album most I Fash is tallest Joet from Banake and Ladies,
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  Damian Ibraham from Sucked Up and Dan You Decay from Excited Us. So tell
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  us about the songs that those guys are on and what they each brought to
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  the song. Well, Damian Abraham, the singer of Fucked Up, he's
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  a good friend of mine. I mean we talked on the phone almost every
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  week, and so you know, I called him up and I said,
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  hey, man, like we need gang vocals on some of these songs.
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  Would you mind coming down and lending your voice, and he said, yeah,
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  sure. And then when he was down in the studio, we were
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  just like, we got to use you for other songs, well can we
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  put them in? And so he ended up being on Get High where he
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  just you know, call and response thing at the end of that song,
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  and he's on Stiff Competition, and he did a bunch of backup vocals on
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  other songs Stay with Daniel DK like from Exciter. He came down because we
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  needed gang vocals and he's a friend of Eric, the producer, and he's
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  a friend of mine. We're good friends with Daniel. Easy to ask him.
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  But then he turned to me while he was in the studio and goes,
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  I'm playing. When he walked into the studio, I should say,
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  and he goes, I'm playing a solo on your album, And I said,
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  I said, you are, because all the guitar solos are done.
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  And so I started thinking where can we splot him in? And where he
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  got slotted is where we found the spot. And now I can't believe we
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  almost finished that the title track Electric Sounds without a guitar solo at the end.
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  It's such a perfect solo that he did. I can't hear it without
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  it anymore. So it's great. And then Tyler Stewart, the drummer of
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  the Bar Naked Ladies, he sings on She's My Baby. Because we've just
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  known Tyler for a long long time, maybe two decades, and Eric produced
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  the last Bar Naked Ladies album and he called him up. We needed a
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  voice on there, and Tyler's got this background and sketch comedy, and so
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  he came in and he goes, well, what region do you want,
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  like, what regional accident do you want? So he was really great at
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  that, and so we're really happy with everyone who came and guessed it on
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  our album back and back in talking at him, I had like thank Jones
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  style in Troncho back in nineteen ninety six. Back then, what was the
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  musical club? It liked the gay birth of the band and where did you
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  fit in initially? Right, Yeah, it was a long time ago,
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  and it was a it was a different kind of band in a way,
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  still a three piece, but we were we were more a garage punk band,
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  like a garage rock band. And in the mid to late nineties there
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  was a thriving, thriving garage punk scene. I don't believe there is as
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  it was now. I really don't think so. Look back then there is
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  bands like Tagenerate and the Dirt Bombs and the Makers and the Smugglers and the
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  Demolition Doll Rods and the Blues Explosion and the New Bomb Turks, and eventually,
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  you know, a few of those bands went full overground and became mainstream
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  bands, like the White Stripes and the Hives. But the underground scene,
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  the garage, the underground garage punk scene. Maybe I'm just out of it,
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  but I just don't see it as being as popular as it once was.
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  But that's where we came from. And then we got kind of,
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  you know, a few rejection slips from a few labels, and we just
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  kind of got really disillusioned by the whole aesthetic in the pose that came along
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  with it, like you had to be deliver your recordings, had to deliberately
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  sound bad because that was part of the aesthetic, and we didn't want to
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  do that, and so we wanted to record in nice studios and make big
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  sounding songs. So we changed our sound and turned into a hard rock band
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  because hell I grew up on that too, and it was an easy switch
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  or an easy transition, I should say. And that's where we are now
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  to this day. We're just a hard rock band, but we do have
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  like our roots are in garage punk music, and it's fair to say,
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  and a lot has happened in music in that twenty seven years. So as
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  a band, have you ever tried to sort of like evolve and change with
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  the child I was? Or if people going down your iron path? Oh
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  okay, I heard you there. No, No, we can't evolve with
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  it. I mean we're I mean in a way we can, like in
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  a way we do, like in terms of like keeping up with recording technologies
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  and all that stuff. And you know, if there's a if Orange comes
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  out with a new amp, I'm not adverse to trying it out. Or
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  we're not like these gearheads who insist on it we can only play on vintage
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  gear like when that's not us. So I guess in that respect we we
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  evolve with the times. But when it comes to the sound, I don't
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  think that evolves too much. Like we kind of know our sound and it's
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  kind of it's not a throwback sound. It's not a classic sound. It's
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  just our sound. And no matter how many years go, we're not going
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  to change our song structures or put in new things because oh, this is
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  what's hip right now, all the all the singers are doing it, or
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  all the bands are doing this. I don't think it's I mean, that
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  can lead to you chasing your own tail, and I've seen bands do that
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  and it usually the outcome isn't very good. And I had a look through
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  it to our schedule, myl gets sure, I'm pretty much constantly to the
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  end of the year. So head ed you get yourself mentally and physically ready
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  for a long stretch of shies like that. I don't know myself, I
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  really don't. I'm like, yeah, but over since since like last year,
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  because we had two years off, it's kind of like, well,
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  we got to make up for lost time, so like just book it.
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  Oh, is this Shire in the plans for that next year? So's one.
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  It has been talked, and I just hope, I hope to God
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  the talking turns into action. But yeah, like we do want to return,
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  like, uh, you know, we went there and went twenty nineteen
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  and we were due for return, but of course the pandemic stopped all that.
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  So hopefully we can get back to it we had it for dank.
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  Well, thanks very much for you Jim that All My Electric Sounds is out
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  on September fifteenth. Then after one listen, I'm hoped to my she's an
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  absolutely belter of a rock album. So I congratulations. Well, thanks a
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  lot. That's nice to hear. Thank you very much. Can't shooth back
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  me, motherfucker, take your best shot, youse. I don't give a
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  dawn. And when you realize that it's gonna make it say, I know
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  you're gonna deny it. It's gonna feel great. No sleep, no chill,
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  I'm gonna be a b night, can't chill, no freaks, no
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  rest, just kicks and not no wow. Damn it feels town gone.
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  Damn it feels down night. It feels don't gonna when your now we shall
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  right and everybody ass can't kiss my ass. I'm gonna reck this place.
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  You're gonna have a bad day and it won't stop tu the flows off your
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  face. No sleep, no chill, I'm gonna be a b night,
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  just chilling that no breaks, no rest, just kicks and runs. It
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  feels don't gone now. It feels some day it feels, don't God,
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  when you're no, we'all right and everybody has that chiss my guess who's crack?
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  Take your paths, studcause I don't feel and will well. Love's gonna
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  make you say. I know you're gonna deny. I'm gonna feel great,