Danko Likes DragonForce More Than BSS

11/26/08 1:29pm

by Erik Missio (CHARTattack)

As part of a cross-Canada warm-up for a European tour with Motorhead, Danko Jones recently delivered his rock revival sermon in front of a packed house at Toronto's Lee's Palace.

The concert — a tour de force that included selections from all four Danko Jones albums, both EPs and assorted B-sides and live miscellany — was vintage Danko. In other words, it was loud, tight, smart, sexily sleazy, playfully abrasive and, above all, unpretentious, unabashed, unironic rawk 'n' roll.

Danko and the band bearing his name (who include longtime bassist John Calabrese and still-sorta-new drummer Dan Cornelius) are for those about to rock. And we mean real rock, with devil horns and guitar solos and lyrics about revenge or girls, not that self-pitying poser stuff.

ChartAttack sat down with Jones on the eve of the release of his band's latest, the subtly titled Never Too Loud. The new songs were discussed, but so was some other stuff, ranging from Nickelback's niceness to DragonForce's superiority over Broken Social Scene.

Chartattack.com: In some ways, this album's a bit of a departure for you guys. You're singing, for one thing.
Danko Jones: Yeah. For years, people have asked me why I don't sing on the records. And I'd just say, "What the fuck are you talking about? I'm trying to sing my ass off here!"

I like singing. But a little while back, I really thought of all the bands we namedrop as influences and realized, "Well, all those singers sing. And I don't." Paul Stanley sings and Phil Lynott sings and even Gene Simmons sings. But I just growled.

You growl really well, though. What prompted you to try something new?
When we started working with our producer, Nick Raskulinecz [Foo Fighters, Rush], we had a few phone conversations to see if we were on the same page. One of the first things he said was, "I've listened to your records, and there's melody lacking. I work with melody, and that's the only way I can be involved." Well, we had already been writing songs involving melody, and a couple even made it through on to records before.

A lot of people will mistake melody for being soft, but Phil Lynott is a perfect example of a guy who can sing with melody and mean it, but at the same time sound tough and forceful.

Still, "melodious rock" gets a bad name in some circles. You guys took a lot of flak for having the audacity to open for a band like Nickelback…
They were incredibly nice guys. Besides, how does our music get affected by their music? There's no virus spreading — we didn't get together after the show and say, "Dude! The way you guys play is totally better than the way we do."

Look, I'm not scared of my cool stock going up and down. If you have to worry about your cool factor in the first place, then chances are you're already hanging by a thread.

There were actually these critically acclaimed hipster bands — and these were our friends, just looking out for us — warning us of the dangers of touring with Nickelback. What? Why should we be scared? Who the hell doesn't want to play sold-out arenas in their home country? In their hometown?

Touring has obviously always been incredibly important for you guys.
We do between 100 and 150 shows a year, but right now, 65 to 70 per cent of those are in Europe. We want to really concentrate on Canada — more than we have in the past five or six years.

Yeah… you sort of disappeared for awhile.
I'm at peace with the Canadian music industry. I just want to play in front of anyone who wants to see us.

The mainstream Canadian music industry isn't always the best place for metal or hard rock, though.
For Canada, I find — and this isn't meant as a diss — our image to the world is safe, neutral, comfortable and happy. Musically, it's the same image we promote. The bands that get a lot of attention and thumbs up from the U.S. are often something we can get behind because they're safe. That's not to say they're "middle-of-the-road," though. It's just not the music I listen to in my personal life. I want classic rock and metal.

Don't get me wrong: I like Feist and Broken Social Scene and The Dears — first time I saw them, I was blown the fuck away. I walked up to Murray [Lightburn, vocals/guitar] and asked, "Who the hell are you?"

But what becomes popular or cool often has nothing to do with musicianship. You can't tell me Broken Social Scene can play DragonForce covers, but I'll bet you the guys in DragonForce can do an entire Broken Social Scene album — in a day.

How did you first get into rock?
When I was six, I joined the KISS Army. They were superheroes, but they were real. And the fact Gene, Paul, Ace, and Peter wore makeup meant I didn't know what colour of skin they had. I was an only child. I thought they were my brothers.

Growing up, I always gravitated to anything heavier. Even for pop songs, it was always, "Oh, that bridge with the drums! I like that part!" I got into rock and then metal, and then punk, and then once I got into Bad Brains, all hell broke loose. Jazz, hip-hop, indie rock — Sonic Youth, Slint, Dinosaur Jr., Smog, Blonde Redhead, The Sea And Cake, Killdozer, Unsane, Jesus Lizard...

As a hard rock/metal aficionado, what was it like the first time you guys toured Europe? It must have been like seeing the mothership coming to take you home.
I was blown away. I could not believe it. Guys wearing studded wristbands and Danzig shirts giving us devil horns from front row. Our album We Sweat Blood was a direct result of us touring in Europe and being swept up by the rock and metal scene.

When we play over there, they knew where we were coming from. They knew which albums we listened to, they knew everything about us. I felt so at home immediately.

Has there ever been any thought to actually making it your home?
I'm a Toronto kid. No offence to anyone. I like rock.