This past Friday, Croatia’s Animal Drive released their debut “Bite” via Frontiers Music Srl. Animal Drive are part of Frontiers’ New Breed Family. The New Breed family is the label’s stable of young, exciting, up and coming bands who will be the future of hard rock and metal. The label is focused on finding and developing new bands that will show the world that rock is indeed far from dead. If you like your Rock full of energy,not afraid to be different and a strong Metal edge then this is a band for you. We caught up with singer Dino to find out all about that debut…
Dino: Hey man, what’s up??
Mark: Hi Dino, I’m good, how are you? We’ve got fifteen minutes, let’s go! Animal Drive, love the album! I think it came out down here on the 23rd of February, and you’ve already had a few singles out, but the band’s been around for about 6 years already, can you fill us in on the background of Animal Drive?
Dino: Yeah, 2012 was a turning point for us, where we turned hard rock kind of heavy, but it was not Animal Drive at that time, it was my solo band, and we decided to become Animal Drive right before we signed our record deal with Frontiers. There were a few line-up changes, and now we have Keller on guitar, Rok on bass and we have a new drummer which we will announce really soon, we are trying out a few different drummers because Adrian is out. But, yeah, here we are, we recorded the album pretty quick because we signed the record deal in May and we had to deliver the album in October, it was really fast.
Mark: Were they all new songs or did you have some from your solo days?
Dino: Yeah, I had a couple of songs from my solo days, we just re did them and made some changes, with some new parts, about 40% was already done.
Mark: So, where did it start for you, I know you were introduced to Frontiers by Jeff Scott Soto, and your connection with him is through the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which is the first time I saw your name. Did that all happen quite quickly?
Dino: I got a call in February 2016, it’s two years already since then, and they sent a track from Savatage, a piano track, and I was supposed to sing to camera, without anything, just rock voice, and rock piano in the background, so I sent it, they loved it and flew me to their studio, and I passed their audition, and I became a member, sounds easy, but not!!
Mark: No, they’ve had some great singers over the years, and you are certainly one of them. I loved your voice on the album, and one of the most interesting things for me about the album is the first song, it’s not often you hear a six minute long song to kick off an album, but it works!
Dino: Well, I had that song in my mind for a long time, we are not a typical Frontiers band, we are a lot more heavy, but that song has a great riff, it’s a very unusual but catchy chorus, but I thought, you know, I want the first song ever written by Animal Drive to be ‘Goddamn Marathon’, that’s why we wanted it to be the first song on the album.
Mark: It’s definitely one of my favourites, but there are so many good ones there, and you’ve already released a few singles. I think, at the minute, I love “Father” it’s such a wonderful song, “Carry On” is another great one, “Had Enough”, I like and “Tower of Lies” are the ones that do it for me after a few listens. It is one of those albums that grows on you, the more I listen to it, the more I like it. It’s got that old school feel; it’s got that heavy Skid Row, second album period edge!
Dino: Yeah, everybody is comparing it to “Slave to the Grind”, which is one of my favourite albums, and there was a review that guessed my three favourite albums of that era, and that’s “Slave to the Grind” by Skid Row, “Slip of the Tongue” by Whitesnake and “Pull” by Winger, those three are my top three albums. But I had a period, you said you were talking to Extreme, and I’m a huge Extreme and Nuno fan! And so when we were doing the sound I wanted to have a heavier, funky vibe that Extreme has, but we were so deep in to the album that we said OK let’s just continue with this heavy style. We might do something more heavy, funk, in the future, but we’ll see.
Mark: Well that will be pretty interesting! I was actually talking to Nuno online just before this interview, his ex-wife is from Perth in Australia, and he visited down here a few years ago with his solo band Population One, it was a tiny venue, but a great band! You can hear those sorts of influences, but there is a more sort of metallic flavour to the album as well, where do those influences come from?
Dino: Well you can expect anything from us because; I listen to anything from Bruno Mars to Black Metal!! Our guitarist, Keller, he’s more a Machine Head, Pantera kind of guitarist, and with a Zak Wylde kind of touch when he’s doing solos. We want to put my melodic chorus, with his riffs, and so you get something really heavy with something really melodic.
Mark: It is a great combination, and it is something a little bit different for Frontiers. They’ve been talking about the “new breed family”, can you tell us a little bit about that? Is it something they made up for their new artists?
Dino: You are the second one to mention that today, and I have no idea what they mean!! Maybe they decided to do something more heavier there after they heard our album, because people in the reviews really love “Bite” so far, it’s not a typical Journey kind of love song album throughout. I think we gave every type of emotion you could give, all on one album; you can still have beautiful love songs, like “Hands of Time” and “Carry On” but still have balls, and then you have “Deliver Me” which is progressive kind of stuff, you have “Time Machine” and “Had Enough” which has a more Ozzy, Whitesnake, Black Label Society, kind of groove.
Mark: I think so; it sounds like you are a band that won’t be running out of ideas any time soon! There’s something on there for everyone, definitely! If I could put you on the spot and ask you to name one single song that really summed up what music means to you, all of the power and the emotion summed up in one song, could you do that?
Dino: This will surprise you! Can I name two?
Mark: As many as you like!
Dino: The first one would be “Home of the Brave” by Toto, and the second one would be “Goodnight Saigon” by Billy Joel.
Mark: That has surprised me!
Dino: Yeah, because when I do my solo stuff, I’m a piano player and a keyboardist and I do a lot of those kinds of songs, it’s out of the box, its more storytelling. I love when somebody takes you, grabs you with lyrics and just tells you a story. If I had to choose a rock song to answer your question, it would be, Oh God, I think it would be King’s X and a song called Dogman.
Mark: Really? Wow! My final question and we ask everyone, and save the easy one until last, is what is the meaning of life?
Dino: Wow this sounds like Monty Python! I think it’s all about the moments, you know when something hit you in the past and you know how you felt at that moment, Jesus Christ I’m trying to sound like a philosopher!!, I think as long are there are lots of moments where you feel you are happy to be alive, this is hard to describe, I have no idea how to put these thoughts in my mind, in this interview! I think you have to do what you love, something that will keep you going. I know people who do music for money, near where I live, and I see them a few years after, and everyone’s so miserable, like they’re lost. I’m still growing my band and I’m still working, and to be honest with you I’ve never been happier in my life than right now.
Mark: That’s a great thing to hear, and you should be very proud of the new album, it’s fantastic! Thank you for taking the time to talk to The Rockpit, we’ll definitely have to catch up again, cheers.
Dino: Sure, bye.