Imagine a band so wound up and so Rock and Roll they just explode into your ears from the off and never let up! Danko Jones plays high octane rock and roll, superbly crafted, catchy as hell and completely unpretentious. If that sounds like your kind of thing then dive right in! Indeed if you’ve checked out the stunning run of albums since 2015’s ‘Fire Music’ – namely ‘Wild Cat’, ‘A Rock Supreme’, and ‘Power Trio’ you’ll know that regular as clockwork every two years we will get to hear another quality collection of songs. The consistency is really quite remarkable and its a caliber of music that exceeds the quality that many above them in the Rock and Roll tree manage far less frequently. Now it’s 2023 and ‘Electric Sounds’ shows that the hot streak is far from over and the well is far from dry! We just had to talk!
Mark: Hey how are you Danko?
Danko: I’m good, how’s it going?
Mark: I’m going great thank you. I just finished my review of the new album – it’s pretty special.
Danko: Thank you.
Mark: How does it feel? Every time we speak you have another fantastic album out?
Danko: (Laughs) It feels great and I can say that because I know the feeling when it’s not great. (Laughs) And that’s happened where we put out records and of course I like it – of course we wouldn’t release it if we didn’t like it, but I’ve been very nervous as to how it will be received, and that’s a red flag. But since ‘Fire Music’ in 2015 when Rich Knox joined the band, since then every album leading u to its release I’ve not been nervous, instead I’ve been inpatient for everyone to hear it! And excited! And to me that’s an indication that I’m pretty confident about the records.
Mark: You’re right I loved ‘Fire Music’ and I loved ‘Wild Cat’, ‘A Rock Supreme’, and ‘Power Trio’ but this one I think is little more eclectic, ad goes to a few more different places, and it works!
Danko: Thanks, and I agree with that point. I mean an outsider who isn’t acquainted with our band might think ‘they all sound the same’ but obviously you’ve dived in a little deeper that the casual listener, and yes, it is kinda different song to song.
Mark: Jumping right into the album: I love the trademark amped up Party Rockers I love the opener ‘Guess Who’d Back’ which does everything an opening track should do, but picking favourites I loved the simplicity of ‘Get High’.
Danko: Thanks. That’s gonna be the next single that’s released a week before the album.
Mark: Cool, ‘Good Time’ just landed here again though I thought it was already out?
Danko: Yes it came out a few weeks ago but because ‘Guess Who’s Back’ kinda got a life of its own and went number one in Germany, then dropped to number three, then went back to number one – that kinda pushed all the release dates for the singles a little back. So yesterday we actually posted a new video for ‘Good Times’ and it’s the album track but put to live footage of us playing at the Graspop Festival this past June in Belgium.
Mark: I’m not going crazy then! (laughs) You also have a couple of great guests on there as well? I loved ‘She’s My Baby’ that is absolute gold! A bit of punk in there, a bit of everything and Tyler is great!
Danko: Yes, Tyler Stewart, drummer of teh Barenaked Ladies makes a guest appearance and he sings, or rather asks that question “Who’s that Girl who looks so good?” and I answer him that “She’s my baby” – that’s actually my favorite song on the record. My favourite songs are never the singles so I never pick them, I have no business being anywhere near the picking of the singles.
Mark: (laughs)
Danko: But that song, at least lyrically was inspired by Sparks of all people, They have an album called ‘Little Caesar’ (it’s from – ‘Lil’ Beethoven’ – Ed) from 2002 and there’s a song called ‘How Do I Get to Carnegie Hall?’ and the chorus on the song is “How Do I Get to Carnegie Hall?” and the answer is “Practice man, practice!”
Mark: (laughs)
Danko: So I loved that question and answer, call and response so I used it fir ‘She’s My Baby’ where Tyler asks “Who’s that Girl who looks so good?” and I answer “She’s my baby” much like that Sparks song. I kept listening to that album and especially that song the whole Summer last year.
Mark: I am going to have to listen to that album again, I love Sparks and it’s great that they’re still making a noise for us, they’re actually touring down under soon too. I must admit though I usually dig back deeper to the obvious like ‘Kimono My House’ and ‘No. 1 in Heaven’ but I shall play that after we finish up.
Danko: Yeah.
Mark: What I love most about ‘Electric Sounds” I think is that it’s a real Rock and Roll attitude, it takes from everywhere, it plays it loud and proud. I love that sense of freedom: sonically you can’t put it in a box. Another that really connected first time was ‘I Like It’ – that song has everything, it gets all groovy there’s a nice stomp to it and then you switch gears to have it rub up against something with a nice melodic rise to it: ‘Let’s Make Out’ – that must be in consideration for a single surely?
Danko: I’m not sure really, the next single that’s being talked about is ‘What Goes Around’ which is the song after ‘Let’s Make Out’. But JC sequences the albums, obviously he bounces it off of us and sometimes we chime in, but usually he does the sequencing so that’s his work.
Mark: Well ‘What Goes Around’ is one of those absolute Rockers that I think could wake the dead!
Danko: (Laughs) Thanks man!
Mark: A wonderful track that would make a great single. The mystery for me with Danko Jones the band is how when you release so regularly do you keep the quality so high? If I had to pick a band who was on a hot streak as far as albums are concerned it would be you guys!
Danko: I appreciate that but honestly I don’t know. We just try to write the best songs that we an given the window of time before the deadline to go into the studio. So there’s always that pressure to meet the deadline and that seems to help us. But this one took a bit of time to get warmed up. So from January to March 2022 I wrote between about 12 – 20 ideas and sent them to JC and he arranged them. And then we kind of had ten songs ready but none of them made the record.
Mark: Oh wow.
Danko: None of them. There were some really good ones I still think but they were not good enough to be on the record. Then in the Summer we spent writing a little bit, but then we went to a rehearsal room in Berlin for a few days in between time for some Festival dates, and we spend like six hours a day in this room and we just banged out ideas that we had and think it ended up yielding bout 4 or 5 ideas that became songs. But really we wrote this album remotely.
Mark: That’s exactly how it doesn’t sound! There’s a real live feel to it. What happened from there?
Danko: The heat really started to turn up around this time last year into the Fall. I think the rest of the album was then written in a matter of weeks. “Shake your City’; ‘She’s My Baby’; ‘Electric Sounds’; ‘Good Time’; ‘Stiff Competition” ‘What Goes Around’ and ‘Let’s Make Out’ those songs were written within that time. And songs like ‘Guess Who’s Back’ and ‘I Like it’; maybe even ‘Stiff Competition’ actually were started there and then there were just a ton more ideas that never made it, and a couple that were really, really good that didn’t make the cut. But all that came together remotely because JC now lives in Finland, Rich lives on the other side of Canada on Prince Edward Island and I’m the only one who has stayed in Toronto, so everyone kind of lives remotely and we send files to each other.
Mark: It definitely sounds like an album made by a band in the same room.
Danko: I agree,
Mark: So what happens to all those songs that didn’t quite make the grade? Do you just cast them aside, do you save them or are you someone who will rework an idea if it has something?
Danko: Usually they just hit the cutting room floor and we never really revisit them. The only one I remember revisiting was a song called ‘Legs’ because it was such a great idea and we never did anything with the riff. And then I brought it back in and it made it onto ‘Rock and Roll is Black and Blue’ and we actually ended up turning it into a single with a music video – and that was one of my favourite videos we’ve ever done. That was the only time I kinda remember digging back and using an idea from another session.
Mark: So what makes a great song for you? What does it have to have?
Danko: It’s really an intangible feeling and it’s really hard to describe, but you just know it when you know it. Like it’s just hard to describe a song like ‘Highway to Hell’ – there’s a million bands that have tried to rework ‘Highway to Hell’ or tried to do their own ‘Highway to Hell’ and it’s just not the same. And you can’t describe it and if you could then I think people would start to go “Ahh! I’ve got the formula!”
Mark: It’s that emotional response to hearing a piece of music that you can’t put into words and sometimes it’s the immediacy too, and I think that’s the thing I love about this record – everything just hits you right between the eyes.
Danko: Thanks very much man.
Mark: Tell us a little about ‘Shake Your City’ that’s a crazily good way to end the album?
Danko: That one was written in the Fall, I think that was one of the last songs written. I just came up with the first riff which is normally how i come up with songs – I work on the verse first and then think about the chorus later which is crazy really but that’s usually how it ends up. So I had this verse riff idea that I thought was pretty good and I knew I could sing over it, then once I kinda came up with a loose chorus I thought I had something so I sent it to JC. And what usually happens is that I’ll send it to him in my afternoon, like 5 O’clock in the afternoon, which means its already midnight for him and he’s probably not checking his emails or maybe asleep. So he gets it in the morning, he listens to it, he arranges it while I’m sleeping. He sends it over and I wake up, I get it in the morning and away we go.
Mark: That sounds great to be always waking up to new things and new surprises!
Danko: (laughs) and it works! When we were in the thick of it I would pretty much wake up to a new idea every day rearranged by him.
Mark: That’s so cool. What sort of things were you listening to when you were young that’s led you to this incredible Rock and Roll music you make for us?
Danko: I mean it’s everyone from Kiss and Van Halen to Black Flag and The Bad Brains to Slayer and Metallica and The Birthday Party and Public Enemy and a million other things in between you know – Aerosmith, oh God Beastie Boys. So many in the mix.
Mark: That’s why it sounds so good, so much there in that mix.
Danko: I think the trick is if you’re making Rock and Roll music, or any music really is to listen to all kinds of music because it can all inform you and you can get ideas in places you would never have thought to look.
Mark: It’s great that we’ll get this on vinyl too and I think we’re getting back to teh days where music is starting to mean more to people again, sure streaming is convenient but it’s not a sustainable model and there’s nothing like holding a copy of an album in your hands.
Danko: Yeah.
Mark: ‘Electric Sounds’ also deserves that vinyl treatment – it has some wonderful artwork – who designed that for you?
Danko: Martin Ander – he goes by ‘Mandroid’ on Instagram – he did a few T-Shirt designs for us on the last ‘Power Trio’ tour and we thought those designs were amazing so when it came time to do the cover artwork – we had the title ‘Electric Sounds’ so we asked him and I think it took a couple of sketches but eventually we ended up with one that looks like the final artwork.
Mark: I love the big Tesla machine, the electric eels, it looks cool I was curious though about the hummingbird with its proboscis through the lightbulb?
Danko: (laughs) I think it just looks cool, we just gave him the title!
Mark: So there was no specific request for the hummingbird?
Danko: (Laughs) No.
Mark: Just before we go there’s two questions we always ask everyone when we speak to them the first time and even though we’ve spoken a few times over the years – you’ve escaped them!
Danko: (laughs) I better answer them now then!
Mark: (laughs) If you could have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for the creation of any album in the history of Rock and Roll just to see how the magic happened – what would you have loved to have seen being made?
Danko: Just one song really probably ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
Mark: It’s hard to argue with that one. Do you ever get inspired to try anything like that?
Danko: No, not at all, no way.
Mark: (laughs) Let’s close with this one then – ‘What is the meaning of life?’
Danko: I think… to love.
Mark: It should be as easy as that shouldn’t it. I think that has to be at the heart of it for everyone. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to The Rockpit today. 6am local time the review of the album comes out and I think it’s a contender for album of the year I had so much fun listening to it again… and again. And to me that’s the sign of a great record. Enjoy your time in Europe and hope that we get to see you again Down Under some time sooner rather than later.
Danko: Thank you. That would be amazing, hopefully sooner than later. Thanks man.
ELECTRIC SOUNDS is OUT SEPTEMBER 15
