The Treatment is one of those young Rock bands that is holding teh torch for real Rock and Roll and they visit us for this year’s Soundwave Festival and a couple of choics Sidewave dates. Good enough reason as any to get to the Festival early when it hits town. Dhani catches up to talk about the latest album ‘Running With The Dogs’ , Soundwave, touring, Austrlaia and the meaning of life.
Mark: Thanks for talking to us today Dhani; you’ll be with us shortly for the Soundwave dates, and you’re also playing one of my favourite bars in Melbourne, The Cherry Bar, when do you fly out?
Dhani: We leave Thursday, and we literally can’t wait to get over there.
Mark: It will be good to see you. The thing that Soundwave does is it gives us a chance to see bands that otherwise we’d be waiting forever to see! How did the recent European tour go? Are you warmed up nicely for us!?
Dhani: That went amazing, we did three shows in France and one in Switzerland, and they were all really busy, we couldn’t believe it! Two of the places we’d never actually been before, and we played Lyon, and the last time we were there was three years ago, when we supported Alice Cooper. We were expecting a couple of people to turn up, and basically it was packed out, we couldn’t believe it!
Mark: It’s great that you get to play with people like Alice Cooper, and over the past few years you’ve played with some really big names, you had a huge US tour with Kiss and Motley Crue.
Dhani: Yeah, the shows that we get are unbelievable, before the Alice Cooper tour, we’d only ever done one club tour, and so we were thrown in at the deep end with the Alice Cooper tour! From then we’ve just got tour after tour! It’s been a really good experience for us and seen us grow as a band, I think, now we are a completely different band to what we were three years ago.
Mark: So, is that what you get out of these gigs, you get to see how the “big bands” do it?
Dhani: Yeah, we’ve picked up so much over the years, from touring with bands like Kiss, Motley Crue, Motorhead, we see how these guys work on such a professional level, and that’s really made us “up” our game over the years. I think if it wasn’t for the hard competition we have to compete with, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
Mark: I think you’re right, you have been tagged in the past as the next great hope for British rock, is that a blessing or a curse!??
Dhani: I think it’s both, to be honest! I mean, we get as many people wanting to put us down, as much as we do people supporting us. Some people don’t like the fact that we get so many big shows, but at the end of the day we’re out there to play the music that we want to play. We are hoping that we will be seen as a revival of rock, band, in years to come, I’d say it’s become a lot more popular than it was when we started three or four years ago, I definitely think rock music is going to come full circle, there’s bands like Rival Sons, Airbourne, Black Stone Cherry, a lot of those sorts of bands are starting to get really big, so I think in the next few years there’ll be a big revival again.
Mark: I think so; there are always good crowds at those types of gigs, in the UK.
Dhani: I think so too, people say that rock is dead, but AC/DC can still sell out Wembley Stadium! So, rock is still definitely around!
Mark: So, tell us a bit about your show, why should people get to Soundwave early?
Dhani: I just say we’re a straight out rock band! We’re not in to gimmicks, or electronics or anything; we’re literally a straight up rock and roll band! Our live show is like an AC/DC, Ramones style show, we plug in, and party, and give it all we’ve got!
Mark: That’s good, and I think people like that sort of show, especially down here! You touched on it a little bit there, but tell us about the band’s sound, you put out an interesting EP a while ago that had some pretty obscure 70’s songs on! I mean, I loved the ELO cover, and the Jo Jo Gunne , I hadn’t heard that for years!! What were you trying to say with that, were you trying to open the eyes of people who come to see you to music they might not have heard before?
Dhani: There are a lot of great songs and many that will go under the radar for rock people of our generation, so we thought we’d just put kind of a twist on them, and do it as a bit of fun, in between doing another record. It came out really good, it was just like we do a lot of those covers live anyway, and so why not do a little mini EP? I think we only released a few copies of it, and it did really well.
Mark: So, we might see some of those songs played live?
Dhani: Hopefully, yeah!
Mark: Getting on to the latest album, “Running with the Dogs”, there’s quite a bit of progression, I think from the first album, you have some wonderful stuff on there, “Emergency” is my favourite, and there’s also some great videos as well, I think the latest was “Outlaw” and the title track too. There’s also interesting songs like “Clowns Across the Sun”, which is a bit of a slower one, a different song for you guys.
Dhani: We are all big fans of The Beatles and ELO, and the one thing we like to do, even though we are a rock and roll band, we do try to do something diverse. We always want to try and take ourselves out of our comfort zone; we like to write a few more melodic songs from time to time, as curve balls!
Mark: How hard is it out there for bands like The Treatment, these days? You’ve obviously picked up a few great gigs, and you’ve said you can feel that resurgence coming back in the UK, but it still must take a lot of promotion.
Dhani: Yeah, definitely, I think music today is one of the hardest businesses to be in. If we were in it for the money we wouldn’t be doing it! Due to downloads and stuff, it’s so much harder, and so we have to rely on playing live, and selling t shirts at gigs, to keep us out on the road. The only thing you can do nowadays is, when you’re getting to gigs that are pulling in 5000 people, then you’re going to be making a comfortable living, but for us, it’s all about the music really, I think even if we didn’t amount to anything, we’d still be playing club shows, it’s something we want to do, it’s more of a lifestyle than a hobby.
Mark: That’s the right attitude to have! So, you personally, have a great drum sound, especially on this new album, what was it that got you behind a drum kit, was there a defining moment?
Dhani: Well, my dad’s a guitar player, and as a kid I was a massive AC/DC fan, and so I wanted to be like Angus Young! I started off on the guitar, but I never really progressed for some reason, and then I stumbled across a drum kit, and found myself picking it up really, really quickly! So, from then on I decided to put all my energy and focus into being a good drummer, and that shaped my life into what it is now. No matter what, I was always going to do something in music.
Mark: So, what’s it like out there on the road, have you had any disgraceful rock and roll moments?
Dhani: I’ll tell you the most ridiculous moment we’ve ever had on the tour, it was when we ended up celebrating Matt’s 21st birthday with Motley Crue! That was a pretty ridiculous scenario, as they ended up getting Matt a load of strippers to come in and beat him up, and pour a bottle of vodka over his head!! That was probably the most ridiculous thing when out on tour!! We are fun loving, young, easy going guys, and we just go out to have fun, and make the most of the opportunities that we get.
Mark: What are your plans for the rest of the year? You’ve played all the big festivals, you’ve had some great supports, is there any new music?
Dhani: I think for this year it could go either way, it could be a really busy year, or it could be one of the more quiet years, where we either plan to tour really solid this year or take six months out to record a record. We’re still in the early stages yet of finding out who’s going to be touring this year, and whether these tours would be beneficial to us. But, we are definitely going to lean more towards looking at writing more material this year, I think. Hopefully we’ll maybe have a new record by the end of the year, or early next year. We have a few new songs that sound amazing at the moment, so we’ll just play it by ear and see what happens! If the right tour comes up, we’ll go with it, but if not we’ll concentrate on the writing.
Mark: Are you road testing any of that new material yet?
Dhani: Yeah, I think we’ll try a couple of new songs when we come over to Soundwave. The way we do records, is we always like to take a few new tracks on the road, to see what kind of response we get from people. The ones we’ve been doing at the moment have been going down amazingly well, and I think a lot of people are going to really like them.
Mark: So, what should we listen to before coming to see you?
Dhani: I think the songs that kind of describe what we do the most, are probably tracks like “Emergency” or “ I Bleed Rock n Roll”, they sum up who we are, an honest rock band, and our aim is for people to have a good time!
Mark: Over the years, what do you think is the most important thing you’ve learned about the business? Has anyone given you any advice that’s stuck with you?
Dhani: I think the main thing is to keep at it, and stay true to what you do. I find there are loads of bands that try to change their sound to try and fit in with modern day music. We couldn’t care less if people love us or hate us!! Either way we enjoy what we’re doing, and we’re just going to stick with it as long as we can, we just want to stay out there and do what we love to do.
Mark: That’s good advice. It sounds like you had a good upbringing as far as the music you listened to is concerned!
Dhani: Yeah, my dad and our manager, have been in bands for thirty years, and have toured with bands like Queen, Iron Maiden and AC/DC. It’s almost like I’m reliving his youth, because a lot of those bands I’m touring with, like he did back in the day! I was always going to do something within the rock community.
Mark: That’s incredible you should say that, because I’ve interviewed Scott Gorham recently, and I first bumped in to him on the Kiss/Motley Crue tour here in Australia, when he was with Black Star Riders, he’d taken your spot on the tour!!
Dhani: We toured with Black Star Riders, a little while ago, and they are really good friends of ours. And the funny thing is that was just before we toured with Thin Lizzy, that time as well!
Mark: I have a couple of quick questions to close with. This is the one that tells us a lot about a musician, if you could have been a fly on the wall for the recording of any great album, at any point in time, what would it have been and why?
Dhani: I think my all-time favourite album has to be “Powerage” by AC/DC. For me, that is the ultimate rock album, and they were just on the verge of becoming massive before “Highway to Hell”, so I think I would have liked to have been there for that one. If we could get on that AC/DC tour now, that would be a dream for us!! We could die happy!!
Mark: Don’t do that too soon!! Finally, what is the meaning of life?
Dhani: I think just to go out and enjoy yourselves, I think the best thing you can do is just take the risks, and do what you want to do. You could go out and have an easy life working nine till five, but then you’d always look back and think what if I’d taken the risks in life?
Mark: I think you’re right, people should enjoy what they are doing, and if that life is music then that’s the way to go! Better to find out early, than wait till it’s too late!
Dhani: Yeah, I was always brought up to do what I think is right, and music was what I always wanted to do.
Mark: It’s been great talking to you, thank you. We’ll see you at Soundwave, and be taking lots of photos and make sure we give you a good review!! Enjoy yourselves here, have a great time, take care, cheers.
Dhani: That’s great, thanks. Bye.
