Introducing: Dananananaykroyd

Photo by Lucy Johnston

It’s a Thursday night, it’s Kingston Upon Thames. You like the kind of music that may have you labelled a ‘grunger’ by the legions of sweat-soaked, beer swilling, bald and shirt wearing masses that populate this popular town centre. So where are you? That’s right, you’re at New Slang! Again! Tonight ‘Slangskies’ played host to the now near-legendary 5-man 1-woman live riot that is Dananananaykroyd. We caught up with them to have a quick banter and generally chew the musical cud.

Right, standard stuff… your names and what you do, band wise.

CALLUM: Callum, singer.

LAURA: Laura, erm, Basser?

Alright, how’s tour going for you?

C: Erm, there’s ups and downs, but it’s been really good so far.

What’s been your best gig?

C: London, that’s last night, yeah?

L: Yeah it was, with Manchester being a close second, because that was amazing!

Where did you play in Manchester?

L: The Deaf Institute, where we proceeded to make everyone deaf!

Aah, I see, it lived up to the name then!

C: “the deaf institutionalisers”.

Having read your lovely blog (www.dananananaykroyd.co.uk, it’s ace) I see you guys liked playing in wonderful Crewe, how did you find that?

C: It was pretty horrific!

L: Yeah, well it wasn’t horrific, like there were less than 20 people there in a massive room. But a lot of them did buy t-shirts, so they obviously liked it,they just didn’t seem to like it.

Massive cliché question number 1, sorry, have to do this! How do you describe yourselves to the new listener? But, maybe not in conventional terms, lets have it in non-musical terms, something different.

C: If you’ve ever heard the death rattle of your only child then think of that with your only six children.

L: What?

C: I don’t know, your child’s death rattle when they die

L: That’s horrible! We’re not like that!

C: Yeah but it’s positive, they’re dying for martyrdom.

S: So it’s like your only child, six of them, dying at once, that’s what you sound like?

L: Yeah, mixed with some flumps (lovely marshmallow sweets).

S: Scottish people or English people? Crowd wise. Any preference?

C: I don’t know actually…

Are there any differences?

C: It doesn’t matter so much to me any more, it’s just how drunk people are? It’s kinda just whether or not people are up for it, and that changes every time. We’ve played in Glasgow to shit crowds and to some amazing crowds.

S: So Scottish crowds don’t appeal to the stereotype that Scottish people are generally more inebriated than English people?

C: We did play at the Barrowlands with Foals and that was the most insane crowd I’ve ever seen in my life!

Insane drunk or just insane loving it?

C: Both really!

L: A lot of them weren’t old enough to drink, but they were like literally trying to suck Callum and John into the crowd.

C: I got my face licked quite a lot. It wasn’t just damp, it was wet from people licking my face.

Was that during the wall of cuddles, which is now your signature move?

C: Nah, it was just loads of enthusiastic children at the front just grabbing me, asking for my clothes.

Nice. Another one of your “selling points” is the fact you’ve got two drummers, where did that idea come from and, well, why?

C: Well it was kind of a shitty mistake, its because the two drummers we’ve got now are different from the two we had originally. I started playing drums in practice once while the original drummer was out of the room, and erm, that somehow gave us the idea for me and the original drummer to play drums together, so we thought it’d be utterly idiotic, and instead it kind of turned into something fairly idiotic. We just wanted it to be loud!

Pink Sabbath, congratulations! Number 7 in the indie charts!

C: Bruce Springsteen beat us, the boss!

How have you found the reaction to be personally, I mean obviously sales are one thing, but have you got an increased fan reaction, radio play etc?

L: I think so, we’ve got some decent radio play.

C: Yeah, i’ve had texts from people I went to school with saying things like “Erm I’m driving home from work and I heard you on the radio. What are you doing? What’s going on here? I don’t understand it!” It’s kinda strange in that aspect, never had that kind of exposure or reaction before.

People from your past, have their views changed towards you? Do people love you know who may not have done before?

L: I think its more the opposite in Glasgow you know. I think there’s probably people who resent us a bit! It’s natural, people are horrible to us now!

You guys are well known for your live shows for being incredible performers. does it ever get to a stage where you guys are thinking “I cant be fucked, I really cant be bothered. I’m gonna just stand still!” You’ve been playing a few gigs, and you just don’t want to do it. Or is it still a sense that you always feel the love?

C: It can be like that before you go on stage…

L: …its gonna be shite…

C: But then when we start playing it’s a different story. It nearly gets bad, but it never works, we still go spastic anyway!

Have there been any wacky, crazy tour stories?

L: Oh yeah! Me and Paul (Carlin, drummer), managed to sync our phones today, so we play exactly the same rubbish song at exactly the same time. It’s a stereo experience!

So, what’s coming next for Danananananananananaykroyd?

L: We’re hopefully gonna be taking our live experience out of the U.K. some time next year. I think we may be going to France and fingers crossed, the United States. We’ve also got our album coming out in the spring and a single before that probably as well!

Any details that you can give us?

L: It’s produced by a guy called Machine (Every Time I Die, Lamb Of God) in New Jersey, and its called “Hey Everyone”. We just heard the first mixes yesterday, and it’s sounding amazing!

Lastly, any words that you want me to integrate into this interview, of your own choice?

Duncan: Frigid.

C: Exhilarating!

David: Bastard.

L: And eggs. Or egg.

Dananananaykroyd’s Tour Blog

Dananananaykroyd on Myspace