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Your Ad in Sonic Wave |
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It seems that people have forgotten, (in case that they once knew it), that if a place like Detroit gave us in the sixties bands like The Stooges and MC5, and later in the seventies bands like Sonic´s Rendevouz Band (so claimed and applauded lately), is because before that, acting like receivers of the rhythm, the energy and sweat, this people furiously and diabolically possessed all the music gone away from the black continent. That gave them power. As a raising place for rock music, the motor city was soul, rhythm & blues before anything else. This observation is very important to understand the meaning of everything that is made to its image nowadays. Our time, very difficult musically talking, with a lack of creation and without values and absolute arguments, produces, in a higher grade, elements with an analytic fragility that end up falling under the indifference. The new audiences tend to exclude what they do not know, despite the fact they grow thirsty of perspectives and educational fundaments. It seems that everybody loves rock music, but there are very few people worried about listening to it understanding and assimilating its language. It results tragically implausible to realize that some people consider going deeper and studying the background of a genre “degeneration”, “lack of coherence”, “losing direction” and “retro”. We’re all familiar with the radical growing phenomenon against the current bands. And it’s curious, because concentrating from the intensity instead of doing it from the uninspired impulse always offers the chance to take control over the inner potency, increasing the emotional engine, something that results always enriching for the bands. However, nowadays for the big public, playing loud, hard, with a good technique but filled with referential wisdom, results to fall out with any sign of intelligence. Extreme brutality=authenticity, a logistic equation demolishing characters.
The guitar treatment on “High Visibility”, their new album, shows a worry for the opening of new blends, the riffs sound more southern than ever and generally speaking we could say that the guitars work as a true melodic catalyst, something that has progressed since the terminal dirtiness of their first record showed the way the Cry-Baby pedals had to be pushed with the likes of Asheton-Kramer-Farner. Taking as a fact the inutility of most of the contemporary guitarists into this new Hi-Energy rage, it’s wonderful to discover that the idiom of the guitar survives. We can breath again a certain air of hope. A good guitar, understood the way it has to be understood, is always a synonym of good rock; from Link Wray to Rick Derringer, from Pete Townsend to Deniz Tek, from Michael Bruce to Charlie Owen, from Rory Gallagher to Cheetah Crome, from Jimi Hendrix to Wilco Johnson… who could deny this? Guitars need some room when they have something to say. But, not to forget, one must know how to say it. And possibly here’s the problem. It is unlikely that that a rock guitar player becomes transcendent if his technical and sensitive diet despises the key elements necessary to hold a good spirit, something extensible to the rest of the band and to the music conceived as the final product. The Hellacopters know this, and therefore the reason of their growing goes deeply into the basics of the genre.
A lot of people grunt with skepticism in front of the new multinational stage of the band. It’s not something to really worry about once it’s been shown that the politics followed by Nicke and the rest of the band is inverse to everything that could be guessed at first, given the repressive style of any big company. They’re still going to put out singles and supporting vinyl as a fundamental weapon for the record collector. Possibly some b sides and previously unreleased tracks will appear on an album that, in case it’s released, will become a first-class gummy bear for every ‘copters fan. Their live shows hold the halo of Fred Sonic Smith’s phantom, waving his Mosrite. Their concerts are everyday closer to imbatibility. Their rhythmic section, propelled by that demonic Robert (a mix between Keith Moon and Phil Animal Taylor) is absolutely compact, the guitars are flaming in the purest style of Blackfoot or Molly Hatchet, and the songs, even when Nicke’s vocal registers are still rather homogeneous, have both melodic intentions and an energetic hook. What I can’t avoid thinking about is what’s the real role of Boba and his phantasmagoric keyboard. And this leads also to my doubts, on the other hand, concerning the Diamond Dogs guitarist. But, this issue is on a second place. The recent tour that brought them here showed that their machinery is well greased and works close to perfection. After their show in Madrid at the Arena venue (their awful acoustics would require another full article) I spoke with Kenny, who seemed relaxed, easy and collaborative all the time. Even in front of the poison on some of my questions the guy kept the good humor. They will keep on growing up. In the end, you know, “it’s only rock & roll”.
Well, being always on the road and not at home is very tiring. People use to tell me that being in a band, touring, playing… must be great. But is a job that I personally would not recommend to anyone, but it’s my life and I’m glad. In fact, all the experience is focused to the moment in which you are on stage and you play. If the thing works and you make a good show, nothing else matters. Is possible to keep the chemistry of the beginning? The arrival of Strange has been the ingredient that was missing. That is above all. We made a lot of shows with other guitar players, people from other bands that played as special guests, but Strange was piece that we needed. Maybe it could be said that everything started to work again as it should. This helped to keep the chemistry between us that you were talking about. There is a thing that is not very clear to me. Is intentioned all that stylistic graduation that you are experimenting, or simply it acts as something natural? Is it a thing that had to happen and is happening? I mean, how much are you interested in sounding like The Rationals or Molly Hatchet? No, it’s not something that is was thought before, it was natural. That is the stylistic evolution of the band. Especially in the case of Nike, who is the one that composes the songs. His head is full of music. He must have more than one hundred songs waiting to get out, and influences a lot the music he is listening in that moment. Lately he is been listening a lot of southern boogie and it’s natural that appear things such as Blackfoot or Molly Hatchet. It’s important too the fact that we all of us like soul music. Every time we discover new records we all listen to them. If you take a look to our record collections you will see that there is soul music, but other things too. We agree in some bands that are fundamental, but each one of us have records from speed metal to free jazz. Every kind of music. In my opinion you are winning in melody, but the vocal registers of Nike are very similar for every song. They are like a homogenic wave that always end in the same place. Yes, it is possible. But consider that we are learning in a constant learning playing together, and Nike is also learning to sing bit by bit. His voice is becoming stronger, like the band. I imagine that in the future the songs will be more dynamic because we are more compenetrated. How important is the influence of Nike in the band? Could happen that the Hellacopters would become the accompaniment band of Nike Royale? Ah! Ok, Nike & The Hellacopters… well, in fact in the future we will be Robert & the Hellacopters. He plays fast and the rest of the band will be young people with bad anger. I have the opinion that the drummers, as music players hat really have something to tell, are about to disappear. The drums in Hellacopters work as an essential fluid to make the band sound as it does. In fact, there is always a space for the language of the drums and I think that is very important. It’s curious. Dregen, Robert and me had worked as roadies for Nike and we did not know each other. One day Nike told me that he wanted to make a band and that I had to get a bass player to play together. Later on, he met Robert in the underground and invited him to go to the rehearsal place. That is how we all got together, and from that moment Robert started using his style. He plays that way, not spontaneously, and that is because it is so fresh. His way of playing helps a lot to the songs. That is true. The side bands in which you play have an unusual quality: Sewergrooves, Silver Machine, Hydromatics, Diamond dogs… What makes Hellacopters a pillar for the success? The mean secret is that we are thinking in Hellacopters 24 hours a day from the first time we started to play. We are very involved in our job and outside the band we work very well too. We have always worked every detail that concerns us. The are bands that think that the work is over once they are outside the rehearsal place. From the very first moment we have worried about the shows, the record labels, the artwork of the records, acting like real friend with a common aim. That is the formula that leads to success. We are in this together and we are like a brotherhood, like a family. The side proyects are important but not as much as the Hellacopters are.
When I saw you in the Grande Rock tour with Zen Guerrilla and The Hydromatics I was very confused wondering what sensations could have someone like Scott Morgan seeing that he was a cadet and that 90% of the crowd dis not know who he was and what had he done. You must admit that open for a band that have grown listening to your music and that in a way copy your music is very strange, isn´t it? Scott is very big. He is someone that he lost himself in the way, but he did not feel uncomfortable or fustrated in any moment. When he was told that there was a Swedish band that played well and made covers of his songs he inmediatly was interested in playing with us. We made jams and he enjoyed them all the time. He likes Spain a lot and that tour was great and , as I tell you he did not seem to have bitterness for that reason. May be he asking himself that, but he does no t show it with his attitude. He was very happy to play for new people. I do not care was record label you are in as long as you play good music and you are compromised with your original spirit. It must have to be a little bit stressing to give explanations all the time for something so understandable. I think that our more extreme fans were the ones that left us when we put out Grande Rock, but it is also that true that we got new fans. But when we played live and that extreme fans saw we were still the same, that we did not lose our energy and that the songs were still strong and fast, I think they thought again their opinions and thought to themselves: “This bastards still keep rocking”. But I it is important to know the fact that the last record was recorded before we signed for the label we are in. We had several offers from independent labels and major labels and decided to sign for Universal because it was the one that answered better to our demands. They let us do what we really want to do: keep on recording records, touring all around the world, releasing singles without any problem… The support of a major label can help the band to be heard in a lot places, to be able to find the record in a megastore… hundred of details that a lot more limited in an independent label. Universal heard our demand before they said anything. They allowed us some things that interested us and that was the reason to sign. What would you say if I told you that there are people that prefer to listen to your record rather than see you live? Your shows are very shocking but very homogeneous at the same time. What is for the sceptical in this new tour that you have not made before? Nothing. High energy rock and roll for moving your hip and dance. Just music to heal your soul. Warning: Failed opening '/home/swmagazi/sonicwavemagazine-www/in/0106/sumario.inc.php' for inclusion (include_path='./:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/swmagazi/sonicwavemagazine-www/backstage/contenido/index.php on line 356 |
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