The Datsuns come home to rock

A couple of years ago they were one of most hyped bands ever to come out of New Zealand. But having brushed off their record label's oversized expectations, The Datsuns from Waikato have grown into a confident rock act. 
JULE SCHERER of NZPA talks to guitarist Phil Somervell about their next album and their upcoming national tour. 

After years of riding the highs and lows of a roller-coaster career, Cambridge rockers The Datsuns have found their feet. Now they are preparing to record their fifth studio album. Without a record label in the background they're forced to rely more than ever on their own creativity but they have the confidence to do so, guitarist Phil Somervell told NZPA.

The foursome shot to fame during the garage rock revival of 2002 with their self-titled debut album. The band, lauded by the British music press as "the future of rock", won multiple awards in New Zealand and the UK, were invited to record with legendary UK radio host John Peel and played festivals like Ozzfest alongside Ozzy Osborne and Marilyn Mason and opened for Metallica.

As the band subsequently admitted these performances sounded so much better than they actually were. Being the only skinny kids in tight jeans playing high energy, swaggering garage rock to ageing metal fans might not have been the perfect fit and singer Dolf de Borst joked about having been "the most hated band at Ozzfest".

But the quartet let the frenzy wash over them, when their second album -- produced by Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones -- Outta Sight Outta Mind didn't find the same acclaim as their debut. The band refused to buckle under the expectations and kept recording music and a relentless touring schedule, acquiring devoted followings in Europe, UK, Japan and the United States.

Their relationship with British indie label V2 -- the home of well known acts like The White Stripes and Block Party -- broke apart after two records. With their latest album 2008s Head Stunts (an anagram of The Datsuns) the long-haired rockers delivered a solid rock album which acknowledged the influence of classic rock bands like Deep Purple, The Who and Led Zeppelin but applied the fresh, highly energetic distinctive Datsuns sound.

"There are a lot of different styles, and everything we do sounds different to us, but it still sounds like us," Somervell said.

After spending the last decade living together as a close unit, the four band members are now scattered around the globe. Somervell lives in Auckland, de Borst in Stockholm, guitarist Christian Livingstone in London and Ben Cole, who joined the band ahead of their last album on the drums, lives in Wellington.

After being apart for five months, the guys are now excited about getting together to play Wellington's Homegrown Festival as well as a national tour. After that, The Datsuns plan to record their fifth studio album. Somervell said that now that the band were living so far apart it would be really interesting to see what different influences they'll bring to the table.

The band already had a bunch of new material which they had started to perform on their last tour through Canada, the United States and Europe.

Somervell hopes the upcoming recording would be a bit of a "stoner album".

"A lot of our practices are just big jams, so hopefully a part of it will be like that. Or maybe we do an EP with just big spaced-out jams," the guitarist said.

With no record label to pick up the bills, the band are trying to work out a system for "recording records for nothing".

"We don't have the money to have the luxury of time in a big studio, because that costs," he said. Instead they're trying to work out if they rather get a small space or buy the recording equipment and do it themselves.

"Having a smaller box to work in, you're forced to be more creative with your surroundings.

"I think it will be a good thing, whatever we should decide to do. It will sound good," he said.

At the moment the whole record label question is up in the air. But there's always the option to return to their humble beginnings, when they started out as high school hoodlums in Cambridge. (Which they once described as "11,000 people, five rest homes and a lot of horse studs. So if you are in the business of rearing horses or dying, you are having a good time").

They released their first EP on their own label Hell Squad Records, named after a "shitty movie about bunch of women models from Vegas that were recruited by the army to fly to the Middle East to do rescue operations of downed pilots".

However everything turns out, the band that have played together - apart from new drummer - for 15 years are quite confident. "I have no idea what we'll do in 10 years but for now The Datsuns is still what everybody wants to do," Somervell says.

*Tour dates: Feb 18 - Gisborne - The Dome (Poverty Bay Club) Feb 19 - Napier - The Cabana Feb 20 - Wellington - Homegrown Festival Feb 24 - Christchurch - Lincoln University Feb 25 - Timaru - No 8 Wired Feb 26 - Dunedin - Otago University Feb 27 - Auckland - Music In The Parks.