The Datsuns

Frontman Dolf dishes the dirt on the New Zealand rockers’ third album

Photo by Dan Grunebaum

For a band that thought so little of themselves that they chose a cheap Japanese car for their name, The Datsuns have come pretty far. In four short years they’ve gone from the small town in rural New Zealand where they formed a decade ago to a well-earned spot in the pantheon of New Rock revolutionaries, relocating to London in the process.

Discovered by the White Stripes’ Jack White during a tour of New Zealand, and championed by the late, great DJ John Peel, The Datsuns emerged from Cambridge, NZ (population: 12,000), to support the White Stripes and then play venues like Japan’s marquee Summer Sonic festival.

What’s been the biggest surprise of their recent fame? “I didn’t think people would pay so much attention to your haircut or what shoes you’re wearing,” answers natty singer Dolf Datsun in a sit-down at his record company V2’s Akasaka offices. “I was naive enough to think that kind of thing doesn’t matter. I still don’t think it does. But if you look at how people frame a new band, they will be like, ‘This is what they wear, this is what kind of haircut they have.’ I thought I always dressed the part, but it seems weird to me. I’ve seen bands who sound amazing, but they don’t look a certain way, so it doesn’t work out for them.”

Moving to London two years ago put them right in the center of the media maelstrom, which took some getting used to. “Things come and go so fast. If you always try to be on top of it, you’re going to lose all the time. You’d have to change your haircut every three weeks. But not coming from there, you never fall for the bullshit that comes with it. You see English bands saying really over the top things, like ‘We’re the greatest band ever,’ or that some guy’s an asshole, just because they know it’s going to get them press.”

Being in London does have its good points, though. For their last album Outta Sight/Outta Mind, the follow-up to their 2002 self-titled debut, The Datsuns worked with producer John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin fame. Their new release, Smoke & Mirrors, should have also seen them working with a producer, but the process didn’t go as planned.

“The record company was saying you should work with this guy or this guy, and then our A&R guy got fired, and there was all this input coming from different directions, and no one really seemed to understand what we were trying to achieve. So we said, ‘Look, screw it, we’ll do it ourselves.’”

The result is 38 minutes of adrenaline-fueled rock that hews to The Datsuns’ trashy, garage-y template, but also for the first time takes some flights of fancy. The gospel-blues number “All Aboard” and two other songs feature members of the London Community Gospel Choir, who have worked with Spiritualized, among others.

“We’ve always had girls singing on records, but usually they’ve just been friends. This time, I thought about it because there is a gospel choir on quite a few records I like, including Spiritualized, and some of the things I’d written I thought sounded a bit thin with just me. The other guys aren’t keen on singing, so we thought let’s just go whole hog.”

Does the album have any specific themes? “A lot of the songs are about how people throw up things to prevent themselves from being honest. I don’t think it’s possible to be honest all the time, anyway, but with a lot of our friends, people around us, you notice a lot of game playing. So it seemed to be a good, catchy title that summed up a lot of those things.”

Do The Datsuns face accusations of abandoning the home country? “Yes, but I don’t mind,” he ripostes. “It’s not a country that I was ever made to feel musically welcome in. England and America were the first places that embraced us.”

At the same time, with a Scandinavian girlfriend, Dolf isn’t set on remaining in London. Nor does he necessarily see himself with The Datsuns in a decade’s time. “The first six years were a bit of a lark. We were writing songs and were serious about it, but didn’t have the aspirations to take it further. Yet it just kind of happened. In a decade, we’ll be 20 years old and I’ll be 37. I don’t know if I can see it lasting that long, to be honest. There’s a little too much push and pull going on.” Smoke & Mirrors is available on V2 Records.


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