Richard Danielson – Vintage Trouble – Uber Rock Interview Exclusive
Written by Johnny H
Sunday, 02 August 2015 03:00
In just twelve days’ time Vintage Trouble will finally release their long awaited sophomore record ‘1 Hopeful Rd.’ I caught up with the band’s drummer Richard Danielson recently during some precious downtime during their ongoing trek across the globe with AC/DC. Here they talk new album, unrecorded songs, troublemaking and much much more……
This past weekend you’ve played with The Who and AC/DC as well as played a slot at Glastonbury for what I think is the third year, you must think you are living in a dream right now?
[Laughing] It’s funny, because I do, although to be honest with you we are now kind of used to it. We are a band that has done a lot of different tours and within those tours had a lot of different looks. Like when we were out with The Who for example we did our own headlining show in the midst of playing with The Who, on our days off. So we’re used to a lot of different looks, and going on what you said we went from Berlin to Hyde Park to Glastonbury and then to Glasgow and in-between that we did some TV and a radio show which was an acoustic set. So the dream is as a musician I think, to play those gigs, but really, the dream is to work you know. To be a working musician and to have all those different looks really does make a difference and above all it keeps it fresh.
Of course this recent stint of activity precedes the release of ‘1 Hopeful Rd.’ what can we expect from this sophomore release?
Um, kind of more of the same in the sense that usually on your sophomore records there’s this big pressure and people come in and want to change you, bring in a preferred producer and suddenly you’re a different band, like you’ve been playing stadiums and suddenly you’re playing stadium rock, because like you make your record accordingly. For us though, we just went in and did what we knew how to do, which is play live in the studio, which a lot of bands aren’t really doing right now. We all get in a circle where we can see the whites of each other’s eyes and we play the song from beginning to end together, and if we make a mistake we have to go back together, as a band! So you can expect Vintage Trouble to stick to doing what we do on ‘1 Hopeful Rd.’ because we are a live band, and we bring that attitude into the studio. So just in case you’re wondering we haven’t sold out. [Laughing] It’s exciting to be able to say that, and it’s exciting to say this Vintage Trouble record is something WE are excited about. WE stand by it because WE made it the way WE wanted to make it.
Does this one continue your association with Blue Note?
Well it actually begins it really. It’s our debut album for Blue Note, and we’re the first rock ‘n’ roll band to be on Blue Note, as they are a jazz label, but they’re a great great classic jazz label having signed and worked with some of the greatest musicians in the world with regards to jazz. It’s interesting for them too as they are trying to mix it up themselves and become “new” themselves, to stay current I guess. Don Was produced our record and he’s the president of Blue Note and he says his job is to not make shitty records. [Laughing] So Blue Note doesn’t just want to pump out records they want to make great records…and they always have. That’s their pedigree, that’s their calling they’ve always made these amazing records so our challenge was to put out a record on Blue Note that doesn’t suck, you know. [Laughing} They were looking for something a little “outside the box” and I suppose that is where we come in being the first rock ‘n’ roll band on Blue Note. It’s exciting!
When Uber Rock’s Ben Hughes caught up with you guys about 12 months ago you all joked that songs like ‘You Save Me’ and ’24/7 Satisfaction Man’ which have been live favourites for a while now might not be on the new record…and they are not!!!! Explain.
Yeah they’re not on the record [sighs], you know they just didn’t actually make the cut. We didn’t record them for the record, you know we probably had thirty or forty song ideas when we went into pre-production and from that list we started to cut them down in number, and those were on the list, but for whatever reason they just didn’t make the cut, and ultimately something else came through. I wouldn’t say something else came through which was better but we probably gravitated to something a little “newer” for us, something a little more current. The thing is though you can only put twelve songs on a record, but there’s only so much room for all these songs. Thinking about it a lot of it was a choice that Don Was had made, and it’s kind of nice having him as a fifth ear to have him as a producer say “this is speaking to me”, so from that original list that was kind of how we started to narrow it down. So unfortunately they just didn’t make the cut.
Four years is a long time between records, was the gap a deliberate one? If it was, what was the reason behind it?
Well it just kind of happened [Laughing} because as a touring band we were just so busy touring and what would happen was suddenly a new market would open up for us and we’d have to go play there and promote the first record because to them we were a new band. So for example Japan discovered ‘Bomb Shelter Sessions’ way after the UK, and even in America it was released after the UK. So there was America, and then a little bit of South America and then we got into Spain, so as these new markets opened up where the record was brand new we had to go and play to those people. Which meant it kept us on the road for four years, which is kind of cool off the back of an independent release that was made in like three days after being together for three months. And to tour off the back of something we originally recorded as a demo is kind of a cool thing you know. In truth we’ve already made a new record twice! But it just never got released because we were so busy touring, and what a lot of people don’t know is that we have already released more than an album’s worth of material besides the ‘Bomb Shelter Sessions’ if you go online you’ll find all kinds of songs that aren’t on that record. Plus we’ve done some commercials and recorded with Booker T Jones for example so we’ve been very prolific with regards to recording and releasing new music, we just haven’t released it on a record, until now that is….
When you look back at the ‘Bomb Shelter Sessions’ and what you have achieved off the back of that record – which cost $800 to make how does it make you feel?
Well it’s actually exciting to be on the other end of it four years later, it’s suddenly like “wow what happened?” It’s almost like you’ve woken up from a dream like you said, it’s like that little train that could that just keeps on chugging. It was just such a pure moment for us, because we weren’t trying to make that record we were just a band going in the studio and making some music, so there’s a really “organic2 thing that goes with that, a real purity as I’ve said already, a purity that you can’t really capture unless its real and in the moment and that’s what’s exciting about that record, that four guys went into a studio and had a great moment, and stayed true, and made something that when we look back at it we’re really proud of it. Because it also set in motion that band that we want to be for the future and we didn’t even know that we were doing that, because how we made that record, gave us our sound in a sense, recording it live, and now that is who we want to be,
Your fans The Troublemakers seem fiercely loyal to the VT cause, what do you think has been the catalyst behind you building up this legion of diehards?
Communication! You know early on we got The Troublemakers not to come see our band but to come see each other and that’s been the real key. I mean they’re gathered around the music that Vintage Trouble makes and they love the music but they also began to love each other, now I know that might sound a little sappy but, a lot of great friendships have been made and love affairs, bands have started and there’s been art projects and you know people want to come into this community because it enriches their lives, and I’m not exaggerating that. People have told us we have changed their lives and they’ve met new friends that have given them a new lease on life, maybe they were down in their life or something was going on and the Troublemaker community has reinvigorated them to live anew you know. Whether they met a new lover or found a new band or met some really great new friends this is what it is all about….lifelong friendships. So to answer your question the catalyst behind it is to get Troublemakers to engage with each other and that’s where the community really come alive…we’re just the soundtrack. [Laughing]
You still stay very much in touch with this gang through social media, how long do you think that can continue? Do you ever envisage it becoming too intrusive for example?
That’s a great question and perhaps I think that because I do all the Facebook activity [Laughing} from the point of answering questions….as far as I can remember we’ve answered every single question we’ve been asked via Facebook, even if it’s just with a “Yes”. And you are corre3ct it does get a little daunting sometimes especially on a tour like this with AC/DC because you’re making a lot of new fans very quickly, and they all want to talk to you, and of course we want to talk back…to all of them. So yeah, at some point me doing all of that is probably going to become too much, in fact it might actually be slipping away from me now. [Laughing] But I’ll still go and spend an hour on Facebook getting everyone talking. Then Rick for example does the Twitter stuff, and that too is becoming a much bigger task, Ty does a lot with Instagram and we all kind of help each other with different things. God this is a great question…like when will it become too big, where we have to have people come in and do that stuff for us? Umm, hopefully never, because we do want to keep in contact with our fan base and if that means playing small; shows like the one we played last night here in London essentially for the industry but invited some Troublemakers, and that is great too because we stay in touch that way too. I think we’ll always try to find creative ways to stay grounded with them maybe via before and after parties or meet and greets, but as of today we are still answering every single question on Facebook and Twitter, but we can’t spend all day talking to fans on these platforms that would just be too much., but it hasn’t happened yet.
Some of the reactions I’ve seen to you guys from European AC/DC crowds have been breathtaking. Now these crowds are renowned for being hard to please. Have the reactions surprised you too?
Yeah we are quite surprised and pleasantly so we were a little nervous coming out because like you said a lot of AC/DC’s support bands get booed and some great bands have gotten booed, but for some reason they seem to have taken to Vintage Trouble. I don’t want to say we work harder than some of those bands but we come out and really work it and I think that’s attractive to people, they don’t want to boo you when they see you really working, but what I really think it is is that AC/DC is a really stripped down rock ‘n’ roll band, bass, drums, guitar, and vocals and we are a stripped down rock ‘n’ roll band, bass, drums, guitar, and vocals too, and it’s as simple as that. AC/DC have the blues, they are an old rock ‘n’ roll band who plays loud, we are a rock ‘n’ roll band and there’s no fluff or frills with either of us, we basically have the same DNA. [Laughing] I think the fans whether consciously or not recognise something is us that they love about AC/DC and that is the musical roots we both share. That early early music that is stripped down and raw and bare.
Back to the album and ‘1 Hopeful Rd.’ gets released here in the UK on 14th August. At that point you will be on the North American leg of the Rock Or Bust tour. Do you think that is the right platform for the album launch or would you prefer to be playing your own club/theatre shows at that point?
Great question again. Well it’s obviously a fantastic platform because we can reach a lot of people with AC/DC. The question is, are they the right people to be reaching out to? Is that going to translate into record sales? So to answer those questions I’ll have to say “time will tell”. We’ll certainly be able to reach a lot of people. Actually the AC/DC tour of North America is not that long and right after it we will be doing our own headlining tour, so to answer your question, we’re really trying both things out here, so we have a chance with both of them.
I see from the VEVO trailer for the album that you appear to have filmed videos for the album already when are we likely to see some of these in their full format?
Well right now we’re working on a video for the first single from the record, ‘Doin’ What You Were Doin’, that’s in the process of being edited now. ‘Run Like the River’ we already had a video for the old version, and that’s still out there, we haven’t recut it. Videos are a tough thing though you know, you gotta find the time to make them, the money to make them, and the idea to make them, even though as you are intimating here, on the first record we had every single song out there as a video except for one, and as I’ve said already we have some videos of songs that aren’t even on that record. But with ‘1 Hopeful Rd.’ I imagine videos will come as the songs come.
And when can we expect you back in the UK? Will you be playing theatres this time around?
We will have played for 3 million plus people on this AC/DC tour by the time it is finished and most of that is in Europe, so we have a really strong thing going on right now. The UK is a place we are always going to return to because it’s our second home. We hope to get back before the winter and do our own headlining tour, and yes in theatres this time around and that will be a really exciting thing for us. Some of it does depend on how well the record does, but each time we’ve returned we’ve always played bigger places, we just need to continue that surge to get to play even bigger places. It’s funny we’ve played so many shows in the UK but we still come across people who have never heard us before. But the world is such a big place and there are people who have never heard of Vintage Trouble.
Just to finish off, and prove it’s actually a small world after all, Russell Prothero who writes for Uber Rock took a photograph of Ty that you featured on a tour shirt a few years back, he was once in a band with Bob Richards who filled in for Phil Rudd on the two Rock Or Bust promo videos, whilst Bob in turn leant you a bass drum when you headlined the Linton Festival a few years back…spooky coincidence or fate in motion?
How about spooky fate that has motion that becomes a coincidence? [Laughing} It’s kind of a law of attraction to use the cliché but it is a small world when you’re out there doing it, and it does get smaller and smaller. You know paths cross it’s no coincidence that a guy with a bass drum that speaks to my sensibilities wouldn’t then have the same appeal to those AC/DC guys, we all have the same sensibilities, and yeah Russ took that photo that ended up on one of our shirts that is the same sensibility thing. The world is indeed a big and small place, and smaller indeed as you get deeper into this industry so this is a coincidence, but certainly a justified one. [Laughing]
What a great place to end the interview Richard, we wish you all the best with ‘1 Hopeful Rd.’ and we hope to see you when you return to the UK, hopefully in the winter.
Thank you Johnny, best wishes to you and your readers too.
http://www.vintagetrouble.com/
https://www.facebook.com/vintagetrouble
Vintage Trouble live photography by Russell Prothero http://www.russellprothero.co.uk/
