Rock ‘n Roll is alive and well

This week, we chat to Cape Town based rockers, Damn Right!

Streetlamp:  Tell us about your background? Where do you come from, how did you get into music?
Damn Right:  We're all small town boys who came to the big city and found musical interests in one another. Rowl and 6-sixty used to be in a couple of bands together in their hometown and were school friends with Nixxx. They all met Bruizer when they moved to the city (Nixxx only in 07 after 2 years in Scotland and UK) and finally Dagger came along to complete the 5-piece. We’ve all been playing our instruments for a long time and finally found a genre we all listen to and that's fun to play together.

SL:  To those who have yet to hear your music, how would you describe your sound?
DR:  It's a mixture of the different genres of music we all fell in love with, combined with the lifestyles they all encourage. It can be described as rock 'n roll, the likes of Thin Lizzy, mixed with 80’s glam rock, such as Motley Crue and Guns 'n Roses, with a twist of punk rock from influences such as Lars Frederikson and the bastards...even as far back as the Ramones.  All in all it's what you make of it, you can either love it or hate it...you decide...we love it

SL:  Who are your main musical influences?
DR:  main musical influences should be categorised from instrument to instrument, as they are all thrown in to make up our own individual style of what we think rock 'n roll is...remember these are influences, not attempts to be them. On guitar you can hear influences of Thin Lizzy, Led Zepplin and even some of The Darkness. The bass is influenced by these same guitar sounds, ‘cause Dagger is actually a guitarist, but strong influences from Matt Freeman from Rancid is coming through stronger day by day.  The vocals has strong influences from the Heart Attacks, Lars Frederikson, U.S Bombs and the Towers of London, while the drums takes on the more old school punk approach like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, combined with rock 'n roll such as AC/DC.

SL:  Do you write your own songs?
DR:  Yes, it's a combination of all the boys, but Rowl usually starts it off with a riff, then Nixxx kicks in with some lyrics and then the rest of us just feels the music as we go along. Dagger has recently impressed us all with some incredible song writing abilities and we're currently working hard at making the most out of his talent.

SL:  What is your music about? Is there an underlying message?
DR:  Some songs might have underlying messages, but you're just gonna have to work them out for yourself, others are just about what we do...mostly girls, parties, and how people perceive us...most of the time that’s inaccurately.

SL:  If you could collaborate with any musical artist, who would it be?
DR:  There can't just be one artist, but I think we'll all agree that we would've loved to play with the original Guns 'n Roses or Motley Crue.

SL:  If you could perform anywhere in the world, where would it be?
DR:  A packed Wembley.

SL:  Where is your favourite place to play music (venue)?
DR:  We haven’t yet found our favourite place to play in South Africa, but the assembly in Cape-Town is a really good venue.

SL:  Do you play any cover songs when you perform? If so, which ones?
DR:  Aha, yeah sometimes we play covers like "I love rock 'n roll" by Joan Jett, but we try stay away from them. Fans request them a lot so we kind of have to. We also play "Do you love me?" by Johnny Thunders...people seem to enjoy these a lot.  It lifts the party when everyone can comfortably sing along.

SL:  What do you do to pay the bills, or does your music earn you enough?
DR:  The music should earn us enough seeing as we spend all our time and effort on it, but we spend it on the band the second we get it, ‘cause we believe the band needs it more than our drinking habits.  The money we make, we use to try and get the band to bigger places. We all are pretty deep into studying and/or have day jobs, so we live off that for now.

SL:  What's your outlook on the record industry today?
DR:  People don't always realize how tough the industry actually is, especially in this country. Because the scene isn't that big, the competition is a lot stronger and stepping on each other’s toes is a challenging thing not to do! The record industry as a whole is faced with a problem as so many independents are finding alternative means to release their goods, some really great music has come from bands doing it themselves, only a while later do the labels actually pick up on it...

SL:  What are the biggest obstacles for upcoming bands or artists?
DR:  Making music that people in South Africa are not very familiar with, it's rather hard to open people's eyes to new kind of genre and to make them move a bit out of their comfort zone considering their music taste and give something new a chance. Promoters in this country are only starting to wake up now to the infinite possibilities live music provides. A big obstacle is getting through all the rubbish that gets thrown at you, and concentrating and pinpointing the right angles.

SL:  What inspires you?
DR:  From watching or listening to our favourite bands and rock gods, the smallest things such as walking into venue, guitar in the one hand and cigarette in the other knowing that the people there came for you. Bad press and comments also have a way of inspiring us as they give us even more drive to get to the top.

SL:  What music do you listen to?
DR:  Sleaze rock n roll, old 80's hair metal and old school punk. To name a few bands: Motley Crue, Johnny Thunders, Guns n Roses, The Heart Attacks, Kix, L.A Guns, Iron Maiden etc.

SL:  The best album you ever bought?
DR:  Guns n Roses: Appetite for destruction

SL:   "You’ll know you've made it when..."
DR:  You don't know which country you're flying to, what festival your playing there, and you’ve been on the road for so long you can't remember your home address.

SL:  "It'll be time to pack up the gear for good when..."
DR:  It becomes a 9 - 5 and we're not making music we enjoy listening to.

SL:  "I'll never forget the first time I..."
DR:  Played in front of crowd bigger than 10 people. Gotta start somewhere right?

SL:  What are your plans for the future?
DR:  We're gonna write some new material, and play some great shows - we're planning to hit Europe later this year which is gonna be good fun, and then release an album towards the end of the year.

SL:  Can you give us a good cocktail recipe?
DR:  Not exactly. Bottle of Jack and a bag of ice? Don't take it for granted, yes it's easy to make, but the hard part comes the next morning when it feels like you know what hell looks like and you've met satan himself.

SL:  Is there any other info you would like to share with Streetlamp fans?
DR:  Look out for our debut EP; Son of a Gun which was released in February. Go check out our myspace at or  find us on facebook.

View the full artist profile of Damn Right.

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