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Written by Vince Pettit | Monday, June 12, 2006 |
Vince interviews Metro Riots frontman Damo.
For those who don’t know Who are the Metro Riots and how did you form?
We formed from a love of Vintage blues and post punk bands also had a great thirst for Nirvana and Sonic youth for the sheer noise. We all worked in a warehouse in South London stacking Lorries and rummaging through newspaper skips for usable paper?? [don’t ask] but in between that when the supervisors would be away me and Danny would drink vodka and neck pills and turn up this portable tape player we had with us in our little corner. It used to annoy the fuck out of the Organ grinders but Sammy and Ollie dug it and told us they are learning to play and me and the younger sibling where still in our infancy so it helped to create this huge vessel of sound we all had in our heads. Wanted to stand out a bit more from all the band by numbers and we all learnt together so we know each others playing styles too which makes it easier. So we like to bring out the dark side in music but not in a depressing way its more of a celebration that life can be a pain in the arse but you’re not going to sit there and take none of the guff
What are your main musical influences?
People like Leadbelly, Blind Willie Mctell, Lou Reed and many others always gave me inspiration from the lyrics and down to the delivery of it all. We just really love music and all kinds of it too so that has probably got to be the best inspiration
What are your other influences when writing songs? and do you write all the songs?
I believe it comes from the life were living and the shit we have all had to deal with growing up. It hasn’t been pretty and we aren’t angels but when bands start to moan about things like that people get a bit cautious and think it’s a gimmick but we are anything but a gimmick we are the product of a poverty stricken upbringing. So I think that can be an attribute to the angry clatter we like to make which is written by all of us but Danny comes up with a fair bulk of the lyrics he has a younger head on him and its full of a lot of venom and obviously most of the guitar but it would never work if we didn’t have our four heads combined as one and no one ever takes complete credit over what Metro Riots stand for we are all a gang of noisy brothers
What’s the best gig you’ve played? and why?
Its got to be recently because they just keep getting better, I think it was in Wolverhampton with DPT the place went fucking crazy and the sound was huge and then I spent the rest of the night hanging out in the car park with about a 100 or so screaming DPT fans giving them free beer and cigarettes and water because it was so fucking hot and some of them were passing out and then you just answer crazy questions like What colour is Carls duvet? I said its black with grey patches but they didn’t get it. Gigs with the Charlatans were a blast too I don’t think I saw so many people packed into a theatre that size with a laser show and screens bigger than your whole flat with my big head on. Strange but I could get used to it easily ha ha
What’s The worst gig you’ve played? and why?
I remember quite a while ago we had a show in Soho somewhere and we asked one of our Asian friends if he wanted to play guitar on a song we had because he was quite good but when we started playing the place was filling up with quite a few skinheads and they were moshing and punching people and generally being wankers and when our friend took to the stage they started shouting all kinds of racist abuse and throwing pint glasses as the song started up so I stuck my mic stand in the bloke at the fronts neck after warning him that was it we lost it and jumped at the crowd and had this big punch up with these skinheads the ladies at the gig were horrified and most of the blokes ran away too so we got arrested and managed to miss a gig we had planned the next day in Ireland. That was my worst because I don’t like cancelling shows and because of a bunch of arseholes like that I missed my gig.
What is the strangest thing that’s happened to you at a gig?
Ha oh man well there was this one show where this Tanned catalogue model looking fella approached me after a show we played with a blonde lady on his arm. He was really friendly and insisted on buying a bottle of champagne to drink with me so being from the Old Kent road and never having Champagne [Except when my mum gave me Babycham at Xmas which she told me was Champagne] I went with him to his table and as his Blonde girlfriend was dancing he said What do you think of my Bird? I said Yeh she’s very nice to which he replied Would you like to fuck her? I smiled thinking it was a joke and said No your alright mate so he shrugged his shoulders and said Alright then then got up and grabbed his girlfriend and walked off and left me sitting there like a confused dog holding an £80 bottle of champagne I felt like Demi Moore in Indecent Proposal weird
How was the Dirty Pretty Things Tour? Any backstage gossip or funny stories?
Oh that was a great experience and I really cant express in words on how grateful we are to those boys they took care of us so well and I have mountains of love and respect for them and there music is so fucking powerful and when I had read reviews saying it wasn’t much cop I just thought you were at a different gig mate because everyone in there had a great time. Getting on stage to play harmonica was a right treat apart from when Anthony pored beer over me thinking it was my birthday and Carl is very clever and witty so I never know what he is going to say on stage. I got Anthony back though I drew a chalk penis on his leather jacket.
How did you get involved with Love Music Hate Racism? and what’s it like to be performing in front of thousands of people united against the same thing in places Trafalgar Square?
I’ve been involved with them for years it all started when I started going to the shows I attended Most of those early big ones with Libertines and Buzzcocks and did one with Babyshambles and Cooper temple clause when we were first started out. Since then I have gone on marches done quite a few speeches at there conferences delivered leaflets around BNP hotspots and played more shows than any other band that has done gigging for them according to there records. I remember the Trafalgar square gig we had already done 2 shows before it and Trafalgar square was going to be our 3rd in 15 hours. We were stuck in traffic in a sweaty motor about a mile from the square and I could see loads of BNP supporters flying flags and causing trouble and Police were everywhere trying to stop these cavemen from reaching the square and it really made me angry so when we did reach the gig I was livid whereas a lot of people were enjoying the sun and peaceful protesting I wanted to start ranting and raving so when I did reach the stage I screamed Fuck the BNP and saw about 50 mothers put there hands over there kids ears and many could say that it was a bit immature for me to shout that to 45.000 people but I really wanted to get my anger across and express how I felt about what I just saw a mile up the road. When we started playing though everyone went crazy and every kind of human being were going for it and crowdsurfing so when we finished I felt a little satisfied and I even took the bus home with all the Cavemen giving me strange looks like Where have I seen that fella ha ha
What bands are doing it for you at the moment - Current and also upcoming
bands?
Oh good this is the kind of bit I like there are quite a few though and I hope I remember them all
Lupen crook [His new album is one of the best I ever heard]
Crash convention [Like a new age kinks]
The Taste [New band I heard from Germany]
Dirty pretty things [Last of the international playboys/Gentry cove/ Waiting/ are classic] White stripes/Raconteurs [Everything]
Queens of the Stone Age [Everything]
Pigeon detectives [Met them on tour great band]
The Charlatans [blackened blue eyes]
Special needs [There album is out next month I believe]
The Nudes [great band from south London]
There are more but I am so forgetful and to those who I forgot you know I love you and you will understand I have fried brain cells
What’s the plan for the rest of the year? Any major gigs/festivals/studio work planned?
We got quite a big tour coming up and we are going to be touring with some big bands I can’t quite name yet because I don’t want to curse anything. The festivals we had to give a miss but we are doing some smaller ones we were too busy recording so we didn’t put ourselves forward and we have started up our own record label which is run by Roger sergeant, David standen, Pedro Ferreira. And its called Eleven 78 records. We wanted to have control over our output and the major labels were too busy planning and having meetings that we just thought sod it lets do our own label and let them play catch up. Its going to get really busy though starting July
You recently had a song featured in a computer game, how did that come about?
Oh our songs are constantly getting dropped on peoples laps now that we are recording more and we are on quite a few games now there are different offers coming in every other day I would like to say I know loads about it and I am prone to indulging in a playstation session when I am round friends houses but I guess it is just a different kind of exposure and it means I can eat and have some money for roll ups
What are your opinions on todays Download culture? The music industry always seem to be on about it being a bad thing and that it’s damaging the industry.
I think its great and we have embraced it by recording sessions and sticking them up for free it might be that the companies are scared because they can see how powerful it is and they might have to downsize to a Skoda
I would like to believe that if you really like the band you will buy the single or album anyway that’s the special part of being a fan of a band you want to get your hands on the 7-inch because its something you can keep not like some mp3 file on your computer. Obviously if everyone ripped and spread all of our songs and no one bought the single because they have found it on the web somewhere then that will ultimately make the band go skint and they wont be able to record anymore but I don’t believe it will ever come to that it links so many people together on the internet and these kids are your bread and butter and you have to give them what they want or they will find a way to take it so it should be embraced. Screw the fat cats
Are you feeling the World Cup fever or had enough of it already?
I am a bit but its a pain in the arse because we cant get our tour dates sorted because everyone is in world cup mode and we had to put the single back i’m not competing against Embrace, Frank skinner, or that Amarillo fella. Plus Crouch has nicked my moves which is annoying
Random questions…
Favourite food?
Bean feast
Favourite tree?
Family tree
Favourite animal?
Dog
Any reason why?
I own 3 of them
Favourite T.V. Show?
The Simpsons
Favourite Cheese?
Cathedral city
And Finally, how do you make the perfect cup of tea?
With Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire teabags pour water straight on to bag let it brew for a minute then add semi skimmed milk and desired amount of Tate and Lyle
Also is there anything you want to plug? (Website, myspace, any upcoming releases/shows etc…)
Of course I would be a fool not too if you would like to download some free live demo songs you can go to www.myspace.com/riotdownloads we shall be adding a new one every week up until the single release date which should be the 24th July it shall be available from all record stores and there shall be limited edition signed 7-inches [1000 I think] and unlimited downloads from top 10 electronic providers and there is our myspace www.myspace.com/metroriots or www.metroriots.com and that has info of upcoming gigs I cant quite remember but I guarantee I shall be wide awake on the day. Cmon join our gang we shall greet you with a warm bosom
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