admin On ottobre - 25 - 2010

THE DONOTS
– interview –

Fifteen years career, congratulations! I would like ask you where do you find the desire to be still on the road, to play, to record again?

Ingo Donot: Thank you very much! It’s truly a gift that we get to be creative together for such a long time now and it’s most definetly something we don’t take for granted. I guess it all boils down to setting yourself new goals every day. We have been playing more than 1000 shows in the last 16 years yet it’s still the greatest feeling on earth to gear up for another tour, to play in front of big festival crowds and sweaty club audiences, to write new material, to simply hang out with our band and crew. We’re taking our music dead seriously but we’re joking a lot about ourselves. Irony and sweat are like rocket fuel to the band’s engine. We love to laugh, we like to travel and ever since we have started our own record label Solitary Man records in Europe and Japan things feel even better because we’re working DIY, we’re in complete control and are making a living of the thing we love to do best. As long as we get inspired by great artists, as long as we manage to surprise ourselves by developing and improving our sound trademarks and as long as we’re family, things could go on like this forever…

Do you still feel a punk rock band?

Ingo Donot: Musically speaking I’d say we have always been a rock band with a punkrock backgound. Nowadays there’s so many influences to our sound that punkrock wouldn’t quite suffice to describe our music. On the new album “The Long Way Home” we’re paying tribute to 80s new wave pop and to folk rock/singer songwriter stuff and mix all that with punkrock and a bunch of extra instruments which are rather foreign to the genre (such as a tuba on the fastest song of the album etc.)… Personally speaking I’d say I feel more punk than ever what with being in complete control of our music, our ideas, our marketing, everything. Our label is a crazily time consuming monster but it’s all worth it, knowing that we achieve something all by ourselves without having anybody tell us what to do. I mean, go figure: Our tiny indie label manages to get heavy radio and MTV airplay in Europe and Japan without strong arm tactics, without a lot of budget. Isn’t it great that we can compete although we’re just a tiny family business?

What do you think of the punk scene in general and in Germany?

 Ingo Donot: It’s a network of friends which I think is great! We have made so many good friends in the last couple of years. People we can really rely on. I dig the diversity of sub genres, all the great opportunities for shows and song trades, the brilliant alternative approaches and ideas, the unity. Germany is quite a good place when it comes to all the things I have just mentioned. On the other hand I’m pretty fed up with all those self-styled scene gods who think they get to decide on what’s punk and what’s not, who’s cool and who isn’t. Nobody has been born into the scene and I guess it’s really important to keep the positive spirit of things alive. I’d rather make friends than enemies.

Why an exclusive Italian edition for your last record?

Ingo Donot: Because we have pretty much been a letdown when it comes to releasing in Italy or say the UK in the last couple of years. We thought it’d be a great idea to offer all the Italian kids and fans something special by adding 6 bonus tracks to the regular tracklisting of “The Long Way Home”. It’s a big THANK YOU for all the support we got from our Italian Fans throughout the years. And together with Chorus Of One Records we have found ourselves a great partner to help us spread the word. Good folks!

Explain us the meaning of the name of your last record “The Long Way Home”? And what about the cover?

 Ingo Donot: The album title refers to a lot of connotations we thought would fit. We have recorded the album with producer Vincent Sorg who has been a friend of our band for ages. Actually he’s been producing our 2nd DIY record in the mid 90s so we always wanted to record another album with him. His studio is pretty close to our hometown so it kinda felt like coming home. Also we’re taking a trip down memory lane on this album when paying tribute to wave bands such as New Order or The Cure, to folk stuff and singer/songwriter elements. Those are oldest influences and faves of our band so it’s sort of coming home musically, too. We also recorded a song called “We took the long way home” which didn’t make it on the album although it’s sort of the title track.

And last but not least: Do you know the great feeling when you leave a party drunk and you have your favorite album on your Ipod, Walkman or whatever? I usually walk an extra long way home when listening to great albums by bands such as Jawbreaker, Descendents, Bad Religion, Arcade Fire, Johnny Cash or some great metal band in order to listen to the whole damn record…

I know that you used some unusual instruments for “The Long Way Home”. Has been the desire to change something from past or just to try something new?

 Ingo Donot: We always try and find some new twists to the Donots Sound so experimenting with new instruments is always great fun and pretty challenging, too. It wouldn’t feel right to record the same album over and over again. And this time around we took a lot of time to record the album. We kept asking ourselves: Which elements does every single song on the album need to be as unique and perfect as possible? Hence we found ourselves the instruments that would fit and take the songs to the next level. Rest assured we are very very proud of all the tiny details in the songs. Please check out “The Long Way Home”, folks, and I hope you will agree! Thank you very much for all your support! Thanks for reading and thanks for the interview!

by Marco Mantovani

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2 Responses so far.

  1. […] King's Road » Blog Archive » THE DONOTS – interview […]

  2. Very interesting article! For more such and certainly do succeed on the Web!

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