known for their strong lyrics strong
riffs and strong opinions Danko Jones is
one band that will never back down from
a fight hi I’m Rebecca Braden and
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we
speak with lead singer Danko about his
opinions on sex and rock and roll
and I love it now deep down inside every
person who steps on stage in the public
forum or the public eye whether it’s in
front of 10 people or 100 people or a
thousand people want to be bigger want
more people to like them or else you
would just stay in your room the moment
you take it outside of your room you’re
looking for public adulation you know
however big or small and anyone who says
no are liars throughout the band’s
history you’ve been told to kind of
water down the sound a bit to become
more mainstream tell us a bit more about
that and why you refused to listen when
we started this band I mean we followed
in the likes of bands like the gories
and the Oblivion’s in the Blues
Explosion Pussy Galore all that kind of
stuff they were never mainstream so we
just wanted to go where they were going
once we did that we wanted to kind of
see how far we can go and if we can get
in front of bigger crowds that was
exciting to us come back down and once
we started to kind of flirt with bigger
possibilities there were people in the
industry that we’re telling us so all
you need is one song you guys are great
band you have a great show you got a
great image you got a great this great
that but you just need one song meaning
like you need one hit to become big and
then you know people will like you but
what they fail to tell you the other
half of that story is one song usually
just means one song and then you’re
finished you’re never going to be heard
from again
I couldn’t marry the fact that just one
song with my desire to make like 30
albums and at the time you know we’re
talking like late 90s that’s what
everybody was doing it was single
oriented radio single oriented record
labels and eventually you know with the
advent of downloading that way of
thinking bottom doubt the industry and
it’s their fault thankfully we didn’t
really fall for that and we just kind of
kept going and doing what we thought was
the right thing to do which was to play
live you guys are often asked why you
write about sex so much now why do you
think people focus on that people aren’t
used to a male aggressively and
assertively talking about sex without
even reading the lyrics well they find
that threatening and I find the people
who get threatened by that our people
were very uncomfortable with their own
sexuality there’s nothing threatening in
my lyrics there’s nothing degrading to
women there’s nothing vulgar about or
obscene that I I mentioned about women
people who want to focus on that and
don’t focus on it when they interview
people like Usher or you know whatever
R&B singer and they all sing about sex
too but that doesn’t become an issue it
only becomes an issue with us because we
play rock I find that really weird and
when you throw it back in their face
they don’t know what to say
you’ve also said that European audiences
tend to be more receptive to kind of
harder rock why do you think that’s the
case it’s just the way their culture the
whole European as a continent view rock
and roll differently than North America
in Canada rock and roll is viewed as
some sort of lowbrow knuckle-dragging
coffee time doughnuts type of rock over
there totally different it’s the way I
view rock and roll a very kind of
highbrow sophisticated it’s got the
history it’s not easy to play as opposed
to some indie rockers that for some
reason it’s very very simple to play I
don’t know what everybody’s gushing
about there’s so many layers about rock
and roll that you can go into and
dissect for hours and hours with someone
who knows that genre of music and I find
that I have these conversations with
people in Europe I don’t have them in
Canada very few and far between the
image that Canadians want to export to
the rest of the world is something that
you can find at a starbucks coffee store
I just am not in agreement with that I
find that music puts me to sleep
meanwhile there’s really really good
metal being made in this country and
really really good rock that is being
made in this country that that’s getting
ignored
riffs and strong opinions Danko Jones is
one band that will never back down from
a fight hi I’m Rebecca Braden and
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we
speak with lead singer Danko about his
opinions on sex and rock and roll
and I love it now deep down inside every
person who steps on stage in the public
forum or the public eye whether it’s in
front of 10 people or 100 people or a
thousand people want to be bigger want
more people to like them or else you
would just stay in your room the moment
you take it outside of your room you’re
looking for public adulation you know
however big or small and anyone who says
no are liars throughout the band’s
history you’ve been told to kind of
water down the sound a bit to become
more mainstream tell us a bit more about
that and why you refused to listen when
we started this band I mean we followed
in the likes of bands like the gories
and the Oblivion’s in the Blues
Explosion Pussy Galore all that kind of
stuff they were never mainstream so we
just wanted to go where they were going
once we did that we wanted to kind of
see how far we can go and if we can get
in front of bigger crowds that was
exciting to us come back down and once
we started to kind of flirt with bigger
possibilities there were people in the
industry that we’re telling us so all
you need is one song you guys are great
band you have a great show you got a
great image you got a great this great
that but you just need one song meaning
like you need one hit to become big and
then you know people will like you but
what they fail to tell you the other
half of that story is one song usually
just means one song and then you’re
finished you’re never going to be heard
from again
I couldn’t marry the fact that just one
song with my desire to make like 30
albums and at the time you know we’re
talking like late 90s that’s what
everybody was doing it was single
oriented radio single oriented record
labels and eventually you know with the
advent of downloading that way of
thinking bottom doubt the industry and
it’s their fault thankfully we didn’t
really fall for that and we just kind of
kept going and doing what we thought was
the right thing to do which was to play
live you guys are often asked why you
write about sex so much now why do you
think people focus on that people aren’t
used to a male aggressively and
assertively talking about sex without
even reading the lyrics well they find
that threatening and I find the people
who get threatened by that our people
were very uncomfortable with their own
sexuality there’s nothing threatening in
my lyrics there’s nothing degrading to
women there’s nothing vulgar about or
obscene that I I mentioned about women
people who want to focus on that and
don’t focus on it when they interview
people like Usher or you know whatever
R&B singer and they all sing about sex
too but that doesn’t become an issue it
only becomes an issue with us because we
play rock I find that really weird and
when you throw it back in their face
they don’t know what to say
you’ve also said that European audiences
tend to be more receptive to kind of
harder rock why do you think that’s the
case it’s just the way their culture the
whole European as a continent view rock
and roll differently than North America
in Canada rock and roll is viewed as
some sort of lowbrow knuckle-dragging
coffee time doughnuts type of rock over
there totally different it’s the way I
view rock and roll a very kind of
highbrow sophisticated it’s got the
history it’s not easy to play as opposed
to some indie rockers that for some
reason it’s very very simple to play I
don’t know what everybody’s gushing
about there’s so many layers about rock
and roll that you can go into and
dissect for hours and hours with someone
who knows that genre of music and I find
that I have these conversations with
people in Europe I don’t have them in
Canada very few and far between the
image that Canadians want to export to
the rest of the world is something that
you can find at a starbucks coffee store
I just am not in agreement with that I
find that music puts me to sleep
meanwhile there’s really really good
metal being made in this country and
really really good rock that is being
made in this country that that’s getting
ignored
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