Photo by Ryan Russell
ROLL THE TANKS
Law And Order
Interview With Danny Carney
By Bryan Spearry
Today I learned that Dick Wolf and Roll The Tanks have something in common. That immediately gave me the indication that not only is this band building an immense amount of anticipation for their upcoming full length, Broke Til Midnight, but they also have a refined sense of humor.
Flula Borg, a video found by typing your band name into youtube, is one of the funniest I have seen in some time. Law and Order? Really? How did that video come into existence?
Oh man, that was quite the experience. Just to clarify, that video is almost four years old now. He had been contacting us for a while via Myspace wanting to collaborate together and we were kind of confused by his whole vibe. He rolled up on us out of nowhere and it’s all on tape, thank god. After his bizarre visit to the house we all lived in at the time, which is all featured in the clip you’re talking about, we ended up becoming good friends with him. We even did some shows together in LA. You either get him or you don’t. He’s very complex and extremely special, and I would jump in front a train for him. That video has twice as many views as any of our other youtube clips, go figure.
How much of an impact does on demand media (Spotify, Itunes, etc) have on a band like yours? Do you see much of the royalties from digital downloads and streaming?
It’s tough to say at this point. I use MOG personally, which I think is similar to Spotify. I just started using twitter a few months ago, reluctantly. We spent SO much time managing our Myspace account back in the day, and then all of a sudden it was 100% obsolete! It’s the social media equivalent of a fanny pack now. All that stuff is important, necessary, and annoying at the same time. We’re all lucky to have it available to us, and yet I really miss record stores and boomboxes. When I hold a guitar I feel 13, when I sit in front of a computer I feel like an old man. Time will tell I suppose. And as far as royalties go, I’m really looking forward to receiving them ten years after we break up.
What was the connection that incited you to work with sabot on your latest 7 inch Goodnight Jimmy Lee?
Well “Goodnight Jimmy Lee” is a song from our upcoming LP, Broke Til Midnight. We had sent the record to our friends in Against Me! and they passed it along to Jordan at Sabot. He loved the song and asked to put out a 7 inch for it. It’s funny because we definitely hadn’t thought of that song as a single, in fact it almost didn’t make the record! Thanks to our pal Chris Butler, who fought for it hard, we recorded it for the record. And thanks to Jordan it became a single, or a quasi-single at least. It’s no secret at this point that the song is a tribute to the late great Jay Reatard. I wrote the song the day he died, as soon as I found out. I posted the original version of it on my blog, “Keeping Warm In the Nighttime,” at 7:46pm that same day. Flash forward almost two years and it’s featured on Rollingstone.com, pretty amazing.
What are some of your favorite underground labels besides the ones you work with?
I’m definitely out of touch with labels these days, and I don’t know what’s considered underground anymore to be honest. I must say I still celebrate the entire Lookout Records catalog that Mikey and I grew up on, and Hellcat as well. Labels that come to mind that I either follow, admire, or support are Sabot, Asian Man, Side One Dummy, Matador, Goner, Fenway, Third Man, Fat Wreck, Gatehouse Anchor, Intelligent Noise, Touch and Go, Merge, Adeline, Anti, etc.
Who are some of the current touring acts you would most like to share a stage with?
Being realistic, and in no particular order: Prince, Stiff Little Fingers, Cheap Trick, Arcade Fire, The Buzzcocks, Against Me!, The Alarm, Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, Gaslight Anthem, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Green Day, DEVO, Alkaline Trio, The Pretenders, The Futureheads, Fake Problems, U2, Weezer, Sahara Hotnights, The Strokes, New York Dolls, Foo Fighters, The Killers, Lawrence Arms, The Pixies, Rancid, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, QOTSA, Tears For Fears, Big Audio Dynamite. That list should cover our 2012 touring plans.
Was there a re-sync of the band after your initial full length? Explain the changes in lineup and recording together for the first time on this 7 inch. It sounds way different.
Yeah we’ve gone through some big time changes in recent years. We lost our guitar player Scott in early ’09 and decided to become a trio. Just as we settled into that setup, we lost our drummer Phill that summer. Mikey and I were back to square one, like when we were 12 years old playing with no drummer in my garage back in Lowell. It was a serious bummer and we almost called it quits. I think we got through this time by kind of romanticizing the fact that we were still playing together after 15 years. That kind of thing is rare, and we both chose to value it and keep moving forward. We played one show as a 2-piece and it was pretty sad, but it was already booked and we didn’t want to lose any steam. It also served as a harsh dose of reality for us, which we needed. We stomped the floor in place of drums and even performed the first song we ever wrote together. We sounded like shit but it kept us alive at least. We had drummer auditions on Craiglist and it was a giant nightmare. Then out of nowhere I ran into Joe Sirois and he joined up with us. We got blessings from our former members to continue, and both of their styles were very unique, so it’s definitely a new band with a new sound. Recording the 7 inch and LP was such a blast. We worked with an amazing Producer named Fred Archambault and recorded everything up in his garage in Valencia, CA. We didn’t intend to make it sound so huge, it just happened naturally. We worked on songs for so long and went in with a serious batch of bruisers. I think what really added to the equation was the fact that Fred works extremely fast, we work extremely fast, and we took our time anyways because none of us wanted it to end. There was no rules, no deadline, and no drama. To be in the studio laughing and rocking out with your friends will get you where you’re trying to go. Instead of throwing my headphones at the wall like James Hetfield after bad take, I would gently remove them, thank them for being awesome headphones, and hop in Fred’s pool with his two hound dogs Fletch and Taz. They were so encouraging to us, great friggin dogs.
Were you secretly hoping that Matt Pinfield or Kennedy was awaiting you at NBC studios instead of the Carson Daly? What that experience like off camera?
(Laughter) Well I figured Pinfield was probably down in Texas making sure Baby Jessica got out of that well. I can’t wait to buy that dude 50 beers someday. Then I knew Kennedy was probably off campaigning for Mitt Romney or some other dickhole. I was really looking forward to meeting Carson. He goes out on a limb and gives unknown bands like us a chance, and he was the last good MTV VJ in my opinion. People forget TRL was the beginning of the end of an amazing era for my generation. The last cool thing I can recall about MTV was Carson talking about Operation Ivy on TRL when the rest of the world was trying to shove Korn and N’Sync down our throats. I took it as a subliminal warning, and I heard it loud and clear. He works his ass off and he gives a shit. The world needs more cats like that. He wasn’t there when we filmed our piece for the show, he was at Butch Vig’s house interviewing him for another episode. Case and point. The whole experience was awesome and we’re really grateful to him and his crew.
Is it worth it for a band to make music videos any longer? Is there an outlet for rock vids on the internet that you prefer?
To be honest I love the idea of making music videos just as much as making records and playing shows. I grew up on MTV, which unfortunately now stands for Muscles-Tits-Venereal or something. But before all the Creatine and date rape contests and stuff they used to play amazing music videos. I was 10 in 1992, what a fucking jackpot for a kid who felt like shit!! I didn’t have cable so I’d go to my grandparents and watch MTV for hours, drinking juice boxes and eating fruit rollups. THAT was school to me. For our new record we’re striving to match the caliber of videos we grew up on. I started playing guitar literally 30 minutes after witnessing Green Day’s “Longview” video. I remember being like “this guy has more acne than me, he’s got a pet monkey and it’s not weird! And now he’s destroying his couch!!! Yes!!!” I then ran home to find the random guitar that was in my attic. So yeah, a song/video about being lazy on the couch actually got me off the couch. You can’t fuck with that, and we can’t let those kinds of things go. Nothing against the modern wave of “youtube/anything goes/hey my cousin Darryl has a camera” era of music videos, we certainly have our own stack of those, but did anyone start playing guitar after seeing some dudes dancing on a treadmill? Who cares how many views it got, did it change anyone’s life forever? We’re trying to ignore budgets and outlets and just make shit awesome again.
What can we look forward to on the horizon for Roll The Tanks?
Glory, great songs, a new record in spring 2012, touring, music videos, and awkward marketing strategies.
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