Interview with Frontman Jake of DEAD CITY RUINS with Aine Brewer from The Metal Saloon can be seen below.
The band have carved their own path in the world of Hard rock. Started out in London, the band made their way home to Australia, playing as many down trodden, hole in the wall pubs and clubs as one band can fit into a seven day week. They are a working class hard rock band fuelled by what life throws at them from good times, bad times, disappointments, achievements and life in the cruel’ fuckn’ city’.
Members: Tommy - lead guitar, Blanchy - rhythm guitar, Jake - vocals, Drewsy - drums,
Mick - bass
Genre: Rock / Classic Rock / classic metal
Aine: 'Dead City Ruins first started off in London, how and when did you all come to meet?'
Jake: Dead City Ruins did originally start off in 2007 in London but that was a different line up, this line up began in 2010 in Melbourne Australia when I (Jake) met Tommy (lead guitar) whilst he was trying out singers for his band. I knew straight away that he was a great guitarist so we decided to start something together, I brought in Mick (bass) from the original D.C.R and Tommy brought in his mate Drewsy (drums). After playing around Melbourne and up the east coast we cut an album and booked a European tour. We decided we needed a rhythm guitarist so we got in Tommy and Drewsy's mate Blanchy. Everything really solidified from there.
Aine: What made you decide to move ‘home’ to Melbourne?
Jake: Well that’s something we can’t really talk about, basically Mick and I got kicked out of London.... or rather forced out, The other boys in the band didn’t want to move to Melbourne so we had to start something new when we got back here.
Aine: What is the rock/metal scene like in Melbourne?
Jake: The rock/metal scene in Australia is pretty grim, there are some amazing bands but no magazines or record labels to help any of them out, so all the bands end up fighting over crumbs, just trying to get the hell out of here. I figure if you have to live in Australia as a band then Melbourne is the place to be, there are a lot more live venues here.
Aine: You play a mixture of Hard Rock/ Classic Rock/Classic Metal, what are each of the band members influences?
Jake: Well it’s pretty mixed really... the band takes its influences from stuff like : Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Alice in Chains, Megadeth, Gunners, Thin Lizzy, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, but each member is different like: Mick - Motorhead & led zeppelin Tommy - Van Halen & Guns n Roses Blanchy - Nirvana & Metallica Drewsy - Alice in Chains & Nirvana Jake - Black Sabbath & The Ramones
Aine: 2011 saw the release of your debut album ‘Midnight Killer’, what can you tell us about this album and where can people buy it?
Jake: Midnight Killer has gotten a lot of great reviews and really shows our different influences, as far as a independent release we all fell it came up pretty damn well. If you listen to any of the bands listed above your gonna like this record. You can head to facebook.com/deadcityruins to have a listen, though the only way to buy it at the moment is off us at a live show. We had some troubles with our last distribution label so we had to pull it off iTunes, but it will be back up soon.
Aine: What was it like recording it?
Jake: Stressful!! We all work full time jobs so it was either, try to get a day off all together or come in after working all day and try to put our best work down. Scotch n' cokes helped a lot.
Aine: What message (if any) do you hope to get across in your music? If so, how do you feel you are achieving this?
Jake: We are just a rock n roll band, we don’t have any real answers to anything, I guess we just try to put forward how we see things and what’s goin' on in our lives. Like the song "my lai massacre". Both Mick and my Grandfathers fought in Vietnam, I remember my Grandad telling me stories about the Americans and how out of control they were. This song is about just one part of that war but all the lyrics are true representations of what went down. Come see us live you’ll get where we are coming from.
Aine: Your first UK & European tour was in 2011, August to November time, you played 50 dates across 11 different countries. How do you feel the band went down?
Jake: We all feel really good about that tour, before we left Australia we only had 15 shows confirmed, we though fuck this lets go anyway. We went door to door city to city asking for shows, handing out c.ds and once a few people saw us live things got out of control, we had venues calling us every day to book shows, we could have toured England for a year.
Aine: Where did you get the strongest crowd and response?
Jake: That’s a hard one, every time we went back to a town the crowd was bigger than the last show. In Switzerland we supported Vains of Jenna and when we left the stage the crowd were chanting for us well into Vains first song. In Belgium we had a lot of people asking where the hell we came from and in Sheffield we played a great little pub called the Dove and Rainbow, it became our second home and the crowds just kept getting bigger and better every time we went back.
Aine: What bands did you play with on those dates?
Jake: Faster pussy cat and Veins of Jenna were the only well known bands. We played in Bradford with a band called Red Dawn who seemed to be doing well, Metalworks in London and Wraith in Wales. Spike from the Quireboys saw us play in Hull and we ended up hanging out with him for a while.
Aine: What was the general experience like of being on tour?
Jake: This has been a hard thing to describe to anyone... we were living off one sandwich each a day, sleeping in tents in the forest or at rest stops on the motorway. Sometimes the venues would get us wasted and let us sleep on the bar floor. If we were not playing a show we were looking for one, we got robbed of our passports and all our cash in Italy, got in a massive punch on with a group of chavs in Leeds, our van broke down in Germany. At times we played 20 dates in a row with 2 nights off. we had no idea what the hell we were doing or where we were going but we got it done and came out alive in the end, and now were about to do it all over again.
Aine: What has been your favourite show and why?
Jake: Recently we did a show in Melbourne for the launch of HEAVY MAGAZINE Aussie's own metal mag, that was a huge crowd, we had a great time and we felt proud to be a part of it.
Aine: Tell us more about your upcoming tour?
Jake: Well the tour kicks off on the 31st of may in Sheffield at the Dove and Rainbow, we will be in England till the 17th, then we go to Italy to play some pub shows and support Mastodon and Gojira in Rome on the 27th of June, then we hit France and Belgium till the 8th of July, back to Italy to play more and support Wolfmother on the 12th of July in Rome, then we will be in Switzerland, Belgium and Germany till the 4th of August. We are ending the tour at the Roadkill Festival in Belgium on the 4th.
Aine: Is there anything you are working on at the moment? Or anymore news you would like to share?
Jake: We will have a new album out this year, check updates at facebook.com/deadcityruins and come to a bloody show and buy a CD, you never know it might just stop us from starving to death!! Cheers, see ya on the road.
Jake Dead City Ruins
Thank you to Jake and the rest of the band of DEAD CITY RUINS.
By Aine
The Metal Saloon
