Donots Interviewed By New Noise Magazine

April 8, 2013

Donots Interviewed By New Noise Magazine

Donots took some time out during their recent US tour to sit down with New Noise Magazine, and answer some questions in this really great interview. Ingo Donot did the talking, and answered some questions like: touring with Flogging Molly and Anti-Flag, touring with Green Day, European to US tours, record labels, and a lot more. Read the full interview below, and check out the original article here.

First US tour – how has it been so far?

It’s been amazing. Actually, we’re having the time of our lives! This Flogging Molly tour so far has been amazing. San Diego was just unreal. The crowd went absolutely crazy, and last night in Pomona was amazing as well. We did two warm up shows at the Whiskey A Go-Go in Hollywood and the Slide Bar in Fullerton, which was nice too.

Have you ever been out here before?

We did the East Coast once. We did CMG, New York, that music fair kind of thing. But that was probably like ten years ago. We’ve been biding our time. I mean seriously, we’ve been a let down when it comes to touring the States. I figure that if you’re not Rammstein and you’re from Germany, then nobody will give a flying F [laughs], and that’s basically why we’re so stoked that our friends in Flogging Molly are taking us out. We’ve known them from a couple of festivals that we did together in Europe and Japan. It was basically me hitting Nathan (FM bassist) up last summer and said, “Hey Nathan, if you guys ever hear of a band that’s touring the States and is willing to take us out, please let me know, please give me a head’s up.” And he was like, “Yeah, I’ll keep an eye out.” Then I get an email from him the week after, asking if we wanted to do the Green 17 Tour/West Coast with them and we were like, “Are you fucking kidding me?! Hell yeah!” So yeah, here we are.

I noticed that you guys are going to be touring a lot this year – not just for the 23-ish days in the States, but also around Europe. What’s it’s like to play those big summer festivals?

We’re sorta used to it, but then again, it never gets old. We’ve been in the band for 18-19 years now, so we’ve come a long way and took it step by step. It was not like, zero to one hundred overnight. We’re stoked we get to see great bands. We get to hang out with good people and play to big audiences. But in the same way that I feel about festivals, I feel the same way about clubs, because it doesn’t matter if it’s two people, two hundred, or twenty thousand.

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What was the difference between your first show in your hometown of Ibbenbüren in 1994 verses in 1998 when you played in front of 30,000 people? I mean, that’s a pretty big difference.

Yeah, it is. But it doesn’t really make a difference that much when it comes to playing. For us, when it comes to playing, once the lights are out and the stage lights go on, it’s a different world. You just go out there and do your thing. I’m actually a lot more nervous when it’s smaller audiences than playing to bigger audiences because you’re so much closer to the people and if they don’t like you, they can spit at you [laughs]. With those big festivals and shows, you barely even get hit by anything. I always take it as a challenge like, “Hey, you guys aren’t dancing yet?! Well, I’ll getcha, I’ll getcha for sure.” And that’s still what keeps us going – the energy between the audience and us. We communicate a lot with the audience and do our thing… sweat blood, pretty much [laughs].

How, in your opinion, does the scene in Europe vary from the scene out here; what have you noticed?

We’ve been brought up on all that California stuff. I’m pretty much into that whole Bay Area scene, Berkeley scene – freakin’ Rancid, freakin’ Samiam, all those bands that influenced us in our early years. Especially European bands, they sort of tend to copy that California feeling. Right here, right now, it just feels like we are in the very middle of it. Europe is basically imitating what’s going on over here. I mean, we’ve got some original bands over there, of course, but most German bands try to sound American… but they don’t. And in my mind, that’s the biggest mistake a band can make – wanting to be something you’re not. You’ve got to be authentic. Nowadays, I guess we sound a little more British – that’s what people have been telling us. The last record sounded a little like The Clash and I’m just humbled to hear that. I guess [Americans] are a bit more into that whole vibe and pretty much like two years ahead of us. German imitation is always two years behind [laughs]. We’re just trying to be ourselves. Nowadays, we’ve got Donots trademarks that distinguish our band and make us, in a way, unique.

What was the process of releasing your first album DIY, to getting signed to Sony/SuperSonic in 1999, and then creating your current label Solitary Man Records? I noticed that you are also currently on OK! Good Records, and Universal – how does that all work?

In a nutshell, the first five years of the band we did everything by ourselves – booking, releasing records (we didn’t even have internet back in those days). I would write letters to promoters saying, “Hey, listen to our record and can we play and shit?” Basically, it was me on the phone for the better part of the day, trying to get us some shows. We were signed to Sony, but it didn’t really click. We’d been there for like seven years and it really helped us get off the ground; you gotta start somewhere. But in the end, around 2004, it was like, “You know, this is the end of the line. We don’t want to be with you guys anymore,” and we had to get lawyers involved to get us out of that deal. And I hate that, the business bullshit. You gotta have it, but that’s not what I’m interested in. [The lawyers] got us out of the deal in the end, and that’s when we decided, “We did the first five years all by ourselves, we know how’s it’s done. Let’s do this again, but with our own record label.” So we founded Solitary Man in Japan at first and licensed bands to Japan that hadn’t been available over there before. We did the last Placebo record, The Dropkick Murphy’s, the Beatsteaks, Boysetsfire, the Toy Dolls from the UK, and all those bands, which is crazy – it’s great. In 2008, that’s when we started doing our stuff all by ourselves; we did two records all by ourselves. Nowadays, we’re signed to Universal, but that’s a joint venture thing – Solitary Man still exists. In Europe, Universal is just helping us with all the financing shit and over here in the States, we’re signed to OK! Good, which is a tiny record label that’s ran by a German guy out of New York.

I saw that you guys toured with Green Day in 2010. How did that come to be?

It was so weird. We’ve been huge Green Day fans, like the early stuff – completely dig it – Kerplunk and all that. They invited us to support their whole German tour, which was amazing. 35,000 capacity every night with Rise Against, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts on there. Some dates were just crazy. The good thing is everything happens on personal invitation and everything happens because you’re friends – within a network of friends and family all around the world, and I like to keep it that way. Our tour manager, Brett, is the bassist for Nations of Fire and Ignite, so we’ve known those guys for a long time. It’s just so nice to know that you’ve got friends everywhere.

What’s it like when you have more than 3,000 people singing along to your songs? That must feel amazing.

Oh yeah, it does. We did a festival in Japan, 20,000 capacity, sold out with Rancid, the Buzzcocks, and Flogging Molly, and if you have 20,000 people, thousands of miles away from home, singing along to your songs, knowing every single word, that’s just… I don’t know, you just can’t fathom it. Back at home, we’re in this tiny rehearsal space, writing songs that make us happy, and go figure, there’s people out there in Japan that dig our songs. There’s people out here that have been waiting in the states to see us, that’s probably the best thing that can happen to you. That’s the biggest compliment in the world. I don’t take it for granted. Even still, I don’t.

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Tell me about your newest album, Wake the Dogs.

Wake the Dogs is the most diverse record we’ve done so far. Every band says that their newest or latest record is the best, so I like to keep it that way – it’s the best record! [laughs] We didn’t have this concept going into the studio and we weren’t like, “We need this one to sound aesthetic and that’s it.” We were like, “What does every single song need to be perfect to our ears,” and that’s how we took it. We went into the studio with only demos and bits and pieces, got inspired by those and wrote all the stuff anew in the studio and recorded. In the morning, we didn’t know what the end of the day was like – what we had recorded and whatnot. It was recording the moment, so that’s Wake the Dogs. Plus, it sounds a bit more stripped down than our earlier stuff, and people say it’s a lot more British, which I think is a good thing because I dig a lot of that British stuff – I dig The Clash, I dig the Streets, stuff like that.

In your opinion, how does it vary from your first album, which came out in 1995?

Well, I hope that we’ve gotten a lot better, that’s one thing. [laughs] We’re a lot more confident about what we’re doing and know what we want to do. Plus, we know what we don’t want to sound like, which I think is pretty important. You get influenced by everything, even a bad radio song. I hate Nickelback; I don’t like them. They’re out there, doing their thing, but I just don’t like it. And if I listen to a Nickelback song I think, “Geez, this is how it can be done, but I don’t want to go down that road.” I guess everything just influences you.

You guys are in the process of writing new music for a new album that should be released next year. How is that going so far?

Yeah, we’re having a 20th anniversary next year, so we have to have an album out by then. To be very honest with you, and a secret, we didn’t even start. [laughs] Touring has been keeping us so busy. Flogging Molly are taking us out, and when we get back home it’s only like three more weeks and then our friends in Billy Talent are going to take us out over there in Europe, and then it’s festivals all the way through with bands like NOFX and Madness – it should be fun. After summer, we have to sit down and write some new shit.

Yeah, you guys are pretty much touring for the rest of the year, with only a handful of days off here and there. Does that get exhausting after awhile?

Well, at least it’s not getting old, that’s good. It does get exhausting at times, but you just gotta know your places and your moments as to when to get down time. I like to go jogging with a dog or something and put my music on, listen to my favorite bands, and that’s when I’m fine. Seriously, I am not in a position to complain. I’m in freaking Oakland tonight, playing to a sold out 2,800 capacity venue, I get to have this interview with you – such a sweet lady. (aww!) You know, it could be worse. My life is not that bad.

How does touring so frequently affect you guys as a band?

It does sound like I am a hippie, but we have been a family forever and we have always been more of a family, rather than a band. I like to keep it that way, where, if we can’t back up our business decisions personally, then we always choose family over band and business. Those guys are my best friends. Guido, he’s my brother – my real brother – but those other guys, they’re my brothers, too. It’s no difference to me. I just hope that we get to be creative for a long time… like, twenty more years. Probably in wheelchairs and all that [laughs]. You just gotta do what you’re doing. We don’t really fight – we’re respectful people and I like to keep it that way.