Interview: Jacky Danny

Music doesn’t have to be overtly complex or decorated with all the bells and whistles that a lot of music comes with nowadays. There was a time when rock and roll was pure, unadulterated, and chock full of charisma. This is where Jacky Danny comes in. Clearly influenced by many of the bands of the late 70s and 80s, the band wears their influences on their sleeves as closely as their hearts. With any other band, this might result in a band’s sound coming off as gimmickry – but with these boys, the enthusiasm and sincerity in their execution will have you bobbing your head and pumping your fist. I was shocked at how much fun I had with them a few weeks back, so I decided to seek them out and see what makes them tick, and get into those sweaty, tight jeans wearing mentality these boys reside in before their show for Temple’s Anniversary Party this Friday. They come off just as charismatic as their stage performance – here’s what they had to say.

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1) You guys have been making quite the name for yourselves this past year? How does it feel to getting more and more recognized on the scene here?
Of course it’s always good to be recognized by more people. But more than ourselves being famous, we would like to see what we’ve been trying to bring gets better known.

2) Who were your musical idols growing up?
Too many. No surprise that we first met rock n’ roll with those well-known names like AC/DCGuns n’ Roses, which was more than 12 years ago. But later as we traced the river of Rock N Roll back to when and where it started, we then felt in love with some older and heavier names like Chuck Berry, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Motorhead, and some less-known ones such as The Allman Brothers Band, Hanoi Rocks, Cinderella, etc. Some early blues masters and early punk bands are also included. It’s quite a long list.

3) You guys have great chemistry up on stage…how are you all offstage? Does the charisma immediately turn off? Or are you guys’ rock gods all day long?
We’re joined by the music. It’s all like making love to the music when you’re on the stage. It might be the most exciting part, but it doesn’t mean that we are not able to make love to the music whenever or wherever we want, in the rehearsal room, in the bedroom, even in the bathroom, only if we’re pleased to.

4) You guys’ have a deep respect of rock and roll of yesteryear – what is it about old school rock that you find some appealing?
We tend to not to emphasize the word “old-school”, because we were realizing that it’s what “rock n’ roll” really was, and should be. We all know things changed a lot since Nirvana was born. Love it or not, more and more so-called nu-school things came into this world, which we think are too different from what rock n’ roll was, at least, in a narrow sense. Well you can say RNR should have more meanings, and now you can almost title everything with the name of RNR, but we have a different dictionary.

Another thing, we’re not trying to make something that particularly belongs to a certain time. Some of our old songs might bring the memories of the “old time RNR”, but it doesn’t mean that we’re seeking no innovations. However, we’re making no root-cut innovations and won’t call any of those “nu school” or “post-anything”. It’s always just “rock n’ roll”. We just want to make sure it’s known where our music comes from and try to keep the blood and gene.

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Why we show a deep respect? Look, they’re legends, they’re pioneers, they’re godfathers, and they’re the inspiration and influence of too many things you could enjoy today. Or it would be like you tell me that you play classic music and you know nothing about Bach. Come on!

5) What themes do you find your music exploring? It can’t all just be girls, drugs, and rock n roll, can it?
A lot of rock music talks about girls, drugs, and the music, because those were their lives. And we try to talk about our lives, and everything we have to face. It also could be girls, drugs, music, but it could be more, like the difficulty of what we’re doing, and toughness you need to survive it. Just listen to the music, and read the lyrics.

6) Do you find that it’s hard for many bands in Beijing to hold onto that true, pure spirit of rock n roll?
Because it’ not a right culture for the real Rock n Roll. When you try to adapt, to compromise, you lose that kind of things. And many don’t care about what rock and roll truly is. All they want is to be famous, adored by girls and boys, while most just struggle to make a living. Whatever they do, “rock n’ roll” is just an advertisement word in so many cases.

7) When’s the last time you guys drank some Jack Daniels’? Be honest, is it your liquor of choice?
Come on! It was the origin of the band’s name, we were drinking that whiskey when we were trying to find a name for the band.
Why not? Otherwise we could have named ourselves 五粮液.

8) What’s next for you guys? Where does Jacky Danny go from here?
Write more songs, launch the first EP, and get on the road.

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Thanks guys!! Be sure to check out Jacky Danny this week at Temple, Friday the 20th and next week as well at Temple on Thursday, the 26th. Here’s a link to their douban page as well.

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