Interview – OFF!
on November 25th, 2011In one weeks time OFF! will be kicking off their first Australian tour in Perth. They’re hear for a run of headline dates, as well as an appearance on the Meredith Music Festival in Victoria. With just days to go, tickets are also beginning to thin out, pick one up this weekend to avoid disappointment. Deboarah Konopnicki recently had a quick chat with Dimitri from the band about the tour and more. See below to check it out and re-cap all the tour details.
Hey Dimitri. How are you going?
Good thanks! How are you?
I’m very good thanks mate! What’s happening for you at the moment?
Well we recently toured the south of the US and now we’re just re-grouping, getting some writing done and we’ve started thinking about the next record that will come out in Spring next year. We’re very excited about being in Australia at the start of December!
You’re due to play at this year’s annual Meredith Music Festival, which always seems to sell out before you have a chance to bat an eyelid. How are you looking forward to the festival? It’s quite a unique line-up that you’re playing alongside of.
I hear that there’s going to be an eclipse of some sort…
An eclipse? I have no idea!
Like a lunar eclipse or something on the Saturday… anyway, it all seems kind of magical to me! The line-up looks good man! You’ve got Grinderman, Kurt Ville, Off! We’re just excited to come to Australia as well besides the festival! There’s a good chunk of headlining shows that we’re doing as well that are going to be crazy.
You’ve said many times before that if you could pick one place in the world to move to that it would Melbourne, so you are obviously very fond of the country in general.
Oh yeah! I could live in Australia, no problems. I love it there. The people really appreciate the kind of music that we all play, so it’s nice to go somewhere when you know it’s going to get a little rowdy! We don’t really know too much about the Meredith festival but to be honest we’ve played so many festivals all over the world that it’s just another festival to us. Really, it’s going to come down to how organized they are, are we going to feel comfortable backstage? Is the production going to be solid? Are people going to help us get our gear on and off the stage? Are people going to show up when we play? These are the things that we think about when going on tour. From what we’ve heard though this should be amazing. We’re stoked! Hopefully people know who the hell we are. That’s the only thing in my way. It’s our first time there and why should we expect a whole crowd of people to show up. We’ve been really fortunate so far. It always works out. People have been paying attention and the word of mouth is really strong because of the Internet.
As a relatively new band in the scene how have you found starting from scratch in a sense? It seems like it’s been going pretty well so far!
We have this ‘super group’ that people refer to us by right off the bat, so I guess we can skip a whole step. Definitely having Keith as our singer doesn’t hurt! I think that the fact that we actually deliver and are good and have flawless tunes and a pretty intense live show makes it that much more better and peaks everyone’s curiosity. The people that were there back in the day are saying that it’s the real thing and the kids are too young to have seen Black Flag or Bad Brains think that it’s good and are probably thinking that they’ve had a loss that is now going towards the light. They’re probably thinking that this is right to the source.
I know that you guys have been asked about the ‘super group’ tag in every single interview, so I won’t really delve into it but after all of the questions is it now something that at the back of your mind you accept and are happy to use to your advantage when you can? With that said, are you also finding that you’re getting new fans on your own merit?
Yeah… I think that it’s a sort of combination. There are people that are handing out the flag of punk rock and saying things like “You’re one of the only bands keeping this genre alive and relevant”. Then there are a whole flow of kids that just read Pitchfork that just think that we’re another good band! They don’t even really think about genres in that way!
The four of you have such diversely different musical backgrounds and so many different influences. What would you say were the key bands or influences that brought all of your together?
Keith and I have been friends for a long time and we wrote all of the songs together. We have very similar taste. We both like very classic rock. We’d probably both say that The Beatles are our favorite band, we both love Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, early Aerosmith, Credence Clearwater Revival. If you want to get into the specifics of the genre that we seem to exist in there’s The Ramones. For me, going into working with Keith and just focusing on my role as a producer with this living legend, we were able to get to the core of what he’s about. As a result, we had to be really influenced by the early Circle Jerks and early Black Flag stuff. The rest of it has nothing to do with music. It’s two best friends just hanging out and passing ideas back and forth. It’s like out fucked-up tree fort.
You’ll be playing your first record down here for the first time called “First Four EPs” that’s been out for about a year now. You mentioned earlier that you’re already working on some new material – demos that mean that you’re ready to put the first album behind you and start working on this new record?
Not at all! Those are really fun songs to play. For me, if I was driving in car all my life, this band is like getting on a motorcycle with no helmet and just gunning it. You have to fasten your seatbelt! It’s really intense. You constantly have to be on your fucking toes and pay attention. It comes from a physical place. You can’t phone in, you have to commit to it spiritually.
Your original demos were never really demos – they made their way onto the first record without and sort of middle stage. Was there any point when you were recording that you decided to ditch the early stages and move straight onto the album?
You know, we have some free studio time one day and we just decided to lay some stuff out. We had never really heard what Off! was recorded. We played it for a few people and the reaction was beyond our expectations. It was obvious from really early on that what we were doing was really special to a lot of people. I think it’s something that we were very smart about really early on. We were like “How were all of these great records made back in the day?”. You basically only have one day to do it, not very much money and you had to do it live. There was none of this whole “Oh, lets take four weeks to make a record” or “Today were going to work on the drum track. You lose the plot of what makes this style of music so intense. We wanted to kind of show all of our work. If the point is getting across then you don’t want to fuck with it. With this band, there are going to be mistakes and we’d rather derail then stay on the tracks and be something more unpolished. That’s just not something that we’re about.
Would you say that in the same respect that the fact that you produced the album was to keep on the same theme of not only keeping everything in-house but also keeping it as pure and un-tampered as possible?
Yeah. I mean, I think honestly a producer’s job is that a real bulk of the work is not done in the studio. It’s about the songs. You could have great songs and a shitty recording but if those songs are great and the performances are great then you’re going to a have a great record. So, what kind of equipment we did it on or what kind of microphones we used is really irrelevant. It’s about getting to keep the noises there are resurrecting all the passion and getting to the core of what makes Keith who he is. That was the real production.
Just touching on the new material before you go for a moment; Do you guys have a time coming up where you’re going to sit down and work on the new songs?
We sort of need to have a deadline otherwise we wouldn’t do anything! We’ve set a deadline for ourselves for the record to come out in April in the states. That means that we have to hand in everything at the end of February. That means that we have the rest of November to write – maybe a little bit of December and all of January. In February we kind of have to start pulling it together as a band. We’ll record the record in one day; two days tops.
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Destroy All Lines, Vice Music, Independent, Bombshellzine.com, [V] Loud, RVCA and Vans present….
OFF!
Tickets on sale now.
Friday 2nd December – Amplifier Bar, Perth [18+]
w/ Project Mayhem & Chainsaw Hookers.
Tickets available online [Here].
Also available from 1300 GET TIX, 1300 762 545 and 08 6210 7270
Saturday 3rd December – Enigma Bar, Adelaide [18+]
w/ Stolen Youth & Blood Sucking Freaks.
Tickets available online [Here].
Also available from 1300 GET TIX
Sunday 4th December – The Zoo, Brisbane [18+]
w/ Dick Nasty & Mouthguard.
Tickets available online [Here].
Also available from 1300 762 545 and thezoo.com.au
Tuesday 6th December – Sun Distortion Studios, Brisbane [AA]
w/ Shackles & Waiting Room.
Tickets available online [Here].
Also available from 1300 762 545
Wednesday 7th December – Annandale Hotel, Sydney [18+]
w/ Hard Ons & Epics.
Tickets available online [Here].
Also available from 1300 762 545
Friday 9th December – Corner Hotel, Melbourne [18+]
w/ Meanies & Marching Orders.
Tickets available online [Here].
Also available from Corner Hotel Box Office, 9427 9198
Saturday 10th December – Meredith Music Festval, Meredith
Tickets Sold Out
Sunday 11th December – Fitzroy Bowls Club, Melbourne [AA]
w/ Extortion & Bits Of Shit.
Tickets available online [Here].
Also available from 1300 762 545
For more information on OFF!, visit www.offofficial.com
For more tour information, visit www.destroyalllines.com
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OFF! – The First Four EP’s
Available now on CD and Vinyl
Buy online now from Poison City Records or Resist Records.
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