The Joy Of Six

Cover Story: Dananananaykroyd
Words: Johnny K

THE JOY OF SIX

The sun is beating down and thousands of visitors to Austin, Texas are drowning in an endless flow of margaritas. Sixth Street is awash with the noise of bands playing in every nook and cranny. Proper, tooled-up, American policemen perch on the bonnets of their cars at every turning off the main thoroughfare. On one side of the road, Glasvegas are having their photo taken. Pasty-faced and kitted out in big, black clobber, they stand out a mile. The group are just one of a million things to stare at or listen to on the first afternoon out at South By South West Festival. Local boy Kevin Costner could come dancing down the street, dressed up as Robin Hood, and half the people here still wouldn’t notice because they’re too caught up looking at the horse-drawn carriages or stuffing their faces with something drenched in cheese or chili. Still, there is one band that everyone notices. They’re called Dananananaykroyd. There’s six of them. And they’re everywhere.

It’s early evening and the Glasgow outfit are sound-checking for a show at Latitude 30 – just one of the uncountable venues in the immediate vicinity. They’ve forgotten their cymbals but are managing regardless, despite the fact that they haven’t only got one drummer, they’ve got two. The regime has been allowed to slacken a bit since this time last month when the group were out touring Europe with the Kaiser Chiefs: “Those shows were brilliant,” says Duncan Robertson gleefully. “I don’t think we expected to have such a good time, but the whole experience was top class.” The guitarist just grins when asked why he hadn’t predicted such a ball. But Bassist Laura Hyde cuts in: “’Cause,” she says with a roguish smile, “it’s the Kaiser Chiefs!”

Sound-check over, Dananananaykroyd are back on the street and carrying guitars down to the Dirty Dog. Here, they set up and race through another sound-check. Laura looks angrily at the microphone which keeps giving her electric shocks and singer Calum Gunn greets the drinkers around the bar. “Hey y’all,” he teases from the stage. The band aren’t even performing yet but they’re already inciting the audience. The super-friendliest group in the world they may be, but their habit for putting people on the spot has casual onlookers stepping nervously out of their eye line. There was a review of us in Amsterdam,” says bassist and main songwriter David Roy. “It said, ‘if you see Dananananaykroyd in the street, run away from them’. It’s funny ’cause you couldn’t meet more ordinary people. We’re not scary! Just because our band’s shit doesn’t mean we’re going to attack people.” Second sound-check over, Danana crack up and pile outside in search of food before the next appointment.

Eating is something the six of them do a lot. Or maybe it just appears that way because there are so many band members. Just as one of their number is always talking, and another is always running or jumping, one of them always seems to be hungry. Whatever the case, Calum has the hardest time filling up. “Damn my moralism,” he curses. The band are feeding at a fajita stall, but it offers no vegetarian options. He runs off to find something he can stomach and meets everyone else back at Latitude 30. The place has filled up and Danana watch Slow Club finish their set. The acoustic duo hold the audience in captive silence. Danana’s music is approximately six thunderstorms, twenty wars, and seventeen Fugazi gigs louder than this. “Are we on after these guys?” asks David in a disbelieving whisper.

The uninitiated in the crowd respond to the Glaswegian six-piece with an equal amount of shock. There has never been a band like this. It’s almost like they’re a hardcore act dressed up as skinny indie kids on a daytrip to the South of France. But the whippets have got proper tunes too. And they’re a lot friendlier than an average punk band. As if to illustrate the point, Calum jumps off the stage and into the crowd. The band play on in a frenzy as the singer hugs each member of the audience individually. Even the most resistant to his enthusiastic embraces eventually break into smiles. He’s helped in his love-spreading activities by co-vocalist/drummer John Baillie Junior who’s also thrown himself off the stage – and so things go on for half an hour until the whole crowd is won over. “We’ve done it, guys,” cheers Calum as the group crash to a conclusion.

Half an hour later, Dananananaykroyd (apart from John, who’s not feeling well and has slipped off for some sleep at the hotel) are already waiting to eat again. Everyone’s sitting round a table at a rooftop restaurant and weighing up the suggestion that everything written about the band so far has been positive. “Well, actually, there’s a video on YouTube…” Laura starts. “Oh, that’s amazing,” David interrupts, “It’s called ‘Dananananaykroyd Is Crap’  and it’s some footage of us playing in Amsterdam taken from the back of the room. It pans round to some fourteen year old kid who’s like this…” David puts on the most painfully bored expression he can muster and everyone bursts into laughter again. “But no,” he smiles, “There’s no official press that’s said bad things. Not yet. But we do have a second album that’s tentatively titled ‘Space Jam’. And remember the girl that wouldn’t high-five you, Calum?” The singer pushes his long, one-sided fringe out of his eyes and nods. “I was high-fiving the front row and I got to this girl who had long ginger hair and she missed me deliberately!” “And what did you say? It’s not me you’re angry with, it’s your parents!”

The sun is just starting to go down now. Dananananaykroyd are due back at the Dirty Dog. Most of the group have been drinking since the Latitude 30 gig, and the show flies by in a whirl. John, only just out of bed, throws himself about like a lunatic and even the people who watched these guys play just a few hours ago are once more on the edge of their seats. In the spirit of, “Just going ‘bleeurgh’ and doing it,” (Calum’s words) David lunges into the crowd. Drummer Paul Carlin stands on his stool, aching to join his band mates as they froth in front of him. And the people in the audience mimic Carlin, straining forward as if they want to be part of the band themselves. The venue’s bigger this time and Calum can’t hug everyone, but he gives it a go. And then it’s over again. But only until morning. Dananananaykroyd are playing on this same stage at lunchtime tomorrow.
And despite hangovers and jet-lag, the band members arrive back in good spirits. They all mix together so happily. Don’t they? “I have a top and bottom three every day of who my favourites are in the band,” John says. David looks at the singer/drummer: “So you’re including yourself and you go up and down in it?” “Well, I’m always number one,” John admits. Paul explains it in more consistent terms. “Basically we agree on most things,” he says. “We’re like brothers and sisters, we’re all on the same wavelength and we all know what is good and what is bad when it comes to ideas. We didn’t form the band by putting up ads, we’re all friends and we all had common goals.” Duncan nods: “Some of us are more serious and some of us more stupid and it kind of rubs off and balances out.” So, with all these shoulders to lean on and so many allies to ask for advice, are there no problems that get on top of the group? Laura, wife of Futureheads frontman Barry, puts her hand up. “Well, I’ve got a dog that I don’t get on with very well and I don’t know what to do. We were getting on really well and then he bit me in the face and it’s gone downhill from there. It was pretending to be nice for weeks and we were playing together fine and then he just turned on me for no reason. He’s just a volatile character. I mean, the sex is great, but…”

In the alley behind the venue, Calum is changing his top. He pulls on a Fucked Up T-shirt that uses the Tom Jones quote, “He’s shouting, he’s not singing, it’s not something I would play”. It’s a good advert for the Danana style. Although, as with anything about the band, it’s also not that straight-forward. Their debut album ‘Hey Everyone!’ may be loud, and everyone in the band does do a lot of shouting on it, but there’s enough melody and sensitive guitar playing thrown in there too. ‘Infinity Milk’ is raucous but indelibly upbeat, ‘1993’ sounds like it was written that very year but has since been varnished in bright colours. Fans of Pavement, McClusky, Rites Of Spring, and Los Campesinos!, will all find something to connect to. Back inside the venue, David thinks about the unusual scope of the group’s appeal: “We don’t really want to be part of a scene or have the right people coming to our gigs,” he says. “We want people coming to our gigs who want to get into it. That’s why we did all our own shows for so long (without the help of outside promoters), so people got what we were about, and didn’t try and pigeon-hole us.”

The personal side of the band’s development is more guarded. “One of the reasons we wanted a six-piece band was to get more people involved and make a louder sound,” David says. But ask the guitarist if there was anything deeper than that motivating the genesis of this collective and he makes unwavering eye contact. “You might want to know, but we’re not going to talk about it,” he says, cutting everyone’s initial chortling short with a death-stare. “I’m deadly serious. There are reasons why this band exist and reasons why we make the sort of music we do. It’s personal and it’s dark. I’m not going to talk about it. Let’s just say we’re not always happy all the time.” An awkward hush settles around the gang. “You can tell from our band name,” Paul says at last, “that at the start we really didn’t take ourselves seriously at all. We just wanted to play really loud, stupid music and have a lot of fun.” “And our first show,” David remembers, manic smile back in place, “was absolutely rammed. The bands we used to be in were pretty popular in Glasgow so we were like the hot new local band. But a few shows in and those people went away! And that was great ’cause then the actual music fans came in and it wasn’t such a big scenester party anymore.”

Instead, then, the Dananananaykroyd roadshow has turned into something much bigger than that. It’s a shindig where indie and hardcore fans meet up and forget they ever had any differences. Here, such barriers don’t exist. “We just want to connect with everyone in the audience,” Paul says, explaining the band’s unconventional habit of spending as much time in the crowd as on stage. “We want to be at their level. There’s no great divide between the public and the rock star!” “Yeah,” laughs Laura, “There’s no great divide between us and the peasants!” The proof is obvious at every live show, and today’s no different from last night. No sooner have Dananananaykroyd returned to the Dirty Dog stage, then they’re back off it again. Calum and David are lying motionless on the floor and John is marking their outlines in chalk. And then there’s a bit where the audience are encouraged to hold their fingers up and waggle them in time to the music. And even though it’s the beginning of the day, and no one’s especially drunk yet, everyone does it. Because joining in with this Glaswegian outfit is inexplicably fun. And it’s why everyone’s smiling as this third show in twenty four hours comes to an end. The band wave farewell and the crowd wave back. “Bye,” John calls out as he tumbles off the side of the stage for the last time today, “LOVE YOU!”

‘Hey Everyone’ is out now on Best Before.