interview with The Ramblin Bandits
What inspires you? Most of our songs is about situations, people, or things that happened in our lives. We often talk about things that ends up in a song. We also get lots of inspiration from the old rockers.
How often and where do you reherse? We rehears about once a week, if we are playing shows, over summer and vacation times we take some time off. We rehears and record in Michaels basement where we have all our gir and setup. We experiement a lot with sound and the placement of our instruments and settings.
How have you developed since you started with the music?
We have undergone quite some transformation, when we met in the last months of 2015 we did not have any songs or a clear direction for our music and we
wanted to explorer what it would sound like when we started playing together. We knew we wanted our own sound and we wanted it to be a bit rough, When we started writing songs
it became more obvious that we had some god synergies. Learning to play and write music together is the biggest learning so far.
Do you have other interests of work outside the band? We all have hobbies outside music, André rides his Harley and Michael likes fixing old motors (boats and mopeds) Lasse is into graphics and design. All of us work fulltime so the music is our main hobby.
Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? We currently handle our bookings ourselves also the international gigs, but someday we might get to a place where we need some help.
Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? We got signed on Rhythmbomb Records in Berlin in June 2016 just a couple months after we finished our DEMO. Rhythmbomb is a great label within Rhythm and Blues and Roots music, we are very proud to be part of thair lineup.
What are your songs about? Everything and Nothing, Gambler Man Blues is about spending all your money on stupid stuff, Talk dirty is about SM, Going places is about leaving to find something better but not knowing where you are going and i could continue like that, but in short just stuff and thoughts we have some deeper than others.
Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? André and Lasse writes most of the lyrics we are all composing the music, we have a very free and open tone and discussion when we make music so we all contribute.
Do you start with the music or the lyrics? In most cases we make small videos with a riff or a lyric or both and send it to each other, we then meet and discuss and develop the ideas together.
Do you compose in a certain environment? Not really, some of the songs is written wile travelling, some wile just hanging around at home, some of the texts are wile driving in a car we will record on our phones, sometimes it makes no sense at all when we hear it afterwards but it all gives inspirations.
Have you done any covers live? Yea we have all played loads and loads of covers but we prefer playing our own songs we do sometimes take gigs where we play 50/50 covers but we hope to have enough songs soon for two full sets (work in progress)
What language do you sing in? We sing in English
What are the least and most people to attend one of your gigs? Smalles gig is 50 people at a private birthday party, biggest gigs are just about 2000 people at Barnyard Rockabilly Ball.
What ages are most of your concert attendants? The attendants are usually between late twenties to the late fifties.
Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? We vary the set a lot.
Do you have a regular place you play live often? Not at the moment, we play all over ;o)
What was your first gig like? Our first gig was on a square at a american car festival with around 800 cars, the square was at the end of a main shopping street and the cars where parked bumper to bumper and the area was packed with people we where a bit nervous but it went well, the sound guys was really nice and helpfull, At night we played in a large tent at the same festival and the funny part was at the opposite end of the tent there was a “drive in bar” where you could pick up beer and drinks, that made the whole tent smell like gasoline and exhaust, good times! (see pictures) We had a great time, we are not used to having sound crew and runners that was a super nice experience.
What was your latest gig? Our latest gig was our record release party in late October on High Voltage in Copenhagen we had a blast all our friends and family came to celebrate with us we had a awesome night.
Have you had to cancel a gig? No not yet, just a couple weeks before our release party André broke his left hand wile skateboarding (yea granny dont skate) and we where quite worried but with a combination of the right ammunt of pills and ice before the gig he made it through (no extra tunes though) you can see on the pictures he has tape on his hand. (see pictures)
Where have you played live this year?
- Øster Hurup US Car Camp
- Barnyard Rockabilly Ball
- 20 Flight Rock Hamburg
- Den glade enke motorcycle club Copenhagen
Where do you plan to gig the comming year?
The list is growing every week we are going to have a buissy year but so far we are booked at:
- Good Rocking Tonight - France
- Rock At Sea - Sweden
- Mojo Blues Bar - Denmark (copenhagen)
- Drafthouse St Pauli - Germany
- Exterminators - Denmark (Odense)
- Rockabilly Rave - UK
- Big Weels - Finland
- High Rockabilly - Spain
Keep an eye out for our website we post all our concerts there: http://www.ramblinbandits.com/new-events/
When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? We started selling tshirts after our first couple concerts somehow people like our logo and wants to get a shirt so we are setting up a webshop now, we have had a big ask for Mens black tshirts and Kids tshirts
we just added a long sleeve black and white baseball shirt.
Where can people buy your merchandise? On our website there are links to records and merchandise also a couple local shops in copenhagen carry our stuff
What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? We think its fine, we are here for the fans and just the fact that someone wants to hear our stuff makes us happy, the music should be available on whatever media the users want it on.
How do you think the music industry have changed because of this?
The way artists make money are diffrent but it comes with two perspectives, there are almost no money in Itunes and Spotify streaming services so as a new artist you earn from gigs and merchandise, but the digital distribution
is a much cheaper channel and therefore guys like us who would not have been signed on larger labels can still get our music out. The good old days where you sell tons of cds are over and youtube and digital media will be part of where we earn money. The movie industry have adjusted and are now distributing digitally at large scales, at some point the same conversion will happen on digital music…
What do you think of my work? You seem very productive and running a cool blog! keep up the good work, more product reviews please ;o)
How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? Well we cant be sure but we know that the idols and bands we follow our selves are more interesting when its possible to read interivews and info about the band members so we hope this interview will give some insight to how we think and act as a band.
Do you have any role models or idols? Lots! Charlie Hightone, Johnny Knight, Start Mountain Dreamers, Louis and the wildfires, Lady Luck Combo (oYo), The go getters, Clutch, Rival Sons, Luther Perkins, Lightning Hopkins, JD Mc-pearson,
Why do you think that they exist? In most cases the craving for something raw, diffren, fast and simple!
Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? Dont think so both new and old bands inspire us, also lots of diffrent types of music from folk to 60s 70s rock.
What have been your biggest obstacles? Getting the album out in time was hard work, late nights and lots retakes making the desision to record and cut everything our selves because we wanted this raw, unpolished sound.
What advice would you give other bands or artists? Practice - sleep - eat - repeat!
How do you get psyched for a gig? We just want to give the people a good hardrocking experience ;o)
Do you have any new material? Yes we are working on songs for our next album and are playing around with more blusey and motorbilly type songs, we will newer stop writing about girls booze and fuckups
How can people reach you? via facebook or our website, we are also on twitter, instagram and soundcoloud.
What are your plans for the future? We take one day at a time, we are planning for a new album during the next year or so, and then we look forward to play a lot of good gigs in 2017.
