Miscellaneous - Interview

  by Anthony Strutt

published: 16 / 9 / 2005

intro

Liverpool-based group the Dead 60's is a unique combination of ska, punk and reggae. At a secret gig in London Anthony Strutt chats to guitarist Ben Gordon about their self-titled debut album

The Dead 60's hail from Liverpool. Their self-titled debut album was released on Liverpudlian label Deltasonic records in late September. The band consists of Matt McManamon on guitar and vocals, Ben Gordon on guitar , Charlie Turner on bass, and Bryan Johnson on drums. Their music features elements of ska, punk and reggae. The group have also proved popular in America. Afer their single 'Riot Radio' was a hit on college radio at the beginning of the year, 'The Dead 60's' was rush-released over there and put out in May. Pennyblackmusic spoke to Ben before a secret gig at the Fred Perry clothes store in Carnaby Street in London. PB : Your album has been released on Deltasonic, which, if I am correct, is The Coral's label as well. BG : Yeah, that's right. PB. Is that Ian Broudie's label as well ? BG : Well, Broudie was involved with the label when it started. He did production and stuff like that, but he was only involved on that side of things. It was basically a label start up by two record collectors in Liverpool. They have gone from rags to riches. PB : I would imagine that that was on the back of The Coral really. BG : Yeah, it was The Coral that kicked it off for them. They have since then signed lots of other local bands. PB : There's always been a good tapestry of music in Liverpool. BG : Yeah, exactly. PB : How long have the band been going ? BG : We have been playing together for two years as The Dead 60's. We have been playing together though since we were 16. We all knew each other from going to clubs in Liverpool, and hanging out together. About two years ago we started taking things a bit more seriously. PB : Are there a lot of venues in Liverpool nowadays? BG : There's loads. There's a place called The Picket-They gave us a break when we were kids-and a place called The Lomax where we used to play but that isn't there anymore. There's also The Zanzibar Club. That's another good venue. PB : How would you describe the band's sound ? I have read all these articles about you that mention the ska movement and bands like Madness and The Specials. You remind me more though of The Icicle Works? BG :I suppose every band from Liverpool has got a bit of that sound in them. You can't get rid of that being from Liverpool, but the thing we wanted to do was to break away from a lot of that stuff. We didnt want to do something that been done before like the La's. That cosmic scouse thing was a scene that happened before we came along. That is where our name, The Dead 60's, came from. We were fed up with all these bands from the 60's. We wanted to do our own thing. We mash up the reggae thing and the punk thing. PB : I believe that you are putting out a dub album with the album. BG : Yeah, it's called 'Space Invader Dub' and it is a limited edition. We did that when we were in the studio. There were a lot of dubs that we hadn't used and we wanted to do something special with them. We ended up writing a few extra tracks and put them together with this Space Invader theme. It has been released specifically for our English fans, because the album came out first in America. PB : It's been on import for the last few months here. BG : We wanted to make up for that, and put something out that was special. That's why we did that. We are really chuffed with it. PB : You're touring with The Stereophonics at the moment, aren't you ? BG :Yeah, that's what we are doing at the moment. Before that we toured with Morrissey. PB : Did you enjoy that ? BG : Yeah, that was brilliant. We are massive Smiths fans, and to get the chance to share the stage with him was fantastic. PB : How did you find him ? BG : We didn't get to meet him. PB : Not at all? BG : No,it was bizarre. PB : You got to hang out with his band though ? BG : Yeah, but Morrissey remained aloof. It was cool. Since then we have heard that he watched us from the wings. His people also told us that he was pleased with us. We were so grateful that we had the chance to do that with him. It was a massive break for us. It would have been nice to have met him. PB : How would you describe your fans ? I would imagine that they are pretty hardcore? BG : The fans have been really good. We were playing these shows in America and we were overwhelmed by people coming down, especially on the west coast and in LA. PB : You are probably bigger in America now then you are here. BG : Yeah, our single 'Riot Radio' did really well on the radio stations over there. They wanted a CD, so we finished the album and just put it out. That's how it happened there. PB : What are your plans for the rest of the year apart from The Stereophonics tour ? BG : We are going to Cardiff after this. We will do four gigs with them in Cardiff Arena. After that we will go to Germany and then we will do some shows in France. We will then go to America for eight weeks supporting a punk band called Social Distortion, who are quite big there. They will be great shows. PB : So how do you think you will fair with the UK market then ? BG : To be honest we would like to concentrate on making records and recording. Thats the best solution. We always wanted to make an album and in January we are going to do a second one. We are going to concentrate on that. If people like it, that's great. PB : Thank you.

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