With a career spanning almost twenty years and six studio albums under their belt to document their journey, The Dandy Warhols have become a household name in rock. With their sing-a-long hits Bohemian Like You and We Used to Be Friends, amongst a number of others, there is an air of excitement at the mention of their return to Australia this September/October at Parklife.
Being no strangers to Australia, The Dandy Warhols have made themselves familiar with Australia and their fans here. Drummer, Brent De Boer, is even moving to Melbourne to be with his wife, whom he met on a previous tour here. We’re assured, however, that this is not the end of The Dandy Warhols. Guitarist, Peter Holmström, takes some time to talk about the past, present and future of the band.
The bands latest release, The Capitol Years, is a collection of singles the band have released through Capitol Records, their major label rep. When asked if this is marking the end or is just a turning point for the Dandys, Holmström jumped to make things clear.
“ I certainly hope this isn’t the end of The Dandy Warhols. I hope it is just a turning point. I think we just feel we are at a point in our career where it was appropriate to release a collection album. It didn’t feel right before, but it feels right now.”
While this puts one question to rest, it brings forth another. What is the future looking like for the band?
“ I imagine we’ll buckle down and start writing another record at some point, but I haven’t heard the plan beyond. We’re not very good at planning. We tend to just do things as they happen. Another record is bound to happen.”
Reeling things back a bit, we begin to discuss the band’s announcement on the upcoming Parklife tour. Notoriously a heavy dance festival, ripe with DJ’s and electronic music, The Dandy Warhols are an intriguing choice for the festival’s tenthth anniversary. This, however, doesn’t worry the band at all. In fact, it makes this tour a little bit more exciting.
“ We’re a party band so I hope people can still get into it. I almost prefer playing a show where you need to really work for the audience. It is great when you play to a crowd that are all into you, but when you get a crowd where some people just aren’t feeling it, you have to play a bit harder to make sure they have a good time. It gives you that little bit extra satisfaction.”
“ We’ll definitely cover everything. We’ll get a lot of our old stuff in and our newer stuff and cover the whole spectrum. We might adjust our set a bit for the dance crowd, to get people moving and into it a bit more, but it will still cover our best stuff.”
By the sounds of things, The Dandy Warhols are going harder than ever and now having moved to their own label, they are the ones steering the ship. With so much experience and an arsenal of great tunes, their Parklife appearance is certainly one to not miss out on.
