“We only make records because we can’t help it”
Es mag am Alter liegen. Doch es kann sehr ermüdend sein, sich im Jahr 2005 mit Musik zu beschäftigen. Neben den zahlreichen Wiederbelebungen alternder Zombies (der Comeback-Kosmos scheint unerschöpflich und reicht, wie wir alle wissen, von Duran Duran bis zu The House Of Love) tauchen zwar alle Nase lang neue, unglaublich junge und natürlich wahnsinnig frische Bands auf. Doch auch wenn die paar verbliebenen Plattenfirmen nicht müde werden, uns das Gegenteil zu predigen, ist an diesen Bands nichts Besonderes. Ihre Alben sind gut für den Augenblick, keine Frage. Die besseren bringen uns auch wunderbar durch den Winter, Sommer oder welche Jahreszeit auch immer gerade ansteht. Und sie alle bekommen ihren verdienten Platz in dieser Zeitung. Nur, unter die Haut gehen tun diese Platten nicht. Die Begeisterung, mit der man früher noch Bands wie Saint Etienne, Primal Scream oder den Stone Roses gegenübertrat, will sich in den seltensten Fällen einstellen. Für die ganz großen Gefühle taugen nur die wenigstens Bands. Und doch gibt es sie. The Panics aus Perth sind so eine Band, die mehr ist als die Summe ihrer Singles. Sie vereinen das Beste der Doves mit der Lässigkeit eines wieder erstarkten Ian Brown und klingen dabei weitaus besser als alle bisher gehandelten Nachfolger der seligen Stone Roses. Klingt nach großem Kino, ist es auch. Einmal entdeckt, möchte man die Welt bekehren, fortwährend von der Großartigkeit der transportieren Stimmung, der unendlichen Melancholie und keimenden Hoffnung der Panics-Platten berichten. Man möchte sie auf jedem Tape, jeder iPod-Liste oder gebrannten CD unterbringen. Und natürlich wundert man sich aufrichtig, dass die Band noch immer nicht den großen Durchbruch geschafft hat. Große Gefühle eben. Und da Gefühle schwer in Worte zu fassen sind, ist damit eigentlich alles gesagt. Gut, vielleicht sollte ich noch erwähnen, dass die Panics keinen weltweiten Plattenvertrag haben und ihre Platten folglich in Deutschland nicht zu kaufen sind. Aber das sollte und darf im Zeitalter von Amazon keine Ausrede sein. Kaufen sag ich, marsch marsch!
Do you consider yourself as a typical Australian band?
Jae Laffer (Gitarre): I wouldn’t know how to describe a typical Australian
band. I think people wouldn't assume we were Australian after hearing our records.
We take a lot of influence from all kinds of stuff, as much Bob Dylan and Neil
Young as we do from great Australian groups like Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
and the Go-Betweens. We'll always be a very proud Australian group but we don’t
necessarily push it in people’s faces.
Apart from Australia, where have your records been released
so far?
For the moment we have been focusing on making inroads into the English market.
We've been to the UK twice in as many years to play for industry types, tour
and generally spread the word. Up till now we've released promotional compilations,
of our own and along side our label mates. We are couple of weeks off finishing
a new full length album and with that completed we'll put together plans for
our first complete releases in the UK and from there move across to the continent.
How come you are on the small label Bigman Records? There
must have been some major labels interested!
Sure, we've had interest and offers from some majors. At the end of the day
though, The Panics are not a band who are prepared to compromise what we believe
is the best way to make our music. We have a strong link with our label and
share similar ideals, we are not interested in being a pop act moulded to fit
the music industry’s idea of hit group. We only make records because we
can’t help it, we live for it and keep getting better at it. There's really
no reason to change that formula.
“Crack In The Wall” is much more intense and melancholic
than “A House In A Street In A Town I Am From”. What will the new
material sound like?
”Crack In The Wall” was a spontaneous record, written quickly and
recorded quickly. In a way it was quick response to the brightness and lighter
themes of the first record. We enjoy putting out records at a quick pace, keeping
ourselves busy and hopefully keeping our audience guessing. The new record we
just finish has a similar energy to the first, perhaps the lyrics are more on
the darker side of the fence though. There’s less British influence than
before, it could be from anywhere this time around. To me it has come out of
a lot of touring and moving around.
Your biggest success so far?
Staying together and making five releases in three years.
What is Perth like? And why do you want to move to Melbourne?
Perth is very isolated, more than any other city in the world. I guess in some
ways it is forced to get on with its own way of doing things without the influence
of the other cities. It was a great place to start a band for me, when we first
went to the rest of the country to play it showed me how unique the Perth groups
were, the industry in Australia woke up to that over the last couple of years
and a lot of Perth bands have had success here as a result. Melbourne is an
amazing city to spend time in. I’ve written three albums in Perth and enjoy
moving around, Melbourne is my first choice to write the next one. Ideally,
the next move would be to the UK to spend more time establishing the band on
your side of the world.
Your favourite Oz bands?
Easybeats, The Go-Betweens, You Am I, Nick Cave.
Your favourite B-Side?
There are so many. We play a cover of the Beatles "Rain" sometimes.
That’s somewhere near the top of the list.
Daniel Schulze
Aktuelles Album: “Crack In The Wall” (Big Man/Import)
Internet: www.thepanics.com.au