Taking their cues from hardcore, noise-rock and Beefheart at his weirdest, Leipzig’s three headed noiz juggernaut Don Vito return to these shores for a free midnight show upstairs in Whelans on Thursday the 18th of April, along with Daikiri from France, and our own Turning Down Sex.
We caught up with them during their current European jaunt for a few words ahead of their Dublin gig.
Unlike a lot of noise-rock bands, you guys seem less concerned with the darker side of humanity and more interested in having fun. Is that accurate?
That’s right. I hope it doesn’t sound superficial but we do the band for fun, we want to feel good on stage. Many people automatically connect loud, noisy “rock” music with a certain aesthetic – dark, nihilistic etc. In most cases these are just clichés, people use them because they think that’s what’s expected from them, we’re not interested in that. Imagine you have to picture someone getting his head smashed in with a hammer. You could make it dark and gorey or painfully realistic or in a cartoon-style way, totally exaggerated with a 10-pound-hammer and eyeballs popping out and all that… for Don Vito we prefer the latter.
None of your releases have (to my knowledge) strayed over the 15 minute mark. Is there any particular reasoning behind your love of brevity?
There is no special plan to this. We get bored by repetition very easily, that’s why. It’s the same everytime we make a new song. At some point we just feel like everything is said for this song. Usually this happens after less than two minutes. If we would try to fill an album with 30 or more minutes, we would need dozens of songs. Nobody could listen to this.
Don Vito seems to tour a lot. Do the records serve as advertisements for the live shows, or do you consider them both equally important?
The focus is on the live show, we’re definitely not the kind of band that locks up in the studio for weeks. Even after several releases we still don’t quite like the recording process. It’s more like something that has to be done than something we’re looking forward to. That doesn’t mean we’re not paying attention to the final release, we do (as you can hopefully tell from our past releases).
How’s the DIY scene in Leipzig, and Germany more broadly?
Can’t tell much about the scene in Germany as it’s very diverse. Some cities and areas are great, in others there’s nothing. The scene in Leipzig is very alive at the moment, there are a lot of places (some legal, some not) and quite a few people organizing DIY shows and festivals, parties, exhibitions or running labels or workshops.
Any new releases in the pipeline?
Right now we have a new 7″ out with two improvised tracks we recorded together with bass clarinet player Jaime McGill. Also brand new is a 12″ with some of our favorite Don Vito songs from the last years, because all the records are sold out. Next week we’re going to record a song for a split single with Jealousy Mountain Duo from Germany. We’re planning a new album too, but there is no timeframe yet…
