It’s a sunny afternoon in Southampton and we are lucky enough to have a chance to sit down with the members of Don’t Panic during their current UK tour with The Dollyrots. Over the course of our conversation with the band we discuss their second life as a band, their covers e.ps, merchandising, wrestling, wetherspoons and of course Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
So, let’s get the obvious question out of the way first. How has the tour been going for you guys?
Ted: Awesome. This has probably been my favourite UK tour that we have done thus far. The bus helps a lot with that. The company helps just as much, we’re having a great time with Dollyrots and Danny Gruff is an awesome dude, we’re all getting along really good, we’re having a chance to explore the towns which we don’t usually get to do, so it’s been really fun.
I know it’s the old cliche, a lot of American bands talk about how much they love the UK and love touring here. What is it for you that sets the Uk crowds apart from the U.S ones?
Ted: It’s the people. They are the crowd obviously, but the people are so much more enthusiastic and excited when you’re here. In the U.S we love playing those shows but you can just feel the difference and there’s an energy of people that are super excited for a band to be here, when we’re here and they are much more devoted.
AJ: I think people here seem to find it more fun than Americans do to go out to the smaller gigs, they seem to enjoy that a lot more than they do back in the states.
Ted: People also like finding new bands, I’ve noticed that too. All the people that have come to see us on this tour are now saying to me that they like Danny Gruff now, and they enjoyed watching him play but they hadn’t heard of him before. I notice a lot of our fans that come to see us are now going to see the people that are opening the show, and we were one of those bands at one time.
AJ: People seem to really dig into the catalogue over here as well, they seem to know those songs that you barely play and they will request them.
After this tour we have some U.S runs lined up with bands like Bowling For Soup, Mest, The Ataris and The Spill Canvas. For a band that is still quite young in their career how does it feel to be going out with those bands?
Ted: It’s awesome. It helps us a lot because there will be people at those shows (laughs) but a lot of those bands are our friends now, we’ve played with them before and it’s just cool hanging out. The Bowling For Soup guys are literally family and we’ve spent so much time with them, same with Mest, Spill Canvas as well…all those bands. It’s also very humbling to have those bands ask us if we want to come play a show or do a tour with them. Every time we get asked, we get super excited and we never really question it. Bowling For Soup will call us and ask us to do a tour, the answer is always yes, we barely even talk to each other about it.
When I was researching you guys, firstly there are a lot of bands out there with the same name so googling you guys is a nightmare. It’s a well documented part of your history that you started in 2009, released some e.ps, did a tour and then went on hiatus for 10 years, but then came back at arguably one of the worst times in history…
AJ: 100% the worst time in history, there is no arguably there. We got an album done and then the world started shutting down and we were like “Motherfucker…”
My first question is surrounding the hiatus. When you decided to go on hiatus, what was the mindset there, were you ever planning to come back to music?
Ted: Yeah, it wasn’t like we were going to stop playing. We had just gotten off a really long tour, we had another short one after that, I’d started working on a new e.p which me and AJ had recorded, I think we released it but not really, we made a couple of cd’s but we didn’t even sell them, I have them all in my closet. When we got back from all these tours we were 24, 25 years old, we were so broke. Anthony got a job at a casino, my brother was playing with us at the time, he needed to make money, i needed to make money. We were all so broke, so we started working real jobs for a little bit to start saving money, playing when we can, then everyone sort of naturally wound up doing their own thing, playing some cover shows to make a few bucks…
AJ: Also the Playstation 3 came out, so me and Anthony had a lot of gaming to do…
Ted: There wasn’t a conscious decision behind it, it just kind of happened naturally where we put out an e.p, went on a couple of cool tours and then took a break which wound up becoming 8 years long.
For you, coming back after such a long hiatus, what are the main changes you have noticed in the music industry in that time.
AJ: The biggest change is that record deals don’t matter anymore. The whole landscape or what you used to try to become, that’s not a thing anymore.
Ted: Like cd’s, when we stopped cd’s were super important, you had to sell a lot of cd’s. We came back, made a lot of cd’s and everyone was like “well i don’t have a cd player anymore” and I guess that’s true.
AJ: Like I’ve been finding recently all these people keep finding us and they are into it and I realised that barrier of when we were younger and you’d go to a local show and buy a bands record, but then for the bigger band you’d go to a store to buy their album, but the store doesn’t exist anymore. That giant dividing line is gone and if you present yourself right online you can look and appear to be like any other band or artist.
Ted: Which is the second biggest thing and that’s social media. Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook…Facebook was just starting when we took our break, people weren’t using it. We had a Myspace page, I’m still struggling to figure out how to manage that stuff.
Zach: The job of being a musician has changed from just being a musician who is able to record and play shows, you now have to be a content creator and that is a huge part of the job now.
If Covid hadn’t happened, but with the changes to the industry that we have discussed still very much in play, is there any point over the last 6 years where you thought that this could go away again.
Ted: Like if we stopped, would we come back again? I think we all play music, that’s what we do. AJ owns a studio, Zach and I work on the business side, Anthony loves doing cover gigs, singing and playing guitar, so we’re all always just doing music.
AJ: I think in starting it back up again it wasn’t for us to try and make it, we just wanted to have fun playing so there was no expectation to be met.
Ted: Which helps when you’re in your 40’s now. I can afford to live now so if I want to do a cool trip and go on tour or make a nice video or album then we can do that , if we don’t want to do it, then we don’t have to. We live our lives and this is the fun thing we get to do on the weekend.
Anthony: It would be nice to do this full time, but we’re also happy to do it part time. We’ll take what we can get.
AJ: We wanna do it full time (laughs)
Anthony: Rock & Roll won’t die as long as I have a heartbeat…Simon, as long as I have a heartbeat then Rock is alive.Print that.
AJ: The Rock…like the wrestler?
Anthony: No, Rock & Roll dude
AJ: The Rock is alive as long as I’m alive, we’re tethered together. (laughs)
I did not expect The Rock’s life expectancy to come up during this interview…
Anthony: There you go dude…
Cover songs have come up a few times in this interview. You have two covers e.ps out now. One which was released this year and one that came out previously. I’m really interested to know the answer to this question, when you sit down to do covers, where does the idea come from in regards to what you are going to cover? Is it favourite songs or songs you want to cover?
AJ: The first one we picked.
Ted: Yeah on the first one we decided we wanted to each pick a song that best represented our musical style or things that we loved. Anthony picked a Billy Joel song, I picked Electric Light Orchestra, AJ picked Metallica and Keith, our old Bass player picked The Association, the song Windy, a very weird song that was for his sister who passed away from Cancer, so that was how we picked the first one. We decided let’s a covers album just for fun and our good friend Jaret from Bowling For Soup had suggested we do some cover songs because it’s really fun and people really like it, so we decided to give it a try.
AJ: It was another one of those things where we were in between things and we needed content, so we had to do something.
Ted: Then Jaret ended up doing guest vocals on AJ’s pick, on the Creeping Death Metallica cover. Then on the newest one we wanted a fun gimmick and we wanted to challenge ourselves a bit so we didn’t get to pick, so every song on there was number one on one of our birthdays, so that’s where all the songs come from. We did (I Just) Died in Your Arms, Jessie’s Girl, Time After Time and Jump, and then we just figured out how to do them, it was fun.
On the Van Halen cover Jump, you have Michael Starr from Steel Panther on it. How the hell did that come about
Ted: That was Jaret again (laughs) I called him up and I said I can’t do the scream at the beginning, it’s too insane, so i asked if he would do it because he loves 80’s stuff and he said he could one better, he told us to give this guy a call and his name is Ralph and we were like Ralph who? Who then turned out to be the singer of Steel Panther.
AJ: Ted called and said Jaret said this might be a thing, I’m gonna talk to him and then when it turned out it was happening I was like “This is the greatest fucking thing that ever happened”
Ted: It was really cool and he was so nice as well
Anthony: I was pretty excited about it, they are an awesome band and they’re really good live.
Ted: He did it a $25 Starbuckks gift card, that was all he wanted. (collective laughter)
AJ: Don’t say that…don’t put that into the world. He did it for $2,000. We’re going to get a fucking call tomorrow man (laughs)
The duet with Kelly made sense due to how close you guys are, but when I saw MIchael Starr on the tracklist, it threw me because as far as I was aware there was no connection there.
Ted: Jaret is our connection. He killed it as well, he did such a good job.
AJ: The best part is he sang the entire song. He is obviously only in there in parts, but I still have a full version of Michael Starr singing Jump and by the way there are way more screams in it, we only put a couple in, but he did those crazy yells all over the place.
Aside from all the summer touring plans you have, what are the plans for the next album?
Ted: We just started working on it, so very preliminary. We have got a bunch of ideas I tracked at my house, I did it on my computer essentially then sent it out to these guys, so we’re starting to listen through them and pick the ones we like so we can start shaping more into songs, then we’ll start recording them slowly over the summer. It’s a work in progress but it’s started.
One of the things that did strike me especially with your touring schedule and the amount of albums that you have put out since you’ve been back is just how prolific you are. Sometimes you can wait 3 or 4 years for a new album from a band and you did 3 in quick succession.
Ted: Well it’s 8 years of pent up music in my brain I guess. I love touring and playing live, but I really love recording, AJ obviously loves recording because that’s what he does. I like being in a studio and being creative and coming up with ideas, it’s a lot of fun.
When you do write, are you a band that can write on the road? Do you find touring to be inspiring or do you have to have a set time and place to write and record?
Ted; No, it’d kind of wherever. The beginning ideas are always when I’m doing something, I’m either driving or in the shower, so i’ll hum an idea into my phone, I was actually going to talk to these guys today because I wanted to grab an acoustic guitar in the back lounge one day and play through some stuff and pick through it. We haven’t tried it yet, but I think on the road is just like any other place, it’s more about finding the time when we’re out here, because we sleep later or we’re getting showers or going to the store finding comic books or whatever so it becomes about finding the time.
AJ: Our day starts at 2 and ends around midnight.
Ted: So yeah we just have to find the time.
Anthony: Yeah, you have to prioritise, so writing new songs is below comics, showering, fish and chips, Wetherspoons.. That all comes before everything else.
How many Wetherspoons have you ticked off on the tour?
Zach: Me personally? I’ve done two but some of the other guys that are out with us have done one in every place. I think they are doing the comparison game, looking at the difference in carpeting, what’s the difference in decor…
AJ; But also it’s because they are actually up in time for breakfast. (laughs)
Do you guys know about the Wetherspoons game?
All: No, what’s that?
So, there is an app and there are facebook groups for it. So people will get their table numbers and put a message in the group with their location and table number and other people in the group with the app can order things to their table which is quite fun.
Ted: We get tagged a lot on Facebook in our fan group because as lot of our fans will go to a Spoons and intentionally sit at table 42 and send us a picture of 42 on the table because of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, so that’s fun, that’s our Wetherspoons game.
Based on your merch and your name you are very connected to pop culture.Looking at your merch on the way in here you have the wrestling themed shirt, the pac man shirt. Much like with choosing cover songs, how do you decide on what things you want to homage through your merch? Is it down to things you like or things you think will look cool?
Ted; It’s literally just things we like. We have a shirt that is a They Live shirt. The cover of the Covers e.p is like an 80s birthday party, but it’s a Pac man one so we thought it would be cool to put a Pac Man shirt out, we have a Mac & Me one, we picked funny or fun things. I like the more ridiculous b-movie crappy stuff like Mac & Me that’s really fun to parody.
Anthony: One of my favourites is the Short Circuit one we did, as that’s one of my favourite movies.
Ted: The wrestling one was the theme of the tour. Anthony is the biggest wrestling fan in the world, I’m a big wrestling fan so that was a fun one to do, so we just pick stuff that we like. The number one rule for me is to make clothing that people would wear, but that I like, so if I like it then I’ll make it.
As you mentioned, having wrestling fans in the band. I’m a massive wrestling fan as well. Bowling For Soup wrote a song for Alexa Bliss,if you were going to write song for or about a particular wrestler who would it be?
AJ: Bret Hart
Anthony: That’s my answer, because that’s my era. That’s my hero right there, I love Bret Hart. I always have, he’s a great wrestler and he’s had the best matches of all time in my opinion.
Ted: I grew up in the Attitude Era. I love Hogan, Macho Man, Warriors Andre, I love that era, but I grew up watching the Attitude Era, in my teens so Stone Cold Steve Austin was probably my favourite, the things he would do like driving a beer truck into the ring and hosing down Vince McMahon, or hitting him with a bedpan, driving a zamboni, hiding a rattlesnake in Vince McMahon’s bag, all those things he would do are so funny.
Zach: The other one is Mick Foley and all the different characters he would do. He was like a character actor and all his characters were crazy. From everything I’ve heard about him he is just a really sweet guy in real life.
I have a framed picture of me and Mick Foley on a shelf in my front room, much to my wife’s chagrin (laughs)
Ted: You replaced your wedding photo with you and Mick Foley (laughs)
AJ: You should get copies of it made and replace every photo in your house with that one…
This question will be specifically for Ted. As your name comes from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Which members of the band would you say are most like the characters in the book. Which character from the book would you assign to each member of the band based on personality?
Ted: Oh Boy…. I forget how to pronounce the president’s name Zaphod Beebelebrox, so that’s kind of like AJ, because AJ has a hard time focusing on things, he’s excited by a million things at once, so he’s always trying to do like 30 things at once. I feel like I’m Arthur Dent just making my way through. His guide Ford Prefect who Mos def played in the movie would be Anthony. Zach?…Zach would be the robot Marvin, just always kind of anxious.
AJ: So, kinda like C-3PO?
Yeah, but if C-3PO had clinical depression…
Ted: I think that would be the closest for each person.
We’ll end things on a fun one. Based on the name of the band, when you guys are on tour or in your daily lives what is something that would cause you to say to the other guys “Don’t Panic, it’s gonna be fine”
AJ: For me, it’’ll be that I’m going to get to the stage on time, don’t worry about it, it’s going to be fine. I’ll venture off and everyone will wonder where I am “Sheet says 11, don’t worry I’ll be there”
Anthony: Mine’s Ted related “where’s the guestlist, you didn’t turn it in yet” like Ted…Don’t Panic, yes i forgot, but I’ll do it right now…(laughs) but Ted stresses about everything but that’s because he’s very detail oriented, we wouldn’t be enjoying the success and having as much fun as we have if he wasn’t, so i’m glad he’s like that.
Ted: We tell Zach not to panic when there’s gear issues. When there is a gear issue he gets a little antsy and we’ve had to say that to him many many times. So there’s also something.
In Closing what would you like to say to all the Don’t Panic fans out there.
Ted: Thank you, seriously. Thank you for being our Patreon people, thank you for being our Fan Club people, thank you for coming to our shows and streaming our music, buying our tees…anything that you do, even reposting a post that we make. Just thank you.
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