An interview with Das Kapitans

 

  With Das Kapitans (https://www.facebook.com/daskapitans) managing to release an impressive 12 albums during 2021 (13 if you include the recent "greatest hits" compilation) I thought it would be interesting to ask them a few questions. I've not done an interview for a while as I was waiting for something that I thought might be a little bit different. As always, it's the replies to my questions which determine whether or not it's a good interview. Thanks to Steve, Simon and Lewis from the band, I think it's been a worthy exercise. 

  Before I start I'll post the link to their Bandcamp page so you can easily find their music   https://daskapitansband.bandcamp.com/

Here we go...

1) First of all, can I ask who's in the band and how did you come into existence?

Steve: 

  Simon does vocals and guitar, Lewis on drums, and myself on bass and shouts. Originally, I (Steve) was writing and recording stuff that wasn’t likely to be played by our band at the time Fuzz and the Felts (https://fuzzandthefelts.bandcamp.com/). I decided to go under the name of Das Kapitans and try and be a mysterious “band” releasing eps occasionally. Towards the end end of 2020, I did a few and got Simon to sing on them, to see how they sounded. When lockdown happened, Simon and I decided to just carry on writing stuff, without the restraints of needing to fit into the sound of Fuzz and the Felts, and we never stopped. Around the end of Summer 2021 we started some live rehearsals which is when Lewis (Fuzz and The Felts) joined us on drums. Heading into 2022 Lewis has become a fully signed up member and is now part of the songwriting process. 

Lewis: 

  I like hitting things.

2) What music did you grow up listening to/what are your musical inspirations?

Steve: 

  I was in to all sorts of stuff growing up. My first true musical love was Wu-Tang Clan and all sorts of other hip hop of the early 90s. Hip hop artists that were pissed off. Then I was heavily into Nirvana/Sonic Youth/Mudhoney etc. The band that made me start playing guitar though was Supergrass. Their “I Should Coco” is still one of my favourites. In terms of Punk Music, my first proper introduction was when Fat Wreck Chords' “Survival of the Fattest” came out. It made me find so many other punk bands, and explore historic ones.

Simon:

  Aside from the pop music that couldn’t be avoided in the early 80s, the first proper songwriting I got into was the Beatles, Kinks, The Smiths and T Rex as these were the records my parents and brother had around the home. That led me down a more indie/alternative route getting into music from Nirvana, Blur, Joy Division, Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake, Suede and lots lots more. My musical inspirations haven’t changed over time and I’ve used tonnes of these influences over the last 12 months. The track Socks On is my attempted guitar riff tribute to Graham Coxon, probably the biggest influence on my playing….at least I attempt to be 5% of the guitarist he is!

SOCKS ON

Lewis:

  I’ve got my dad to thank for a pretty wide variety of music experiences growing up. From early 90’s hip-hop (I knew all the words to Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle by the time I was 3) to Ian Dury and the Blockheads to Napalm Death. As I got older I got into metal and was in a (pretty good for our ages) Metallica cover band. Then about 17 or 18 I took a bit of a break from music to essentially drink and work. To be honest I’ve got Lloyd (from Fuzz and the Felts), Simon and Steve to thank for getting me back into it. I’ve got no aspirations, I like hitting things.

3) You released a new album every month during 2021. Are you mad? How did that idea come about, were you confident you'd succeed?

Steve:

  Simon and I have stupid ideas and are both too stubborn and competitive to not do them. We released Joulukuu, in January, originally to use up a folder on the computer of around 70 song ideas we had. Then we decided to release them monthly to use them up, but to to make them sound like proper albums rather than collections of songs, we started writing the whole albums monthly. We were always pretty confident we could do it, as were pretty quick writers and stubborn. 

Simon: 

  I don’t remember any point in the year thinking ‘we can’t do this’. It was more a case of having a few days where maybe I couldn’t be bothered, or thinking what’s the point….but those were fleeting moments in the whole process.

4) Who writes the songs? Was there a time during the year when you thought you'd not hit the next month's deadline or was it easier than you thought? 

Steve: 

  The albums are a mix of songs written by Simon and Myself. They all go down as written by Das Kapitans though. Now Lewis is on board and we can start doing it at a “normal” pace, we are all contributing to songs. The only time we thought we might not make a deadline was when I had to work in the US for 3 weeks, so over a weekend, we wrote ten one minute songs and put them on the tenth album.  

Simon:

  We managed to always write more songs than we needed at the start of the year so we would always go into the next month with the comfort of knowing we already have 25% of an album in the bag if we needed it. I think we still have about 60+ songs ideas from 2021 that we didn’t use and probably never will now.

SCORE DRAW

5) You've released more music in 2021 than most bands have in their full discography, which album do you think is your best and which song do you think deserves to be a number 1 hit?

Steve:

  For me “Man on Fire” is the best. It’s the most complete sounding one all the way through. Dark and angry. Song wise, I probably get lost in “Score Draw” and would like to see that hit number 1. I think there are a few like that, that aren’t immediately catchy, but go under the radar. I can't imagine our songs ever doing that though.

TOM CRUISE

Simon:

  Favourite album? Man on Fire for me. It’s the album I feel I put the most emotion into the song writing. It was written in July when I was feeling generally hot, tired and annoyed with life. I think that comes across in the songs like SCUM and County Lines. Tom Cruise from album 1 will be a number 1, one day. Maybe not in reality, but definitely in my imagination.

Lewis:

  I think we’re unanimous in Man on Fire. I think that’s the point where you could really tell that Steve and Simon had grown in their confidence of their songwriting ability.

6) Now that the year is at an end and you've managed 12 albums in 12 months, what next?

Steve:

  Proper band stuff now. Got loads of gigs lined up, assuming they’ll go ahead. Also we’ve set up a proper full band home recording room, so we can get everything recorded nice and easy. So we're thinking possibly a series of eps and an album of thought out songs this year. We’re very aware that we could be seen as a novelty band, because of the project, so we want to make sure that when people see us live, we put on a really good show.

Simon:  

 Yeah I definitely want to slow down a bit. Still working just as hard but spending a bit more time on everything we do. Have a bit more quality control. More guitar parts, more time spent of vocals and mixing etc. 

Lewis: 

  I’m looking forward to getting involved in the writing process, hopefully getting some of my influences across.

7) You've done some gigs, do you concentrate pretty much on a core group of favourite songs as the set list or given how much you're spoilt for choice could you play a completely different set list on any given night?

Steve: 

  So far we’ve been trying to use the energetic catchy ones that are fun to play and get the crowds going We do keep listening to other songs though and have a list of songs that want to get into the live set. The ideal would be to know hours and hours worth, and be able to pick and choose on the night, reading the room.

Simon:  

  I think we’ve got about 20 now that we could pick from. There are so many songs from 2021 I want us to have in the bag. But then new songs come along and I want to do them too. Maybe one day if enough people care we could play some of the albums in full. Maybe a 12 night residency at Wembley Stadium. One night for each album.

Lewis:  

  There’s sooo many songs to choose from but I think it’s important that we get our sets polished and focussed.

FUTURE LOVE (Live)

8) You started Das Kapitans due to Fuzz And The Felts being unable to get together due to Covid, would you consider Das Kapitans to be your priority now or will Fuzz And The Felts take precedence once (or if) the virus eases off?

Steve:  

  

  Fuzz And The Felts was great fun, but a much more difficult writing process. We had a sound that we needed to write to. With Das Kapitans, our writing style is our sound.

Simon: 

  

  I think we’ve got a lot more Das Kapitans to be doing before we consider whether Fuzz Felts do anything else. There’s been no official break up so we will see where the next few years take us.

Lewis: 

  I like hitting things for anyone that will let me hit things.

CANNIBALS

 

9) Tell me about Socks On Records and recommend who we should be listening to...

Steve: 

  After a few albums were released, we were sending music out to small indie record labels for some reason. We kinda figured, in the spirit of DIY lets just do it all ourselves, so we came up with Socks On Records. Essentially, its a Bandcamp only collective of like minded artists rather than a traditional record label. It’s a way of artists sharing audiences and helping each other with promotion etc whilst going under the name of a record label. We have some great acts on there. The Morphics are garage punk/new wave and remind me of a mixture of  Man? Or Astro Man? mixed with B52s or The Cramps. Cliff Hazzard is an extraordinary avant-garde writer who is super inventive with what he does. He wrote “10 Inches” for out “10” album. Soviet Films are an epically powerful band that will have your head in an absolutely spin trying to figure out what they’re gonna do next. Dan The D is a legend round these parts. He’s an artist of such talent with albums recorded all over the world. Pinfold are a great young alternative band with a big future. All the acts on Socks On put our song writing to shame.

https://socksonrecords.bandcamp.com/  

10) As obviously 12 albums in one year isn't enough, you've signed off 2021 with a "Best Of" cd/digital download called That'll Do For This Year (The Best Of 2021). Did choosing the tracklist cause punch ups in the ranks or was it an easy task?

Steve:

  We’re actually quite boring. It all came together fine. Simon narrowed it down to start with, I went through it and cut it down to what I though was the right length for a cd. Turns out I didn’t trim it enough, so Simon finished it. All amicably. In hindsight we could probably do a second best of with the songs we took off.

Simon:  

  As there have been so many songs it was near impossible choosing  a best of album that other people would also consider the best songs. I guess we could’ve called this “Simon and Steve's Best Songs That They Could Fit On A 79 Minute CD”

TWO LEFT FEET