The Datsuns: Yesterday's men today

In the course of four turbulent years, The Datsuns have gone from penniless musicians, to adored rock stars, to whipping boys for the British music press. Alex Hannaford lent them a floor to sleep on, and a sympathetic ear

The phone was ringing incessantly. It was 9am on a Sunday morning, I had a hangover, and wasn't in the mood for incessant ringing of any kind. "Hey, it's Dolf from the Datsuns," a voice said. "We're at Heathrow - can we come and stay?"

It all came flooding back: that night at the end of the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas the previous month. The drinks, the scrawled note with my phone number and a drunken, verbal invitation to some New Zealand band I'd seen (and loved) to come and stay at my place if they ever came to England. An hour later, six weary Kiwis were trudging up Bow Road in East London, dragging their huge wheely suitcases and amps behind them. And for the next six weeks, my housemate and I would have to pick our way over bodies strewn across the lounge floor, to get to the kitchen.

But, a week after the four-piece (plus manager and girlfriend) had arrived, my phone began ringing off the hook with record companies, music publishing firms, even companies wanting to print their T-shirts - in short, everyone wanted a piece of the action. So much so that the head of Atlantic Records flew over on Concorde to see one of this band's first London gigs at a dive of a venue in Kentish Town.

The Datsuns eventually signed a large deal with Richard Branson's V2 label in both the UK and the US. NME put them on the cover, hailing them as "heroes of the new rock revolution". Inside, along with eulogies such as, "Here's a band who revitalise the sacred tenets of rock'n'roll" and "the most talked-about new band on the planet", was a quote from the Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl, saying "The Datsuns are what the world needs."

The Independent's Steve Jelbert said they were "ridiculously great... the perfect metal outfit, using only the best elements from 30 years of heavy rock" and, when their eponymous debut album came out, even The Daily Mirror called it "invigorating... a big and brash blend of titanium-coated rock power".

That was 2002, and four years is an awfully long time in rock'n'roll. Their second album - 2004's Outta Sight/Outta Mind - got, in the Datsuns' own words, "a critical lashing". The uniquely British penchant for knocking stars down a peg when they get too big, or become the "next big thing" hogging all the column inches, meant that they were no longer flavour of the month.

But naive these boys weren't. Despite the misconception that they were a bunch of hicks (in drummer Matt Osment's words, "running a couple of hundred sheep on some outcrop in New Zealand"), it was as if the Datsuns had seen all this coming a mile off. On their debut album, front man Dolf de Borst sang: "You build me up / To bring me down... even your home town / finally decides you've made a sound / They turn their heads and stare / At everything you got / And make you something you are not".

It's a fickle world, rock'n'roll. Today we're in a van heading up to Stoke on Trent. The band are about to play their first British show of 2006 and they're both nervous and excited. Their record company, V2, has never lost faith, and now they are recording their third album, due for release later this year.

Dolf, Matt, and guitarists Christian Livingstone and Phil Somervell are philosophical about the past four years. "At the time, we were constantly trying to curb all the hype, to make it all go slower," Dolf says.

"It was a rags to riches story - that actually was the truth," Christian says, "but making a movement out of something that wasn't a movement was bound to fail. If you go back and read reviews at the time, we were saying we weren't part of any revolution and we certainly weren't the biggest band on the planet. Journalists were also keen to get us to slag off other bands. They wanted another Oasis vs Blur face-off, with The Datsuns vs The Darkness. The Darkness fell head first into it because they loved a bit of press, but we refused. I didn't have anything against them and I think that pissed some journalists off because they wanted their copy."

"The kids can't keep up with it," adds Matt. "They see a band on the cover and want to go and watch them but, the week later, someone else is the best band on the planet."

As for the story about the Atlantic Records honcho who flew over on Concorde to catch their gig in Kentish Town, the Datsuns smile. "I just thought that was lame," Matt says. "He told us all about it like we were supposed to be impressed."

"He took us out to this incredibly smart restaurant," Christian recalls, "and just when we were about to order he said, 'Don't worry about that', turned to the waitress, and told her to bring everything on the menu." After they'd finished, a waiter appeared with a huge platter covered in banana leaves. Underneath were four Led Zeppelin box sets - one for each band member. "A friend of ours has this expression: you should milk the fatted cow," Matt says, smiling.

Rigorously pursuing this mantra, the Datsuns managed to persuade a host of record labels in the UK to foot their hotel bills (after they eventually left the cold, wooden floor of my house) and ensured that all meetings coincided with breakfast, lunch or dinner. At one show, record company executives formed a queue that snaked around the block from the tiny venue. Many didn't even make it in that night. Halfway through their set, Dolf boomed into the mic: "Who here actually paid to get in?" Three people stuck their hands in the air. "Liars," he said.

"How can you possibly take all that seriously," Matt asks now. "Looking back, I wish we'd charged them. They'd have put it all down as expenses."

After the short-lived "New Rock Revolution", of which The Von Bondies, Datsuns, Hives and Vines were the saviours, came Electroclash, with Peaches, Fischerspooner and Scissor Sisters. Movement followed short-lived movement.

"You do become pigeon-holed," Dolf says, "and you have to either do what you do on a smaller scale or make that leap to the mainstream - and that could involve making songs you don't want to make. And, to be honest, we didn't really want to compromise.

"It's all quite laughable. It's a ridiculous industry and it can be very heartbreaking for some people but, at the same time, it can be amazing. The British music industry is such a cliché; it works like clockwork.

"There have been times when I've felt like breaking up, sure, but it had nothing to do with getting a critical lashing. It's because Matt and I have had fisticuffs, or because mine and Christian's polar opposite ways of looking at our songs is starting to grate on my nerves. But we're still holding it together and we still love it. And these last few shows have been amazing."

Whereas other bands of their ilk - their pals from New Zealand the D4, Detroit's Soledad Brothers or Austin's Young Heart Attack - have all recently split, The Datsuns are determined to continue. Live, they've never lost their edge - they're still one of the most exciting bands around. And the new material, refreshing and powerful, is testament to their will to survive.

"We've come from a position where we were playing to 17 people at every show," Dolf says. "If you really care about what you do hopefully you'll keep pushing through."

Last week, they began work on their third album at a remote studio in Wales. The past year or so has been disheartening. They have all been living in the same London house, itching to get back on the road or record new material. It also made the homesickness kick in that little bit harder; they pine for the countryside and the sunshine.

"I felt completely claustrophobic during that time," Dolf remembers, "wondering what on earth I was doing. We should be out playing, touring or making a record."

What did you do? I ask.

"I wrote another album," he says. "We wrote about 40 songs altogether, some in a different style - a lot more minor key; a lot darker. Very Nick Cave. And I don't know whether this fits into the Datsuns' world, but I'd quite like it to."

The past four years have made The Datsuns think. A lot. And they've decided they want this more than anything. The album they'll release later this year will very likely be the one of which they're most proud. Rock'n'roll may be a fickle game but the Datsuns are a long way from playing their final hand. m

The 'Stuck Here For Days' EP is out on 8 May

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