Victoria based punk rock band Durban Poison are getting ready to invade western Canada on their latest tour in support of their soon to be released split EP with Swedish rock band the Headons.
“We’ll have it back in time for the first night on tour,” said Durban Poison vocalist/ guitarist Matty Corvette, aka Chelsea Sawatsky. She is excited about invading Lethbridge March 30 at the Slice with Fist City, Calgary’s the Slabs and Edmonton’s the Lad Mags.
“I’m totally looking forward to the tour. We just finished our first t-shirts. And we can’t wait to play with Fist City in Lethbridge again,” she enthused adding she is excited about playing with the Lad Mags and the Slabs as well.
They wear their ’70s influences on their sleeves, drawing a lot from Victoria punk pioneers the Dishrags and , of course, the Ramones — they cover the Ramones Merry christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight) and have a song called “I Want to Go To A Ramones show” on their “Lost in Space,” CD.
“The Ramones were the first true , real punk band. I remember playing the Rocket to Russia LP and listening to it over and over again. It made me believe I could play,” she said.
“I was learning acoustic guitar and learning all of these songs. They had so many chords. Ramones songs don’t have as many chords. We‘re totally from that era— the ’70s,” she said.
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More importantly, they are excited about playing their new music.
“We’ll be playing a lot of new songs and a kicking Joan Jett cover,” she said adding a lot of the new material comes from a recording session they did late last year.
“We recorded a lot of songs in 2012 right before Christmas. We have the split with this band from Sweden called the Headons. And we have another split record coming out with Electric Empress. We’ll have eight songs on it, and they’ll have six,” she said adding the two songs on the Headons split were ones that were “outliers” from those sessions, which didn’t quite fit in with the others.
She is busy taking care of business with her record company Shake Records.
The Headons just sent her a message, though she had never heard of them before.
“I listened to their stuff and I thought it was pretty cool,” she said adding Shake Records is taking off.
“I just started it to do Durban Poison stuff. Because a label looks better on an album, even if it is a joke label,” she said adding the company has expanded to anything but a joke.
“We started to give friends advice about things like where to get vinyl pressed. Now we’ve got 10 releases coming out in 2013,” she said.
She also plays in a couple different bands including Mascara Nites for which she plays drums while Durban Poison drummer Steph Shaker plays guitar. She is also part of another project which they haven’t named yet.
They are pleased to be part of the growing Victoria music scene.
“There are a lot of good bands playing. And people coming through to play,” she said.
—By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
