“A supergroup? Yeah that’s been thrown at us, but I think it’s ridiculous!” laughs the Trohman. “It’s kind of comical because we all act so stupid in this band. To be honest, I thought there was going to be way more bashing when we got this band together, mostly because it looks weird on paper. When you hear it, though, it makes a lot of sense to people! I understand that it looks fucking strange to people but the reception has been amazing and even the guys who dissed us at first have changed their tune. The funniest thing is that they’re acting like they never even said anything bad in the first place! It’s a classy move, guys… I always laugh when people try to put us down like, ‘this sucks, go back to your old band’ – and it’s like a back-handed compliment, because what you’re really saying is that you like my other band.”
For Trohman that band is anthemic pop-punkers Fall Out Boy, and shortly after The Damned Things’ stint on the upcoming Counter Revolution festival tour, it’s back to their ‘other bands’ for pretty much all the members. However, according to the guitarist, it’s more of a bummer at this point in time considering the great run the band has had so far.
“We just did a US tour for Ink Magazine over here with Maylene And The Sons Of Disaster – that was fucking cool!” says Trohman. “We were discussing that tour the other day, actually, and we were saying what a shame it really is because we basically have to go on hiatus for a while after the Australian shows. It’s just a shame for us to have to stop now because we’ve developed this really cool fan-base and the shows are so much fun. We also just finished recording a song for the Batman video game soundtrack, so hopefully we’ll get to play it for you guys in Australia – that should be a special treat because we haven’t done that yet.”
Despite the upcoming hiatus, Trohman says he is already looking forward to all the lads finding some time in the near future to put together a follow up to last year’s debut ‘Ironiclad’. Combing their obsession with classic rock anthems, powerful melodies and heavy metal shredding, Trohman says he’s still quite shocked over how easily the material came to the band.
“The only thing that I can say was even a slight problem was the logistics, which was something we knew we would face from day one,” he claims. “You know how some bands talk about a writers’ block or how it they fight over ideas? Well, we were like the opposite of that. The only thing that stood in our way was trying to make our schedules align so that we could all get together in the same room as much as possible, as difficult as that was some of the time. We’re looking at doing another album in 2013 or 2014, I know that sounds like a long time from now. Hopefully we’ll at least get to do some shows together when we get a chance and maybe try and squeeze in some new songs. I write a lot of music on my own anyway, and I know the other dudes do the same when they have a moment, so we could easily send stuff back and forth from afar.”
In the meantime, Trohman suggests Australian audiences soak in The Damned Things as much as possible at Counter Revolution because the wait for their next gig looks like it’ll be a long one.
“What’s the show like? Well, it’s like a drunken Mexican rock ’n’ roll fiesta! Or maybe a Chinese fiesta. It’s just a fun rock show, and that’s probably the best feedback that we could hope for from people anyway. It’s not like this is math-rock or anything particularly zen, we made this band up purely for us to have fun and for other people to have fun hearing it or watching it. From what I know I think we might be one of the heaviest bands on this festival, which is kind of weird because I didn’t think we were particularly that heavy. It’s kind of strange to be playing in between other bands like Yellowcard and Panic! At The Disco and All Time Low… It’s going to be interesting. All those guys, they’re great dudes though, but I get this feeling we might stick out a little bit.”
BY NINA BERTOK
