By DAVE REYNOLDS
Patience & persistance pays! Should be up by 2000--Scott
READERS! READERS! Can I have your attention, please? Thank you.
Check this out! At the end of last month Phonogram here in the UK finally decided, after six months or so of dithering, to release the debut album from American hot shots Dan Reed Network·
Up 'til the beginning of this month DRN (not to be confused with Dumpy's Rusty Nuts of course!) were little more than another in a long line of US unknowns in this country of ours with nothing but a cult following through import sales of the 'Dan Reed Network' debut album, a record that’s been out in the States almost a year now.
But at last the news filtered through that, yes, the album would be released in the UK (preceded by the brilliant "Get To You" single) and – well, douse me in a bottle of Krusher’s Dirty Sock Water – DRN would be playing their first ever show on British soil on November 25 at the Marquee in London!
It’s been claimed that Dan Reed network’s music is "funk-fuelled rock’n’roll that defies categorization," and that because of this they would find it extremely difficult to gain any kind of success.
Not so. The album hit the Billboard chart with a bullet and the two singles, "Ritual" and "Get To You," have been extremely successful debut outings within the major market.
The band are neither outright funk nor full-speed-ahead rock, but fuse the two styles somewhere in the middle, producing one of the most exciting sounds of 1988.
Dan Reed network are a mutli-racial act. Reed himself is of Hawaiian origin. An adopted child, he was born in Portland, but spent much of his early life in South Dakota before finding employment in a Burger King restaurant and discovering rock’n’roll. The rest of the band comprises Brion James (guitar), Melvin Brannon II (bass), Japenese-born Blake Sakamoto (keyboards) and Daniel Pred (drums).
"Daniel Pred and I have known each other since Seventh Grade in school,": Reed relates. "We met in a music store in south Dakota one day – and when you meet another musician in South Dakota you instantly put a band together! Ha! Ha! Daniel is actually the only white guy in the band, I might add!
"Anyway, we decided to move to Oregon because the music scene wasn't exactly booming in South Dakota, which is where we met the other guys who are in the band now.
"Before this band got together we all used to be in cover bands; Daniel and I used to play Van Halen, AC/DC, Doobie Brothers and Sly Stone material in the past. It wasn’t until this group got together that we actually started getting into the funk and R’n’B stuff that Melvin introduced us to, stuff like the Gap Band, ConFunktion and things on that level. And I turned him on to bands like Mother’s Finest."
I think that the biggest comparison you’ve received style-wise has been the "Bon Jovi-meets-Prince" comparison.
"Oh yeah, we get that a lot. It’s kind of funny because I really don’t know how that came up."
Well, you voice and the harmony vocals combined with some vicious guitar riffs are a touch Bon Jovi-ish, and the Prince aspect comes from the funky beats of songs such as "Baby Don’t Fade."
"That’s interesting. We’ve also had people tell us we sound like a combination of Aerosmith and the Gap Band! I dunno, maybe where the middle ground is between the likes of these bands is where we are. We’ve got influences from both sides, from heavy Metal to funk."
I’ve often wondered why there’s this stigma concerning black musicians in rock bands…
"I feel it’s all due to the segregation that has built up in the last few years. When Jimi Hendrix came out he had a major white audience and so did Sly Stone and a lot of other black artists who were crossing all the barriers at the time. But then the disco era happened and rock’n’roll went its own way, so that when dance music came back it was obviously going to be separated from rock’n’roll, because of the disco thing.
"What people forget is that a band like Aerosmith used to be really funky and you could dance to their music, a fact proved by the Run-DMC cover of "Walk This Way." I hope that we’ll be in the eye of that storm, so to speak, of the new bands that are coming out that are a reminder of what music is supposed to be all about - the ‘do what you feel on the edge’ stuff and not the safe ‘follow the road’ style that's been going on."
The music and songs on the DRN album seem to be written from a very street level. Most of them deal with love and sex (‘Get To You', 'Forgot To Make Her Mine,' etc), but there are also message tunes – ‘Sorry', written about suicide, for instance – that do make the listener think about life.
"We all come from pretty poor backgrounds so that when we write together our songs convey how we see things. We stay on the street or in the alley."
How do you feel about the delays in releasing the album in Britain and Europe?
"Well, that's a real sore point with the band, because we expected the record to be out over here long before now! For some reason they held back. I still don’t know the politics behind it all, but I guess they must’ve been waiting for when we were able to come over here and play. I think we’ll be doing some 15 European shows in all this tour."
I between all the touring and promoting DRN, Dan has been courted by some of the American rock industry’s biggest names in his capacity as a songwriter after the critical acclaim of his work.
"I’ve been writing with John Waite, Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain recently on songs for John’s new album," he beams. "I’ve also been working with Hall and Oates too. It’s really nice to get respect for what you do from other musicians as well as from our fans.
"For this next record we’ve written so many songs, we’ll really have a tough time choosing which ones will go on the album. We’re hoping to start recording at the end of January, but it does depend on what happens here in Europe. Because if this tour goes well, then we could end up coming back here to play more shows."
Will the next record be funkier or heavier than the first?"
"We’ll be moving in both directions. The songs are funkier, but they’ve got a lot more guitar on them. Brion’s playing is so good now that we’re letting him go for it in almost every song!
"I can tell you that there will be some quite in-depth stuff on the album too. There’s a song called 'Sing To Me', which I wrote after seeing the 'Imagine' movie about John Lennon.
"And also there's 'Let There Be No More Walls Between Us', which was written after Brion and I went down and lived in the bum part of Portland for a while with the street people, where we ate at the rescue missions and slept on the streets for four days to get a slice of life through their eyes. Some of the lines in the song, such as the title, were actually spoken by these guys."
How do you think the world will be treating you next year Dan, when the second album comes out?
"Well we've been seen out on a small level in the States and I feel that there's this big storm brewing full of raw, middleground stuff like our music tha’s coming back, so we’ll be there.
"We exist for that two hours on stage so hopefully a lot of people will get a little slice of life through our music or whatever. We intend to knock down some walls within the segregation of the music industry, make people demand us.
"I know that when we play the Marquee the people who’ve heard us will be expecting a lot from us, but we’ll be expecting a lot from them too. As long as they’re giving out to us, we’ll be bleeding for them. Come down and dance with us, cos we’ll dance back!"
If you’ve heard the album already and have been turned on completely by DRN’s funk-induced rock with its unforgettable hooks and riffs, try and seek out a five-track mini Lp the band put out in 1986 on a small indie labe (I know I’m still desperately searching for acopy to add to my collection) featuring such gems as "Fire in the House," "Eye On You," and "Mind and Body." It was produced by Marlon McClain, guitarist from the Dazz Band and is much more funky and raw than the brilliantly produced (by Bruce Fairbairn) album, but it's still DRN through and through.
It'll be interesting to see how Dan Reed and his crew fare at the Marquee. But the message, to my mind, is quite clear. To paraphrase the lyrics to 'The World Has A Heart Too':
'Everybody listen, not just a few, cos Dan Reed Network can kick ass too!’
