An Interview with Danko

By: Katlyn Mortimer

Last week, I hopped on a zoom call with Lewis White and Mike Garner from Falkirk-based rock band Danko to talk about their new EP ‘Take Your Time’, which is due to be released soon. After seeing the band perform in Edinburgh last month (which you can read about here), I loved their very classic rock ‘n’ roll sound, and was curious to know what it was that inspired them and their latest EP.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Hearing Aid (Katlyn Mortimer): Admittedly, I was doing some research and internet stalking before this interview, and I know that you guys have been a band, and have been friends, for a long time. How did the band come to be?

Mike Garner: We met at a party years ago, me and Lewis. We had mutual friends there and Lewis had an acoustic guitar. I had a shot of it, and he was like, “Wow, you’re really good at guitar, we should start a band.” [Lewis] was in the same year as Jamie, our bass player.  I asked him to get involved. And then Matthew, our drummer; (Lewis's family and his family have known each other for years), when we found out he could play drums, we asked him, and that was it.

HA: How long have you been in that same lineup for?

Lewis White: It’s been just over ten years since our first gig. It’s been the same lineup but massively different. It was very acoustic. We changed our name back in 2019 too. We were called The Nickajack Men.

HA: What inspired the name change to Danko? I’m assuming its maybe related to Rick Danko?

White: Yeah that’s right. We always had issues with people trying to say ‘The Nickajack Men’.

Garner: Everyone was like “Oh are you called the snack-a-jack men? The Knickleback men?” So we needed to change it.

HA: Your sound is quite established as being very rock ‘n’ roll and Americana. What would you say specifically was influencing you when making the new EP?

White: It’s funny, because this EP is new, but some of these songs are so old for us as well. We got to work with an absolute legend to record the EP – Ethan Johns. When we actually went [to the studio] to do it, we had all the songs pretty much written and ready to go. But for writing the songs, there were a whole load of different topics across the process of writing them. Probably the first song written for the EP was ‘Having Trouble’. We’ve had some of the songs for six, seven years probably.

HA: So it was just the task of getting them ready and producing them?

White: Yeah, we had fourteen songs recorded that were ready to go out, so the first EP that we put out was from the same session as some of these new ones.

HA: That’s cool, so it's like a mixture of songs from a broad time period?

Garner: We’ve been writing songs for years, and we just pick the best ones to go and record.

White: On the new EP, Ethan Johns had a pretty big say on what songs he wanted to use.

HA: Your latest single which has been released ‘Having Trouble’, the lyrics talk about having trouble with love, drugs, and there’s this sense of longing for some kind of relief, right? That’s definitely relatable for a lot of people, so how did it feel to write and produce a song like that?

White: It was cool, to be honest. That song is kind of older, and one of the first songs that we recorded and we were like, “Oh Jesus, this is good.”

HA: It feels very big.

White: Even the demo of it is like that as well. It’s probably bigger because it’s got more production. When we were working with Ethan, that take of ‘Having Trouble’ is the first take. All the songs on the EP were recorded, like, straight up in a room, live. No after dub, no effects or anything like that. That was quite cool, though, that we got to use the first take.

HA: The EP itself is called Take Your Time, so what inspired the name?

White: For bands like us, it can sometimes be a long drawn-out process to actually get anywhere. Because we’re not like a one-hit-wonder or anything. We’re more interested in making an album, rather than just a one-off hit. I think music is very much geared to be a viral clip on TikTok or somewhere. So what’s the process after that? You need to just keep repeating that. I’ve never wanted us to be that. So it’s always been “take your time.”

HA: I think a lot of people view the album as a dying concept in that way—

White: I hate that.

HA: I know, I don’t like it either. Like you said, viral moments have become so prioritised in music rather than creating a body of work that you can sit down and listen to, and that really says something.

White: Absolutely.

HA: ‘Take Your Time’ is the name of the EP, and it’s also pretty good advice for if you’re ‘Having Trouble’ or ‘Losing Your Mind’, which is the second single from the EP, and a lot more rock ‘n’ roll sounding. It reminds me a lot of the band Big Star. Did that one start from a lyric or an instrumental part?

White: [To Garner] You came up with the riff for that.

Garner: In my head while I was writing [the riff], I thought it could just be a song. And Jamie started playing it and it sounded huge.

White: It's weird how it happens. It sounds really artsy and stuff, and I’m not even that guy [laughs] but it just happens!

HA: Some songs write themselves in that way

White: Totally. And we’re just an actual band in every sense. Mike and I will write the songs and get the structure, and then we’ll have all four of us and play it. But that one came from messing about with a riff, and we made that into a tune.

HA: At the gig at Cabaret Voltaire, I managed to get one of your setlists and I wanted to ask about some of the other unreleased songs that you played – particularly ‘Whitey New Build’, what’s that one about?

White: [laughs] That’s like my nickname! It’s just like a new song that builds, but that’s an unnamed song. It won’t come out as that, but I don’t know what I’ll call it. Sometimes it just comes to me. If not it’ll just get a stupid name like ‘Gecko’.

HA: Obviously you’ve been a band for a long time and have evolved. Is there anything you’ve learned over time, especially working with different producers?

Garner: Working with Ethan, it was the first time we ever recorded live in a room together, all of us as a band. Whereas before, we would track it live and then we’d go back and overdub all of our parts. To do it live together, you just got the feel of the song and it sounded great. Most of the songs on the new EP are of the first takes.

White: It was all within about four takes, for every song. Usually, you’re in a studio for literally hours, going over and over. Ethan said that there would be none of that, and it was just about catching a moment. You could do another take and probably play it better, but if you hear a moment or something special in a take, sometimes it’s worth just going with that and trusting the process. We’d almost done the full EP in two days.

The first day we got there we played ‘Having Trouble’ three times, and he said “right, in yous come guys”, and we were like fuck, it must be shit. But then he said that one was finished. I thought he was joking.

HA: I’m sure the live recording leaves room for moments that cant be recreated, and sometimes imperfections can be what make a song.

Garner: Ethan said that too, that sometimes imperfections can make it special.

White: Especially these days, because everything is so polished and perfect. Even the bands that I love. So this [EP] will hopefully stand out a bit because it’s not like that.

HA: You were just on tour, so how has that been? Are you used to touring together now?

White: We had a great time. It was class. It’s cool to go to different places.

HA: Was there a standout show?

White: I’d say Birmingham. It was a good crowd. It surprised us a bit.

HA: Can you confirm or deny that Scottish crowds are the best?

White: So far definitely [laughs] I just hope we can get to America and change that.

HA: I’ve always thought about the overlap and connection between Southern American country music and Scottish music. I feel like there’s a connection that’s often overlooked but it’s very present in your music. Do you ever think about that overlap?

White: Yeah, it’s almost like roots. I suppose some ceilidh music is not a million miles from bluegrass. I thought some of the stuff on ‘Morning Sun’ – which you won’t have heard yet – kind of sounds like that. Its in between American country and Scottish sounding, so you’ll hear a bit of that on the EP.

Danko’s latest EP ‘Take Your Time’ is set to be released soon. The band will also be playing in London on the 14th-16th March for the Country 2 Country festival.