Death Panthers is a fairly new band. Does this fact influence your music and/or the band itself?
Oliver: I guess so, as we are still pretty raw. The songs are loosely structured, and I think that influences us as band members because it keeps us from getting too stressed about the small things and lets us focus on making the music and/or playing the shows.
James: I suppose it kind of influences the fact that we don’t take ourselves too seriously or whatever, but we’re slowly reaching the two-year mark, so we’re not that new in our minds (laughs).
What was the inspiration behind your EP, Pizza?
Oliver: A friend of ours pretty much forced it upon us because he liked our music so much. Other than that, literally because I like pizza (and cigarettes) so much, which you can hear in the songs’ lyrics.
James: We wanted to make an album that sounded like Crackling, Black Label and Stylos, and I feel like we nailed it. Musically, the influences were just what we happened to be listening to, we didn’t try [to] sound like anyone of them though.
Is there a song on the EP that stands out to the band?
Oliver: For me, I’d say “No teeth”, purely because it was the first song we wrote and it’s completely meaningless, which makes it quite funny. Other than that, it’s sort of one of those songs that all our friends know now and it’s nice when it’s brought up in conversation.
James: I like “Peter sloth” [be]cause we still play it and it’s [kind of] fun to play.
What has been the most interesting part of the creative process for this EP?
Oliver: It was probably all the fun we had recording live in Dave’s (David Gabriel Thorpe from Beach Party, Gateway Drugs and The Dollfins) bedroom. Talking to all the different people from other bands who just walked in and sat on the couch for a bit to listen to what the noise was.
James: The actual tracking. We just sat in Dave’s room and got drunk and recorded songs we didn’t even know how to play. It was a party.
What has the response been to the release of your EP?
Oliver: I think it’s been pretty good, actually. Fans of ours who have been around since the beginning really love it and people discovering us also do. I’m fairly certain that’s because it’s easy to listen to and it’s not some sort of poetry. [It’s] rather just James and I banging drums and guitar and shouting.
James: No idea, but people seem to be asking us questions about it more than usual, so something must be working.
What makes Death Panthers stand out in the Cape Town garage scene?
Oliver: [There are] two reasons: [firstly], we came out of nowhere, really, and got to skip out all the sh*tty bar gigs, and instead went straight to Cape Town’s bigger clubs. [Secondly], we genuinely are doing this to have a good time and make people laugh. It’s not really about being a huge famous band for us, rather just being a band our friends want to play at their house parties.
James: Very little. We were 16 when we wrote and recorded the Pizza EP, so I suppose that is something. We’re still pretty young, not many of our counterparts are in their first year out of school. We’ve got a lot of time on our hands.
Do you have any plans for the band in the near future?
Oliver: We’ve got a gig at The Assembly on the 12th, I think, but yeah, we are busy working on some recordings we did at Kill City Blues (George Van Der Spuy’s recording studio) and we are due to release that fairly soon. Then probably around mid-year we are releasing our first full full-length album, which we are working on with Maxime Alexander from 1991. Other than that, just a few more shows around and just general loitering around Cape Town
James: Yeah, a lot of growth planned. We’re releasing an EP soon and then after that our first full-length album will be almost ready. We’re really excited for that. Maybe a tour, we’ll see. We want to play at more festivals this year [be]cause Rocking The Daisies was heaps of fun last year.
Photo: Alex Travers
