Johnny Panic
e-mail interview with Rob, June 2005 Sometimes you'd think that the Manic Street Preachers were the only band ever to have had an intelligent thought. Bands with little in common with them musically, such as Kinesis and Rancid, along with R*E*P*E*A*T's very own Miss Black America and The Virgin Suicides, have been accused (with varying degrees of accuracy) of wanting to be 'the new Manics', for daring to want to write about more than their skateboards, their girl friends or their ganga. While this is a great compliment to the fatty Welsh ones, it is hardly helpful in describing new bands. One such band to suffer this double edged compliment are Johnny Panic for infusing their raw, guitar powered melodies with a social consciousness - "everyone of our songs is trying to get something across." Teenage suicide, drug destruction, a determination to question everything and an all consuming fear of, in the word's of Sylvia Plath, 'the death of the imagination', mark out the stance of this fast emerging four piece. This band is just what a music scene grown bloated and boring needs. Energy, adrenaline, excitement and yes ideas combine to produce a sound which will have you putting it on repeat play on your stereo and then leaping around the room and perhaps half believing (again) that rock'n'roll can change your life and indeed change the world. If only for 3 minutes. Hearing that Johnny Panic were to return to Cambridge to play a free Church of Noise gig with Towers of London on 13th June, Rosey e-mailed vocalist / guitarist Rob to find out how it feels to be (yawn) 'the new Manics'...
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1. Johnny
Panic - who what and why? 2. The Sylvia
Plath name firmly locates you as a certain sort of band.Do you worry
about getting pigeon holed? 3. Heroes-
musical and political? 4.What about
heroes that have let you down? 5. In an
age in which bands taking the piss out of genres are king, isn't ittime
that someone came along with something more interesting and exciting
to say? 6.Do you
find it annoying that for daring to sing about more than ganga, skateboards
and girlfriends you get tagged with the new Manics kiss of death?
7. William
Blake said originality is worthless, would you agree? 8. What
can the good people of Cambridge expect of your live show? 9. Who or
what would you like to burn instead of your youth? 10.What
do you listen to when hoovering? 11.Anything
else you'd like to say? 12.What's
next for Johnny Panic? 13. Chips
or cream buns? Johnny Panic's debut album is now available to buy in all good record stores and here Thanks to Rob for his time and to Myles the manager for sorting things out. Details of the free Towers of London / Johnny Panic / Tsar gig on June 13th are available from here
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