The Galvatrons are preparing to unleash their retro rock sounds on a nation, with the release of their debut album Laser Graffiti next week, and their support slot with Something with Numbers. I caught up with the band’s flamboyant lead singer Johnny Galvatron to chat about his group’s big sound, their “ridiculous” new album, and his uncanny knack for always getting just what he wants!
Your sound harks back to the 80s, with the big synthesizers and sing-along choruses. What do you love most about that period of rock music?
I was more influenced by soundtracks than specific bands. I guess that’s kind of where the band stems from, that whole science fiction soundtrack, that whole 80s soundtrack vibe. So I think the record has that whole Breakfast Club meets The Last Starfighter kind of vibe, which is definitely what we were going for.
I caught you supporting Cheap Trick and Def Leppard last year. What was it like to be on the road with such legends?
I mean, it’s Def Leppard! How awesome’s that? I had a sweet time! And I really like Cheap Trick, I’m a massive Cheap Trick fan. They came out one night, I think it was at ACER Arena, you know like 15, 20 thousand people, and they walk out and go “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, we’re The Galvatrons!” and then played “In The Street” from That 70s Show and that was like the highlight of my life, like single tear down the side of my face. Cheap Trick just introduced themselves as my band. That was probably the most amazing thing ever.
And the Def Leppard guys, if you ever become a big stadium rock band, you want to be like those guys, because everyone who’s on tour with them loves them. They eat all the same catering as everyone else, they all sit around with the crew when it’s dinnertime and stuff, and the crew love them for it. They’re just geezers, they’re such nice guys. So I think it was a very good lesson on if you do succeed, how to treat everyone and how to do it the right way.
You have such energy on stage. How do you keep things fresh when you’re on the road for long periods at a time?
Umm, probably just drugs! (laughs) No, no. I think we really love what we do, we love playing rock and roll. We’re not one of those bands that are too serious about what we do. We know we all have a really good job and we love playing rock and roll. It is hard being on the road for a long time, and being in a band for a long time sometimes, but we love what we do. We’re very thankful for it.
What do you love most about performing live?
I’ve always liked the performance side of rock and roll and putting on a really good show. I guess that was one of the things on our mission statement when we set out, was to bring fun and entertainment to our shows, and a bit of escapism. I think the world’s in a very similar position as it was back in the 80s, you know, world recession, bad financial times, people looking to lose themselves in rock and roll and different rock and roll stars. I think we wanted to provide that escape and that big rock and roll show.
You spend so much time touring. Can you tell me any crazy tour stories?
There were some geese in our tour van once! We have no idea how they got there, but we had a massive night in Perth and then we got back to the car in the morning and there were geese in the car. That was a bit bizarre!
And you know, all of those different ones where you wake up in a different city and you’ve got no idea how you got there, that old Nikki Sixx kind of thing. We played Brisbane the other night, and we lost Condor our bass player. And we got to Sydney today and he’s in Sydney. We don’t even know how he got here. He had four days on an absolute bender.
You played some festivals in the United Kingdom last year. What was the response like to your music?
Yeah, really good. We had that whole thing, same thing happened to Jet, where a lot of people know who you are, but no one knows your songs. But we had a fantastic response over there, and we got a lot of press because there was a couple of other rock and roll bands following us around, watching us play which was really cool. It went really well over there. We played Hyde Park, got kicked out by Sting, it was very cool.
Oh I heard about that, you mentioned it when you were on Rockwiz.
I was drunk when I was on that show! They liquor you up, I tell you, they liquor you up before they put you on that show. I’ll tell you a funny Rockwiz story. You do rehearsals in the arvo, and they asked “Is there anything we can do to make your stay better?” And I was like “I want a life-sized cut-out of Janis Joplin,” and everyone had a bit of a laugh. But then when I got there that night, there was a full life-sized cut-out of Janis Joplin, in my dressing room, holding a bottle of Jack Daniels.
That’s brilliant!
That’s pretty cool hey?
So do you have any plans to get back overseas?
Yeah we’ll probably head to the States this time, probably towards the end of the year. Michael Parisi [Michael Parisi Management] signed us, so we’re going to be taking our record around. We’ll go over there and show them what we’re made of.
I absolutely love the film clip for “Cassandra.” How much fun was it to shoot?
It looks more fun than it probably was! We were just in a big green room standing on a black stage really, just rocking out, tying scarves on my guitar. I stole that from Phil Collen from Def Leppard actually. On the last night, we were all hanging out, drinking. They just brought out these bottles of wine and were like “We don’t know if this is any good.” It was like Penfolds Grange 96! It was like “Yes, thank you, we’ll have some of that!” So we were sitting around drinking really nice wine. It was like giving strawberry to pigs, I had no idea how good it really was. But we were sitting around and I said to Phil “Dude, I am totally stealing that tying scarves to the guitar strap, I am totally nicking that.” And he goes “Don’t worry mate. I nicked it from some guy as well!” So he gave me a scarf, and you can see that scarf in the “Cassandra” film clip.
But it was good. You know there’s a girl dancing? It’s one of those funny things when you’re on a record label and you get money to do that kind of stuff. You sit in a room and at one point I was like “You know, I really want a chick that just dances like Molly Ringwald circa Breakfast Club.” And then you rock up on the day and there’s a chick doing it!
The song’s from your debut album Laser Graffiti which comes out next month. What can you tell me about the CD?
It’s a ridiculous epic sci-fi rock and roll record. It’s got a choir on the first track singing “We’re here to save the world” which is an amazingly presumptuous thing to put on the first track of your debut record, which I think’s pretty funny. But we kind of did that as kind of our footnote to the record. We were two months into recording and saying “Does this song really need a second harmonising guitar solo?” and then you think “The first track is a choir singing ‘We’re here to save the world.’ Everything must be ridiculous.” So then you’d do that second guitar solo.
Now your bio and the songs say you’re here to save the world. How do you intend to do it?
Oh I have no idea! It was just a kind of thing for opening up the record and letting ourselves know we planned to do with this record. I guess we’ll just save the world by playing rock and roll. That’s how it works, isn’t it?
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