Stonedead Festival 2025, and hot off the stage from their afternoon slot, three of the four members of Danish Cowpunks D-A-D have joined me for a chat. Ever in good humour, they're exhausted, but looking forward to the imminent arrival of a post-gig curry. "We're gasping here!". says frontman Jesper Binzer. "We are called Disneyland After Dark, so it's unfair to put us on in broad daylight", deadpans bass player Stig Pedersen. Together for over four decades, and mega stars in their home country, D-A-D have survived hair metal, weathered the storm of Grunge, and come out smiling. We caught up with Jesper, Stig, and drummer Laust Sonne to find out where it all went so right. Day of wrong moves; Eamon O'Neill.
Photo; Per Morten Abrahamsen.
How are you doing, guys?
Jesper: We're doing fine; hot and hot and humid and sweaty off the stage!
How was it for you up there?
Jesper; Whenever guys like us get to play only fifty minutes, we give it everything we've got in fifty minutes, and then people our age stand in the audience and say; "how can they do it? How can they be so young?" They do not understand that we're now gasping here! For fifty minutes you can actually play the game.
Stig; Yeah, we are called Disneyland After Dark, and it's unfair to put us on in broad daylight, it really is.
When you're playing in Denmark, you guys are a big deal over there, a mainstream act; is it more challenging when you come over to play places where you're not as well known?
Jesper; The challenge is actually the best thing about being in a rock band. Sometimes this whole Danish thing can be a little; "we do as we do as, and as we've done for many years", so it's very, very lovely to be to meet new people. It gives you a little kick in the butt!
Stig, when I was a kid, I saw a video for 'Bad Craziness', and I'm glad to see you've recovered, because your head was blown clean off your shoulders in that.
Stig; We've always done things ourselves, and we have a very short friend, and he got my clothes on, and we built my head on top of his head, and we blew my head off. Luckily, he survived. Everyone survived.
Your unique two-string bass guitars are obviously a huge part of what D-A-D is, and you had a rocket bass in that video.
Stig; Yeah, well, it started out just like a stupid gimmick, and now I see, actually, you can buy two string basses. Fernandez, or someone are make making a two string model. But if you can't do it on two strings, you shouldn't be at the bottom of the summit.
Jesper, you even incorporated that into one of the songs. You wrote the lyrics; "look at his mind and look at his face, he's got a one track mind and a two string bass".
Jesper; With the lyrics as almost everything, indeed, it's very much a group effort. But the self irony, you know, the irony that lives in this part of the world has been a big part of our whole thing. And of course, sometimes you surf the grade a bit. Sometimes it's really, really funny, so you have to find that balance.
Yeah, you're right, because you had a song like that, 'D*Law', and on the other side of that, something like 'Soft Dogs', which is such a beautiful track.
Jesper; That's more or less a song that should have been without irony, and then we put dogs on the cover and dogs in the video. I mean, we never learn.
Jesper: We're doing fine; hot and hot and humid and sweaty off the stage!
How was it for you up there?
Jesper; Whenever guys like us get to play only fifty minutes, we give it everything we've got in fifty minutes, and then people our age stand in the audience and say; "how can they do it? How can they be so young?" They do not understand that we're now gasping here! For fifty minutes you can actually play the game.
Stig; Yeah, we are called Disneyland After Dark, and it's unfair to put us on in broad daylight, it really is.
When you're playing in Denmark, you guys are a big deal over there, a mainstream act; is it more challenging when you come over to play places where you're not as well known?
Jesper; The challenge is actually the best thing about being in a rock band. Sometimes this whole Danish thing can be a little; "we do as we do as, and as we've done for many years", so it's very, very lovely to be to meet new people. It gives you a little kick in the butt!
Stig, when I was a kid, I saw a video for 'Bad Craziness', and I'm glad to see you've recovered, because your head was blown clean off your shoulders in that.
Stig; We've always done things ourselves, and we have a very short friend, and he got my clothes on, and we built my head on top of his head, and we blew my head off. Luckily, he survived. Everyone survived.
Your unique two-string bass guitars are obviously a huge part of what D-A-D is, and you had a rocket bass in that video.
Stig; Yeah, well, it started out just like a stupid gimmick, and now I see, actually, you can buy two string basses. Fernandez, or someone are make making a two string model. But if you can't do it on two strings, you shouldn't be at the bottom of the summit.
Jesper, you even incorporated that into one of the songs. You wrote the lyrics; "look at his mind and look at his face, he's got a one track mind and a two string bass".
Jesper; With the lyrics as almost everything, indeed, it's very much a group effort. But the self irony, you know, the irony that lives in this part of the world has been a big part of our whole thing. And of course, sometimes you surf the grade a bit. Sometimes it's really, really funny, so you have to find that balance.
Yeah, you're right, because you had a song like that, 'D*Law', and on the other side of that, something like 'Soft Dogs', which is such a beautiful track.
Jesper; That's more or less a song that should have been without irony, and then we put dogs on the cover and dogs in the video. I mean, we never learn.
Getting back to the success in your home country; you've grown to the point of headlining huge festivals like Copenhell, which must be amazing.
Jesper; Of course, it's a big thing that happened, that we went from playing to 250 people to that. We went and saw the Ramones in the '80s, and that has to be the peak of rock stardom; maybe 700, 800 people. Wow, that's great, and then we move and, yeah, commanding an audience like 10 or 20,000. We even played to 120,000 but the thing is, this ding dong, this hot, cold thing about playing these places; playing clubs in Italy, playing big venues and arenas in Scandinavia, it's what life is made of. Really, the dynamic is really, really good for the heart.
Speaking of, good for the heart, Jesper said that Laust coming into the band reinvigorated D-A-D the last time we spoke; how does that make you feel?
Laust; I always feel shit [laughing]. No. I mean, for me, it was, I came from playing very, very small clubs with my own bands, and joined D-A-D, and from one minute to the next, I was playing huge arenas, and it was kind of crazy. It was really; "shit, what's going on?!"
You were coming into a band of, essentially three brothers, really; was that a concern?
Laust; Here is thing; I didn't want to join in the beginning. I thought it would be that they are two together already, with no room for me, but they rolled out the red carpet and invited me in for eighteen months, and had me involved; "How do you think this sounds, Laust? How would you do it?"
Jesper; We were so charmed!
There's great interaction between you all on stage, bringing Laust into the action; for example, you've in the past had the chant of; 'I Want What Laust's Got'.
Laust; That song, that singing started the first show I was playing with you guys in Denmark, just after that.
Jesper; Oh yeah?
Last; Yeah, at a festival. They love it. They want to sing it. Even if you don't sing it, they sing it.
Jesper; It's very important, like, it's more or less politics, because having a new guy in an old band, it's really something where you really have to ask the audience; "please, please take to him, please invite him". So that was politics to start with, just like; "you better love him, because he's going to stay", and then it turned into something totally itself, and it's a lovely thing.
You've been around for a long time, with a lot of studio albums.
Stig; Thirteen studio albums.
How does it make you feel when you look back at that body of work?
Jesper; So tired! No, I think it's very important to have a bad memory, because you really have to reinvent yourself. The most stupid thing you can do is like, to honour the brand. Never, never, never honour the brand. Just keep on, keeping on, evolve, and to try to do something stupid, because the good albums were definitely when we did something stupid.
Jesper; Of course, it's a big thing that happened, that we went from playing to 250 people to that. We went and saw the Ramones in the '80s, and that has to be the peak of rock stardom; maybe 700, 800 people. Wow, that's great, and then we move and, yeah, commanding an audience like 10 or 20,000. We even played to 120,000 but the thing is, this ding dong, this hot, cold thing about playing these places; playing clubs in Italy, playing big venues and arenas in Scandinavia, it's what life is made of. Really, the dynamic is really, really good for the heart.
Speaking of, good for the heart, Jesper said that Laust coming into the band reinvigorated D-A-D the last time we spoke; how does that make you feel?
Laust; I always feel shit [laughing]. No. I mean, for me, it was, I came from playing very, very small clubs with my own bands, and joined D-A-D, and from one minute to the next, I was playing huge arenas, and it was kind of crazy. It was really; "shit, what's going on?!"
You were coming into a band of, essentially three brothers, really; was that a concern?
Laust; Here is thing; I didn't want to join in the beginning. I thought it would be that they are two together already, with no room for me, but they rolled out the red carpet and invited me in for eighteen months, and had me involved; "How do you think this sounds, Laust? How would you do it?"
Jesper; We were so charmed!
There's great interaction between you all on stage, bringing Laust into the action; for example, you've in the past had the chant of; 'I Want What Laust's Got'.
Laust; That song, that singing started the first show I was playing with you guys in Denmark, just after that.
Jesper; Oh yeah?
Last; Yeah, at a festival. They love it. They want to sing it. Even if you don't sing it, they sing it.
Jesper; It's very important, like, it's more or less politics, because having a new guy in an old band, it's really something where you really have to ask the audience; "please, please take to him, please invite him". So that was politics to start with, just like; "you better love him, because he's going to stay", and then it turned into something totally itself, and it's a lovely thing.
You've been around for a long time, with a lot of studio albums.
Stig; Thirteen studio albums.
How does it make you feel when you look back at that body of work?
Jesper; So tired! No, I think it's very important to have a bad memory, because you really have to reinvent yourself. The most stupid thing you can do is like, to honour the brand. Never, never, never honour the brand. Just keep on, keeping on, evolve, and to try to do something stupid, because the good albums were definitely when we did something stupid.
Photo; Per Morten Abrahamsen.
The band entered the UK market with 'No Fuel Left For the Pilgrims' [1989] and 'Riskin' it All' [1991]; how did it feel coming to that new audience?
Jesper; The funny thing is that everything evolved for us in a fast, but organic way to start off with. So everything was; "of course, yeah, of course, yeah, of course, yes, yeah. Worldwide? yeah, of course, yeah, of course, yeah, of course"; It was only funny, and you start to be thankful and grateful when things started to crumble, when grunge came and everything, and you fell a bit apart, and suddenly we had to, you know, put on smiles on our sad faces; "Oh yes, it's going great!"
Yeah, because 'Riskin' it All' came out a short time before Nirvana's 'Nevermind'.
Stig; Nirvana came overnight.
Jesper; But I mean, we evolved into that as well, because we knew, and we could feel that, I mean, Nirvana had the same background as us; they had they came from punk rock, they were subversive, that they were dirty, and we were there, but we just couldn't find a home with any kind of energy. When we started, you know, three years earlier; "okay, let's join the hair metal club. That's the only place we can", so, I mean, it was funny just to revisit our own energy.
You've stayed true to what the band is over all the years.
Jesper; Yeah, I mean, we're so lucky that we have this mainstream thing going in Denmark, so we can more or less pay our bills. Whenever everything goes to shit, we can play clubs in Denmark. "We're back! Again! From yesterday!" [laughing].
What's happening for you, going forward?
Stig; We're going on a big European tour with a Finnish band called The 69 Eyes. Goth guys! They bring us to Warsaw in Poland, the former Yugoslavia, Hungary; places where we can open up for them. Then we are bigger than them in Germany, so they open up for us in Germany, so we swap so you can tag team. It. We go for almost two months, and then it's Christmas,
Well, thanks so much, guys.
Stig; Okay, see you in Ireland!
Jesper; Guinness!
Jesper; The funny thing is that everything evolved for us in a fast, but organic way to start off with. So everything was; "of course, yeah, of course, yeah, of course, yes, yeah. Worldwide? yeah, of course, yeah, of course, yeah, of course"; It was only funny, and you start to be thankful and grateful when things started to crumble, when grunge came and everything, and you fell a bit apart, and suddenly we had to, you know, put on smiles on our sad faces; "Oh yes, it's going great!"
Yeah, because 'Riskin' it All' came out a short time before Nirvana's 'Nevermind'.
Stig; Nirvana came overnight.
Jesper; But I mean, we evolved into that as well, because we knew, and we could feel that, I mean, Nirvana had the same background as us; they had they came from punk rock, they were subversive, that they were dirty, and we were there, but we just couldn't find a home with any kind of energy. When we started, you know, three years earlier; "okay, let's join the hair metal club. That's the only place we can", so, I mean, it was funny just to revisit our own energy.
You've stayed true to what the band is over all the years.
Jesper; Yeah, I mean, we're so lucky that we have this mainstream thing going in Denmark, so we can more or less pay our bills. Whenever everything goes to shit, we can play clubs in Denmark. "We're back! Again! From yesterday!" [laughing].
What's happening for you, going forward?
Stig; We're going on a big European tour with a Finnish band called The 69 Eyes. Goth guys! They bring us to Warsaw in Poland, the former Yugoslavia, Hungary; places where we can open up for them. Then we are bigger than them in Germany, so they open up for us in Germany, so we swap so you can tag team. It. We go for almost two months, and then it's Christmas,
Well, thanks so much, guys.
Stig; Okay, see you in Ireland!
Jesper; Guinness!
RSS Feed