Photo Credit: Rob Stack
Nearly five years ago, Kelley, Jessi and Nikki Darlin formed a band of their own after meeting and spending time together teaching young girls at a Tennessee rock n’ roll camp; a camp Kelley Darlin developed eight years ago. With the help of their drummer, Linwood Regensburg, who also taught at the camp, the band recorded their first album, self-titled Those Darlins, on the Oh Dang Wow label. The album’s success took them on tour to over 140 locations all over the country, eventually opening for class acts like Wanda Jackson, Dan Auerbach, The Black Lips and Deer Tick. They just started their headlining fall tour this month with Turbo Fruits. I caught Nikki Darlin on the phone at a gas station somewhere between Cleveland and Chicago to talk about their new 7” vinyl single entitled “Night Jogger,” released on September 14th.
DV - The artwork for the band’s recently released 7” single “Night Jogger,” is your personal arm x-ray. I heard you had a spill earlier this year after a show in Ohio.
ND - I’m not wearing a cast or brace or anything, but it’s been sore starting out the tour.
DV - That injury forced you to cancel your Australian tour right?
ND - No, we actually rescheduled that tour and are going in December. It’s our first time overseas.
DV - Your music has been described as 'The Carter Family meets The Black Lips,” but there’s a whole other dimension of fusions within your sound? How would you describe it, and would you initially describe it as country?
ND - Yeah , it’s kind of two extremes but we’ve certainly been described that way. Neither of the two have anything to do with each other in my opinion, but I get it. At first we identified more with country, but not so much anymore.
DV - So what does the new record sound like?
ND - It’s a lot more garage rock n’ roll than our last record, which was more country-based. I think that’s the kind of music we want to make together right now.
DV - When can we expect it?
ND - It’ll hopefully release in March of next year. Linwood did more writing for us on this one.
DV - You’re currently on tour with The Strange Boys and Gentleman Jesse as your opening acts. How does it feel to come from playing dive shows, to headlining your own tour in such a short span of time?
ND - It feels great. It’s not really overwhelming because we’ve done a lot of work to make it this far in these past years.
DV - Is the band consciously trying to change the “man’s world” mentality within the music world?
ND - No, it’s definitely not something conscious we’re doing. It’s just who we are. We aren’t trying to make any kind of feminist movement. We’re just in a band and we just happen to be women.
DV - It seems like you guys are just out to have a good time making music together.
ND - Yes, exactly.
DV - Aren’t you engaged to a member of Deer Tick? I heard he proposed to you on stage at a show?
ND - Yeah, (the proposal) on stage was kind of a joke. But we met in New York at a show prior to touring with Deer Tick.
DV - So are wedding plans sort of pending?
ND - We are both on tour so we’re not sure when (the wedding) is going to happen right now.
DV - You guys switch through instruments like a pack of cigarettes, from guitar, to bass, to bass ukelele? Is it like, once you learn one thing, you can pretty much pick-up anything else?
ND - I think it just depends on the person but we all switch off playing instruments and singing lead. It’s kind of hard to sing lead and play bass at the same time.
DV - Do you guys drink as much as you sing about drinking?
ND - …. Probably (Laughs).
DV - I guess in country music, drinking comes up a lot more as a topic.
ND - Yeah, (Laughs) we don’t have as many songs about it on our new album.
DV - I think Johnny Cash’s head might explode if he saw you guys play today. What do you think?
ND - I don’t know really, … (to the rest of the band) Hey guys, what do you think Johnny Cash would think of our show? …. I bet he’d think it was pretty cool.
Yeah, we think he’d be proud!
Those Darlins play at Terminal 5 October 29th and Austin City Limits October 8th.
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