ESCAPE WITH JOHNNY TOOK
Lead guitarist, Johnny Took, of Aussie band DMA's, talks with Double Rainbouu about life back home, covid, their new album 'The Glow', his 13 year old self and whats coming up next.
You’re back in Sydney at the moment after being based in the UK, what’s it like being home?
Living in Edinburgh for a year was an amazing experience for me and I have had time to reflect on a lot of things. One of them being how much I appreciate my home and the people who were still there. I wasn't completely ready to move back to Sydney so I'm currently based in Melbourne which (covid aside) has been another inspiring experience. I like to keep moving because It inspire my songwriting with the new people I meet and places I visit.
I think it’s important to look for positives in the general situation at the moment. Have you seen anything come out for your industry or your band?
100% - It's hard when an industry such as ours relies so much on crowds and live performance but we have been trying to find some positives. We're more fortunate atm because DMA'S is an already established band. I feel for younger emerging acts atm because touring and getting on festival bills for the first time is such an essential way to get your name and music out there. For us we've just been knuckling down on our songwriting and production skills so we can make the next next record just as special and our previous ones have been for us.
We love your new album ‘The Glow”. Crazy time to put something out into the world. How did it feel for you?
Because of everything going on in the world atm we decided to push it back a few months. I'm glad we did because the response had been great and we have been fortunate enough to have constructed some covid-safe gig at The Factory in Marrickville - there's a tremendous energy in the room for these shows, it's been great to perform these new songs live (even in an acoustic environment) you can tell people have missed live music!
Growing up in Aus, how did Australian music have an impact on your music making?
My dad was a lighting engineer for acts such as Cold Chisel, INXS so him being in the industry made me aware of a lot of music at a young age. For us as a band we take a lot of inspiration from Paul Kelly and The Go-Betweens just to name a couple, but there's so much good Australian music both past and present it's hard for it not to be inspiring!!
OK so time travel back to when you were thirteen years old. You’re coming from 2020 and telling them where they are now. What would they be doing? What would be their reaction?
Travel as much as you can cos it's gonna be a bit hard after this - I think my 13 year old self would just be chuffed he could play more than the intro to 'Scar Tissue' on the guitar...
What’s coming up?
Another 6 covid-safe shows this weekend, gotta keep songwriting and gonna release my first remix too. It's for my mate Alex's new act named 'Perfect Moment' - the song's called 'Time and Date in New York' it's a great tune.
Johnny wears our Rainbouu Logo Black Couch Surf Hoodie. Click here to get ya hands on it