(The Novaks, left-right, Mark Neary, Elliot Dicks and Mick Davis. Photo contributed.)
Mick Davis bemoans the loss of spontaneity and of real guitar heroes in rock music. The Novaks singer and guitarist says technology allowing bands to fake things in the studio to get a perfect sounding recording is killing emotion and feel in rock music today.
But Davis hopes his Newfoundland band can help change that.
“Singers today in these power-pop, whatever you call them, punk groups on the radio, they never sing through a whole track, you know, or at least it doesn’t sound like it to me,” he says. “Because of ProTools, they can sing the chorus, and if they get it right the first time, they cut-and-paste it into the other two places where the chorus is.
“Instead of, when you listen to a Lenny Kravitz song, when he goes, ‘ooh yeah,’ or ‘rock on, guitar solo,’ you don’t hear that anymore because nobody’s actually sang through the whole take, and you’ve lost all that feel and improv, you know. And it really sucks. There’s no guitar solos on the radio anymore … there’s no guitar heroes. That video game is huge now, and I think that might be in our corner,” he says with a laugh.
“I’m not saying I’m a guitar hero, but at least there’s guitars prominently on the album.”
Davis was chatting with EastCoastNoise recently about The Novaks new album, Things Fall Apart (Sonic/Warner), which was released two weeks ago. The trio’s sophomore effort comes four years after the band’s self-titled debut, a long time for any band to wait around.
Tonight at The Rock House in St. John’s, the band hosts an official CD release show.
Apart from a concert here and there, the band has mostly laid low since touring finished for its debut a few years back.
But a lot has changed for the group. Most notably, guitarist Chuck Tucker left The Novaks prior to the recording of Things Fall Apart last year, leaving Davis (vocals, guitar), Mark Neary (bass, vocals) and Elliot Dicks (drums) a trio.
“Just before we made the record, (Chuck) said he had a job offer and he wasn’t sure he was gonna do, so we said ‘Well, if you’re going to leave, you should leave now before you put your face on the album.’ That wasn’t any big deal or anything, he just wanted to go that way and we said, ‘Well, best to ya.’
“We all sort of knew that he’d sort of go off that way, be a regular person,” Davis continues. “He got a great job offer and I think he’s more of the type that would like a family and a house and all that. The rest of us are crazy. I don’t think he was so meant for the road as the rest of us.”
It takes a special type of person – or a crazy one, as Davis describes – to want to live a life on the road. While the hour or two each night of playing to fans is supposed to make the lifestyle worth it, many bands will tell you living away from family, friends and your own bed gets to you after a while.
“You’ve got to not mind scrounging, just going in the hole, making it work no matter what,” Davis says. “Everyone else in the group now will do whatever it takes. When we’re home we play gigs or do whatever work we have to do to keep it going, but we will never latch on to anything that will keep us here.
“You’ve got to be crazy in a sense; you’ve got to believe in it. I can’t do anything else, I have to do this. Sometimes, you, in a town like this, like St. John’s, you hang around with so many people who play .. it’s a real close-knit scene and everything, but sometimes you forget that most of the people you’re with are not going to be doing this forever, you know. A lot of groups or bands start in college and when they get their degree, it’s over. That’s not us. The Novaks or bust for me.”
Davis says he’s always known the rock n’ roll lifestyle was for him.
“I never went to school. I had a couple little jobs that didn’t last very long, washing dishes one time when it got really bad. Besides that, it’s been from playing for pizza to playing for $50 to being in all the papers and playing for nothing,” he says, laughing.
The singer says playing as a three-piece has forced The Novaks to work harder and it’s made them a better band because of it. In the last few years, the band has gotten to be more business savvy as well.
“The new record to me is very honest, for me. It was just songs that I wrote, you woke up in the morning and this is what came out, whereas the first record was sort of … when I wrote those songs I didn’t even know that we’d ever make a record. There are songs on there where the influence is on the sleeve. Like, I think I have a Rolling Stones song, so I’m going to write one like that.’”
But the band has come into its own on Things Fall Apart, 12 tracks of classic rock n’ roll sounds that wouldn’t sound out of place next to old Tom Petty records.
Davis doesn’t deny his influences, but he says he gets tired of hearing comparisons to Petty, The Rolling Stones and other bands.
“The Rolling Stones and Tom Petty always come up with us,” he says. “And that’s fine because people love those guys. That’s no insult or anything. But it just gets tired after a while.
“The key is longevity because then they’ll start comparing young bands to you. That happened to us really early on. I remember somebody getting one of those (Canadian Music Week) report cards from ChartAttack, there was a young band and they said that they sound like us. It was like, ‘Jesus, we just got here ourselves. They were probably highly insulted,” Davis says with a laugh.
Davis, wanting to get away from comparisons to other bands, actually didn’t want one of the new album’s tunes, ‘Under Those Wheels,’ to be on it as it sounds too much like a tune by The Faces, ‘You’re So Rude.’
But Gordie Johnson (Big Sugar, Grady), who helped the band out on the new record, loved the tune and threw in his bid to keep it on the record. He went so far as to play the tune for his neighbour in Austin, TX, Ian McLagan, keyboardist for The Faces.
McLagan liked the tune and agreed to play keyboard on it. Needless to say, Davis put his concerns aside and the tune is on the album.
“So if anyone says, ‘you ripped off the Faces,’ I can say, ‘well, one of the Faces is on it,’” he laughs.
The Novaks host its CD release show tonight at The Rock House in St. John’s, and the band’s next Maritime date will see the group on a bill with The Trews, Thornley, Econoline Crush and headliners KISS on July 18 on the Halifax Common.
For Davis, the gig is a bit of a dream come true. He says growing up he was a huge KISS fan.
“The other guys, no … me, yes,” he admits. “I was a maniac. I think most kids were about KISS. Not so much anymore, but I’ve got a soft spot for them. If you’d told me about this when I was 10 years old, I’d have shit my pants. But the boys, Mark and Eliot never listened to a KISS record in their lives.”
Going forward, Davis is just looking to play for people again and promote the new album. The band has Ontario dates with Matt Mays & El Torpedo and a reunited Change of Heart over the next few weeks.
A video will also be shot for the band’s single “There Goes The Night.”
If you haven’t heard the new album yet, Davis says it represents just how The Novaks sound on stage, playing scrappy, guitar-based rock n’ roll.
“I’m proud of the record, but it was made in 10 days,” he says. “Ideally, I’d love to go in and make a Beatles record and spend a year on it, but if I look at it like, ‘Well this represents the group live,’ then I have no qualms with it. It’s full of flubs, full of mistakes. We didn’t use a meter, drummer didn’t play to a click, nothing like that. It’s very real. It’s going to be tough competing on the radio with all the robotic, sort of sterile stuff, but hopefully it’ll help change it.”
