[Interview] Roll The Tanks Invade Los Angeles Straight From The Trenches Of Rock

As pop music remains irresistible for the general mass, and cadres of indie artists become increasingly unconventional, rock purists are feeling a bit parched these days. For Danny Carney, lead singer of the Los Angeles rock trio Roll the Tanks, there’s a sense that rock music has suddenly become an ancient artifact. When Roll the Tanks moved to Los “ She [Ke$ha) was dressed like an Indian with some dude on a laptop and a flavor saver.
” Danny Carney on giging alongside Ke$ha. Angeles in 2005, one of their first gigs was alongside a then unknown Ke$ha.  What postdates that night is a small signifier of the growing disparity between pop and rock music, “She was dressed like an Indian with some dude on a laptop and a flavor saver.  Then like a year later she’s on SNL and we’re playing at Spaceland for the same people.  Stuff like that is disheartening, but we’ve been doing this our whole life so we’re used to the failure part of it. We have that advantage in a sense.  Maybe we need to get rid of our drummer and get a laptop.”

Rooted in the East coast, Roll the Tanks are fortifying a local presence with an unabashed brand of rock with remnants of 80′s/90′s punk.  Having emerged through the foliage with their single “Goodnight Jimmy Lee,” a song that pays tribute to the late musician Jay Reatard, Carney and his band mates are priming themselves for a big year.

So get caught up with KROQ and Roll the Tanks in an exclusive interview covering the band’s influences, scratch and sniff CD cases, and why rock artists should be more funny.

Born in Massachussetts, Danny Carney remembers developing an early bond with the pulsating Boston street punk scene, fueling his desire to contribute with music of his own.  Bands like The Dropkick Murphys, a major force in the movement, became instruments for inspiration when Carney was just getting his musical legs beneath him.  With three other musicians, including current bassist Mikey Wakeham, Carney mentioned early complications figuring themselves out, “When we started out we were kind of lost as to what the band would sound like.  I’m kind of a pop guy, but a punk rock guy at heart.  I like simple stuff.”  Adding, “The band was originally named Tanx named after the T. Rex album, so we are also into classic rock.  Roll the Tanks is actually a quote from Joe Strummer’s documentary The Future is Unwritten.  So when people ask what we sound like, I’ll usually say The Clash meets The Pixies.“

“Pistolero”

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In 2005, the band moved to Los Angeles, opting to test their luck in a town where there isn’t much to come by.  It wasn’t long before Carney discovered this for himself, “We put out a record called Suffer City and then lost two members who flew back home.  So we got a new drummer Joe Sirois who also plays for The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. We were doing the Craigslist thing and doing auditions and it was kind of a nightmare.”