For over 30 years, the world has had its eyes on The Dandy Warhols – one of America’s most endearing, idiosyncratic and endearingly dysfunctional alternative rock bands.
Rising through the underground Portland psych scene in the mid-90s, the band went on to international acclaim and a run of inescapable hits across the turn of the century. They enjoy the spoils of those to thisvday, all while still creating new music and touring the world to play to thousands.
As the trajectory of the humble rock band differs so greatly in the present day, it’s put to the Dandys’ frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor whether he believes the band would have reaped the same success were they to start now.
“I really don’t know,” he replies – speaking to Blunt from his Portland basement. “I don’t understand the industry anymore. I don’t use any of the apps they make you use – I mean, I’m in my 50s for fuck’s sake. I fear and loathe it. Zia [McCabe, keyboardist] could probably figure it out, though – she’s a nutjob, and she’s the most online of all of us.
“It seems like you have to reach little kids to make it now. There’s been a deterioration of the old way – there’s really a narrow bottleneck for mega success for rock bands. Ones who have real drummers, and listen to Neil Young and the MC5. If we were starting now, we wouldn’t get to wander around and explore all the things we set out to do. That industry’s gone.”
In any case, you’re glad to exist in the same timeline as the Dandys. Their journey has certainly had its highs and lows, but it’s never been predictable – or worse, boring.
This evergreen longevity has allowed them to remain staples of festivals worldwide – including Australia’s very own Meredith Music Festival, for which the band will make their debut this December.
At each, they inevitably perform alongside bands whose members weren’t even born when their debut album came out – and yet, they can still call those bands peers and contemporaries.
So, what’s the key to the Dandys’ eternal youth? According to their frontman, longevity ultimately boils down to idiosyncrasy.
“We’re very fortunate,” Taylor-Taylor reflects. “A lot of that is because we’ve controlled our records. We’ve recorded ourselves, always. We never went into a big studio to make a record while time was ticking.
“We worked with great mixers and co-producers that could add a level of depth and professionalism that we would not be able to achieve on our own, but we also didn’t let that get in the way of each album reeking of our personality. They had the stink of our humanity on it every time. No-one could have told us that that’s where longevity comes from, but it is. It’s uniquely personal.”
Taylor-Taylor also credits the band crossing paths with musicians they idolised growing up – including The Cure‘s Robert Smith, The Clash‘s Joe Strummer and the late, great David Bowie – and learning key tricks of the trade from them.
The only real difference in his mind, in a moment of blunt honesty, is that these hall-of-famers all knew “how to not be fuck-ups”. “We didn’t do a great job of that,” he deadpans with a smirk. “We were pretty fucked up.
“We weren’t ODing or junkies or anything, but we partied too hard. We were a mess when we shouldn’t have been. Part of that is also definitely on grossly negligent management that have major labels to throw at the wall. They’re not going to try to help you succeed. It’s your job to succeed, and then they’ll jump on and take advantage of it.
We’re a small-town band. We didn’t move to LA and learn the ropes and go to the right people’s house parties and meet all the people that could’ve helped us. I don’t know if we would have even been right for LA. I don’t know if we have the right personalities for it. That surely must take a sort of natural grace or elegance that I don’t think any of us have. I probably wouldn’t be comfortable with any of the people in my band if they did.”
Still, through good times and bad times, the Dandys are still finding new adventures and side-quests to keep themselves on their toes. As part of their forthcoming Australian tour, for instance, they will perform their first-ever symphonic show down under – in Hobart of all places, taking over the illustrious Odeon Theatre with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
Taylor-Taylor still vividly remembers the first time he heard an orchestra playing a song he wrote, care of the Oregon Symphony in 2023 – mainly because it was blasting out from directly behind him.
“It’s an insanely powerful feeling,” he says. “Like, you almost start laughing. It’s just so incredibly gratifying and overwhelming. These are songs that we love and are part of us, and we play can play them our sleep. Then, all of a sudden, all this beauty and depth and these harmonic angles are revealed, and you’re just standing there like, ‘dear God‘. It is transportive beyond words. It might be one of the greatest musical experiences of my entire life.”
The TSO team-up is yet another notch in the cap of the Dandy Warhols’ extensive relationship with Australia – which began in late 1998 and has carried on for over 25 years and over 100 shows.
It’s a remarkable highligh reel: rocking the main-stage of the Big Day Out and Livid, to drummer Brent DeBoer taking the love one step further and moving here, all the way through to finally returning after COVID to play with the Hoodoo Gurus on their first-ever Australian support tour.
For every time Taylor-Taylor has been asked exactly what it is about the band and this sunburnt country, however, the frontman still hasn’t completely figured it all out.
“I will say, the first time my feet hit the ground down there, I was like, ‘this feels like Oregon’,” he says.
“I get hints of Washington, Seattle, Portland, Spokane, Eugene in different places. It’s a really wild country. It’s hard to get to, just like Oregon. There, MTV brought a cosmopolitan-ness to the larger cities, but it did not sweep away the riffraff or the weird ambling sagebrushness of the people. I get that in Australia, especially in Adelaide – that still feels like old Portland to me. I grew up going hunting, and a lot of the people I meet in Australia did too.
“At the end of the day, we’re just grateful that the Australian people have taken all of our work into their own lives. It’s nice to know it means something to them, as well.”
Catch The Dandy Warhols on tour across Australia and New Zealand this November and December; details below.
The Dandy Warhols: ‘Pin Ups’ Australia/New Zealand Tour Dates
- Tuesday, November 24th – Hobart, Odeon Theatre [with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra]
- Friday, November 27th – Auckland, Powerstation
- Saturday, November 28th – Wellington, Meow Nui
- Tuesday, December 1st – Sydney, Enmore Theatre
- Friday, December 4th – Brisbane, Fortitude Music Hall
- Saturday, December 5th – Adelaide, Thebarton Theatre
- Tuesday, December 8th – Fremantle, Metropolis
- Thursday, December 10th – Melbourne, Palais Theatre
- Friday, December 11th – Meredith, Meredith Festival
All remaining tickets for all shows are available here.
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