Yet another quality band from Bellville, Dogtown, is making waves in and around Cape Town. Bennie van der Merwe, lead vocalist, answers some questions.
Good day, Bennie. How are things?
Ahoy! Things are going very smooth, thanks.
Photo: Vetman Design & Photography
I saw you guys at Manila bar on Saturday – brilliant show! How come this is the first time I’ve heard you play? It seems like you don’t get out much, judging by the number of recent gigs … or am I looking in the wrong places?
No, it’s true, we don’t play all that much. We are very particular over the gigs we play. People tend to get bored very quickly these days, thus we don't try to give it all away too soon. Also getting in with the right people and playing those quality gigs is not easy. We are currently trying to crack the Cape Town scene, after making some ground in Stellenbosch and the Bellville area. I've fallen in love with the Cape Town vibe, it's quite different from what we're used to.
According to your Facebook page a full-length album is being released this year. What’s happening there?
To be honest, we’ve been having some problems with getting our recordings back, and we’re not entirely happy with what we got back so far. We have grown a lot since our last recording session round about October last year. In short, we don't want to rush our first album and want to ensure that we, as well as the fans, will be happy with the quality of recording. Decisions have been made to start writing on the new album and we are currently checking out new studios, trying to find a producer that will complement our sound and be willing to spend some time on it. I don’t think it will be ready this year, but who knows what will happen in the near future. Obviously we will work as hard and fast as we can. Just keep watching our social media pages – we will be releasing numerous songs this year still. It will be online and, even better, it will be free.
Dogtown is among many rock acts that hail from Bellville “Rock City”. It’s been asked before, but with the new surge it’s important to know: What the hell do they put in the water over there?
I’m not sure – it might be magical, or we might be the product of a rebellion through music as a result of our conservative upbringing. I for one am leaning towards that magical water theory.
On that note – a surge of new, quality bands is always great, but it also makes it harder to stand out in terms of creating a unique yet relatable sound. How do you approach this?
We don’t really think about that, but we do have a lot of different influences with very different styles. Somewhere between the beautiful clashes of styles something different will pop up … I hope. I try to write music that sounds good to me, music that makes me feel good, and I want people to feel good when they listen to it. The rest of the band help to bring it all together in their different styles to mould a unique vibe. We are entertainers and we want our live shows to fuse into a combination of good music, entertainment and the passion we have for sharing our music with fans.
The South African rock scene isn’t always all that kind in terms of who “makes it” and who doesn’t. What are your views on this?
Well, then we’ve got a lot of pleasing to do!
I recently did an interview with Zebra and Giraffe’s frontman, Greg Carlin, in which he was very critical of venues to play in South Africa, mostly the fact that there are very few really good venues for rock bands. Being a five-piece, how do you experience this?
Yeah, he’s right. There are very few venues that stand out from the rest, but a venue is only as good as the people in it.
There’s a really cool story about the connection between your bassist, JP, and aKING, with whom you played on Saturday. I’ll let you tell it …
[JP le Roux, bassist:] The whole thing was organised by Reach for a Dream. They came to my house and asked me a few questions about the liver transplant I had in 2005. They asked me about my interests, and I told them I play bass and love local bands like aKing and Van Coke Kartel. A few months later, on my parents' anniversary, a limo pulled up at our front door and took us to Welgemoed, where we stopped at a random house that turned out to be Theo Crous's Studio. Inside the studio were aKing, Theo and my epic new Fender jazz bass. Most awesome day ever!
What does the near and far future hold for Dogtown?
Near future: Hopefully South Africa digs us.
Far future: Hopefully the world.
What is the meaning of life?
Life has no other meaning than to live it till the living’s up. Pretty simple, I guess – you live and you die. What you do with that one living, that’s the right question.
Photo: Louise Pieterse
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