Two years ago the Casanovas were a new band on the fast ascent – an audacious mix of New York punk, AC/DC, and hair metal. They were feted by the likes of You Am I's Tim Rogers, appeared at the Big Day Out and Meredith festivals and possessed undeniable pop hooks, irrepressible style and a real star quality. But the initial flush of hype subsided; recording sessions with Kim Salmon producing were abandoned and founding member Jim Lewis aka Jimmy Heat left the band. But despite the difficulties the Casanovas look set to strike again having been signed to Rubber Records, touring with the Dictators and finally releasing the long awaited Keep it Hot EP.

So what’s happened to the band’s pseudonyms?
There’s a certain degree of tongue in cheek that people can get without thinking it’s an insult. It was a fun thing for us at first that we thought was funny but it kinda wears thin. It’s not the reason we’re doing it, too take the piss.

So Tommy Love has been buried?
Well, I’ll always be known as that to the ladies.

When did the joke stop for you?
The band went through a lot of changes. That initial hype that we had for having the novelty value, as well as having the music, just wore thin.

Does that mean you’ve also lost the lashings of Rob Halford/Judas Priest style falsetto?
I definitely haven’t lost the falsetto. It’s just I don’t write it into the songs as much as I used to. It pops out on special occasions. It’s something that you don’t want to overdo. I’d probably sing up higher more if that was a chest voice but it’s a throat thing. If I do it too much it actually fucks my voice up.

It’s been about two years since the initial rush of interest. Is it frustrating that in that time you’ve only released a single and an EP – maybe five or six songs all up?
It’s really frustrating. It comes down to a few things. We did this recording with Kim Salmon that didn’t work out. Then we’ve had the thing with Jim leaving. Losing Jim at first was like losing a girlfriend. I was really upset and it was really, really heartbreaking. It sounds corny but that’s the way it is with music because you are sharing something so intimate. The dynamic between the three of us is magic. Jim’s decision is to stick with his full time job and play with his other band the Naked Eye. We could’ve gone on with the three of us and played every couple of months but I’d rather try and make something of it.

Were you getting plenty of advice at that time when it appeared things weren’t happening?
Yeah. The best bit of advice was from Bill Walsh (Cosmic Psychos drummer) who said ‘don’t get stressed because there’s no rush’. I thought that was really cool because we got all this initial hype then that died off and I kept thinking about what Bill said.

What happened with the Kim Salmon sessions?
Kim had some ideas about what to do with the band production wise. They were really good ideas and in some ways we weren’t up to it. The thing that didn’t work out for us was the use of a click track on the drums. We did ‘Shake Some Action’, the Flamin’ Groovies song, and that didn’t turn out too bad.

Did it surprise you that someone like Kim Salmon, with his power punk background, would want to use a click track?
It did surprise me but he wanted us to get that slick American, Urge Overkill sound. I was happy to go along with his ideas and what he wanted because I was honoured to have Kim produce us.

Shane O’Mara ended up co-producing ...Keep it Hot with the band. What was the difference between Kim Salmon and him?
Kim wanted to be the out and out producer and basically had a word to me beforehand that what he says goes and you don’t argue with that. That’s fair enough. That’s what most good producers would ask I guess. Shane was a pretty easy going kind of character and was essentially our engineer slash producer. Kim’s a pretty intense kinda guy.

You supported the Dictators recently. What was that like?
Man, that was just awesome. For me playing with the Dictators was absolutely equal to playing with AC/DC or something. The first punk rock record I ever got hold of was ‘Blood Brothers’ when I was 13-years-old.

Did you get to hang out with them?
For sure. Particularly on the last night of the Sydney leg we were hanging out and talking which was incredible because you’ve got Handsome Dick (Dictators singer) going (heavy New York wrestling accent), "you know Dee Dee he didn’t really fuckin’ fit into this world but in the Ramones he was a fuckin’ genius." And shit about Stiv Bators and the Dead Boys. "Stiv was a great character, a very great guy. Cheetah – yeah, he’s doing ok. He’s in Philadelphia, he’s married, and he’s got a band. We played with them y’know."

What did they think of the Casanovas?
Ross the Boss (Dictators guitarist) was like, ‘yeah man, it’s all there. A bit of Kiss, a bit of AC/DC, a bit of Dictators, a bit of a sense of humour.’ So that made me feel pretty good.

Did you ask Ross about Man O War?
Definitely. I was singing the Man O War songs to him and he was cackin’ himself. The other thing that was interesting to me was to ask Andy (Shernoff) and Ross what they thought of Kiss because they essentially started around the same time but what I read in "Please Kill Me" was that Kiss was everything that punk was not about. But they were really positive about Kiss except for Gene Simmons. Handsome Dick was like, "when you talk to Gene he’s gotta be up here. You got to talk up to him because he thinks he’s a star." Well, he is a star.

Keep it Hot has a couple of Kiss homages in it.
It’s very Kiss-like. Jimmy is partial to a Kiss quote or two in his songs.

Do you feel like there’s a place for you to lay your heart on the line and I don’t mean in a Kiss ‘Beth’ kind of way.
There’s more of that these days. Sometimes I’ll think of something funny to write about but I guess that was a stage I went through and it was really good to get it out of the system.

¡Tarantula!
the Sand Pebbles' fanzine
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©2002 Christopher Hollow

 

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