BIOGRAPHY – D-A-D

When D.A.D. Draws a Circle was released in the summer of 1987, the band’s status was boosted by its inclusion of a cover of the 1970s America classic A Horse with No Name. And while their follow-up album, No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims, would see them reach their commercial peak, D-A-D‘s popularity would begin to dwindle soon afterwards. Regardless, the band have remained active for the last three decades and still command a loyal following. The history of the group can be traced back to Denmark in the early 1980s when a new punk band called ADS emerged on the local music scene. Throughout its brief life they would undergo numerous line-up changes, featuring several musicians who would later form cult outfits in Denmark to varied degrees of success, including Lars Top-Galia (Sort Sol) and Karsten Hjarsø (UCR).

Among the musicians to perform with ADS during this time was bassist Stig Pedersen, who would be fired from the band after two years and decided that he wanted to form his own group. He soon met another high school student who had begun playing guitar called Jesper Binzer and the two began performing together, eventually recruiting Peter Lundholm Jensen to play drums. The trio would become known as Disneyland After Dark and, at Pedersen’s suggestion, brought in his girlfriend Lene Glumer as their singer. Disneyland After Dark‘s first concert took place on December 3rd 1982 at a small club in Copenhagen known as Sundby Algaard. The show would not go quite as the band and hoped and, agreeing that Glumer had been a disappointment, decided to fire her immediately afterwards and instead allow Pedersen to perform the vocals. Their first few shows as a three-piece proved to be more successful but they still lacked real talent and so brought in Jacob “Cobber” Binzer, Jesper’s younger brother, to play the more complex parts of their songs.

Excited at their new line-up, they performed their next show at Musikcaféen in Copenhagen on March 3rd 1984 and, despite Cobber’s involvement having supposedly been temporarily, the band felt that they were ready to take on the world. The first business figure that they attracted was John Rosing, a local manager who agreed to help the group secure further shows around Denmark. Their first big break came when they were booked to perform at the Roskilde Festival, a major event that took place annually in the Danish city of Roskilde. By mid-1984 they had begun to generate a buzz around the local scene and were approached by a small label called Mega Records, who expressed interest in signing the group. They had already recorded several demos of material that they would often perform live and now they felt confident that the time was right to enter the studio and record them professionally.

Having been awarded 15,000 DKK by a government body that had vowed to help local musicians, the band relocated to Copenhagen’s Studio 39 in April 1985 for a five-day session with Mega’s regular producer Frank Marstokk, who had also worked with fellow label acts Sky High. The result would be their first 12″ single, Standin’ on the Never Never, which was released by Mega Records on May 28th 1985. While the song would reach the low expectations of the label, they were still eager to bring the band back to the studio to record a full length album and the following autumn they teamed up once again with Marstokk to record more material.

The recording of what would become Call of the Wild would be far more ambitious than their previous sessions, with the band now feeling comfortable in the studio. Recycling only one track from their earlier release, they recorded a further ten tracks, consisting of both new material written specifically for the album and songs they had been performing over the past two years. Their blend of country music and punk rock would soon earn them the label of “cowpunk,” a tag they now shared with American acts like The Beat Farmers and The Cramps. Call of the Wild was released on February 4th 1986, a little over eight months after Standin’ on the Never Never had debuted. Throughout the rest of the year the group toured in support of their album to sold-out venues, a far cry from the lukewarm response their recordings had received. But success was looming on the horizon and a change of personnel at Mega, in which Marstokk had decided to leave the company and had been replaced by Mark Dearnley.

This would prove to be a blessing for the band as Dearnley would become an important figure in late 1980s rock, as he would oversee the production on albums from the likes of The Dogs D’Amour and The Quireboys. Although there would be conflict with Dearnley in the studio, he managed to capture the essence of the band on tape during their thirty-day session, something that Marstokk never truly managed to achieve. Their second album, D.A.D. Draws a Circle was released on June 16th 1987 and finally brought the band minor success and acclaim. The record not only featured the aforementioned cover of A Horse With No Name but also several tracks that would become fan favourites, such as Mighty Highty High and I Won’t Cut My Hair. Despite this, they had yet to break out of their own country and it was decided that they needed to take a major leap forward if they were to succeed. D.A.D. Draws a Circle had brought to an end the contract with Mega Records and now the band were considering their future, eager to escape the shadow of independent labels and jump headfirst into the mainstream.

This new success would not come overnight, however, and the band were still forced to struggle through the Danish music scene. With the help of their manager, the group began discussions with Medley Records and, following a short tour of the United States, they recorded a set of three songs with producer Nikolaj Foss, auditioned for Medley. The label had been formed in 1978 by Poul Bruun, a former promoter at CBS Records who had launched Medley and had soon attracted artists like Billy Joel and One Two (whom Foss would also work with on a regular basis). Bruun was finally convinced that the band belonged on his label and commenced work on their third album in the autumn of 1988.

Foss would be assisted during the sessions by his mixer and co-producer Lars Overgaard, a respected member of the Danish music community who sadly passed away in 2010 at the age of just fifty-two. While D.A.D. Draws a Circle had shown the band maturing, its successor, No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims, saw the band at their artistic peak, producing an album of strong melodies and commercial tunes. Among the tracks included were Jihad, Ill Will and their most famous song, Sleeping My Day Away. Disneyland After Dark finally began to achieve international success when the latter was released as a single, allowing their manager to travel to the United States to showcase the band to major studios. To their surprise, the band signed a two-album deal with Warner Bros. Records for a reported $1m and No Fuel for the Pilgrims was given a re-release, along with Sleeping My Day Away, which was also issued as a limited edition 7″ with a leather sleeve. Finally the band were able to break out of their home country and achieve success in America and Europe.

But their newfound fame would come with a price. Signing with Warner Bros. had brought the band international exposure and this had brought them to the attention of the Walt Disney Company, who took issue with the band’s name Disneyland After Dark and threatened legal action. This would not be the only occasion that the studio would cause problems for a rock band that had referenced their name, as London-formed Bomb Disneyland would suffer a similar scandal a few years later, while Ugly Kid Joe would also fall foul due to their 1991 song Madman, which featured the line “Madman is loose in Disneyland.” When Michael Eisner of Disney heard of the song he decided to fire the band from their next project, contributing a song to the upcoming comedy Encino Man (released overseas as California Man). Warner Bros. would only sign with Disneyland After Dark if they agreed to change their name and so, reluctantly, they were rechristened D-A-D.

While the label re-designed the artwork for No Fuel for the Pilgrim, removing the band’s old name and replacing it with D-A-D, they continued to promote the album on the road, performing around the United States, Asia and Europe. This longwinded tour would result in a live EP entitled Osaka After Dark, which consisted solely of material taken from their breakthrough album. Recorded in Osaka, the EP was released exclusively in Japan on January 23rd 1990, although it would remain unavailable in Europe and America. But before the band were able to take a break following months of touring Warner Bros. were demanding a follow-up to No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims.

Once again D-A-D reunited with Foss and Overgaard, both of whom had been integral to the success of their last album. Heading to Copenhagen’s Medley Studios, the recording for what the band hoped to call Bone Hard in Soft Surroundings would take place in spring 1991, two years after the original release of No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims. Re-titled Riskin’ It All, the album was released by Warner Bros. on October 10th 1991 and was accompanied by an extensive eight-month tour. Despite the single Grow or Pay giving the band a minor hit, the album had fallen below the label’s expectations, particularly in comparison to the surprise success that No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims had been and eventually the band were dropped, effectively leaving them without a home in the United States. Unsure on what direction to take next, D-A-D seemed to slip into obscurity along with many other 1980s rock acts that had struggled to remain popular during the new decade.

It would not only be the business aspect of the band that they would find difficulty with, as now disillusioned by the product they had become under a major label, writing new material had become increasingly difficult. But they refused to be defeated and instead approached other companies to represent them, with EMI-Medley being the most promising option, despite them feeling that the group’s new material lacked any kind of commercial appeal. Teaming up with English producer Paul Northfield, whose résumé as an engineer had included Queensrÿche‘s Operation: Mindcrime and Empire and Alice Cooper’s Hey Stoopid, D-A-D headed to Canada to record material for a new album, before moving back to mix the sessions at in Copenhagen. Their fifth album, Helpyourselfish, finally surfaced on March 1st 1995 but, despite a positive critical response to the maturity they had displayed, it was not enough to rescue the band from obscurity. Throughout the summer D-A-D were on the road again, performing across Europe in an effort to showcase their new songs and win back their old fan base.

For the next three albums D-A-D would work once again with Foss, who had helped bring them success earlier in their career. In 1999, after almost twenty years performing together, Jensen announced his decision to part from the band. He was replaced by Laust Sonne, who had performed as the frontman of Dear and had dated Danish vocalist Benedicte. Following the mixed reception of their tenth album, 2008′s Monster Philosophy, D-A-D decided to work with Foss yet again on a new album, which is scheduled for release around Halloween 2011. In anticipation, they spent the summer appearing around Europe, such as at the Arvika Hamnfest and the Skanderborg Festival in their native Denmark.

Photos: Unknown, Anne Rekilä, Per-Åke Wärn, Robert Vutolen and Jonas Karlsson.