Made in Auckland, mixed in Stockholm: the Datsuns are back

The Datsuns emerged in the late ’90s from Cambridge on the banks of the Waikato River. Their self-titled debut album topped the charts at home and made a huge impact in Europe just as the White Stripes were re-fuelling rock music with low-fi, high octane energy.

Eye to Eye is more nuanced than anything they’ve made before.

“We’ve gone past just trying to make a record that sounds like four of us in a room,” de Borst said. “Different layers, vocal harmonies, guitar effects or whatever it is, it’s very much a studio creation and playing around with things … finding the right balance was something we all wanted.

“I still very much want it to be a collective thing too, I don’t want to be making executive decisions but with Christian (Livingstone, guitar) and the other guys (guitarist Phil Somervell and drummer Ben Cole) in two different cities in New Zealand, in just takes a while.”

After recording the tracks at Neil Finn’s Roundhead Studios in Auckland, de Borst took everything home to Stockholm for the next stage. Having become a father for the first time in 2015, his family grew to four with a second child in late 2019, hence his home studio often resembling the set of Play School.

“It’s a massive change, at least it was for me and I probably needed a few years to sort myself out … I’ve got a completely different perspective on most things now,” he says. “I’d been playing in other bands too, and then this pandemic happened when we were ready to push go on everything, so we’ve been waiting to see what happens. Now we can get on with the next thing.”

Over the past six years, through mountains of emails shared between band members, de Borst’s passion for making new Datsuns music stalled at times but never faltered. And now, looking ahead to playing live again, Melbourne ranks high among the cities where he’s most keen to crank the amps.

“Back in the early days we’d say we’re doing an Australian tour and play six shows in Melbourne then fly back home. It always felt like a home away from home for us. It’s a place where people really got what we were trying to do. We’d get home, save some money and six months later do it again. It was brilliant.”

Among the other bands he’s been playing in – prior to live music largely grinding to a halt – has been the second incarnation of Swedish rockers the Hellacopters. The Datsuns first supported the Hellacopters in 2002 and de Borst has long been friends with Hellacopters frontman Nicke Anderson.

“The Datsuns played with the Hellacopters on that final [Hellacopters] tour in 2008 and I’ve been playing with Nicke for a while [in Swedish-based band Imperial State Electric] so it felt like an easy transition,” he said.

“I’ve put myself in a place where I can have my cake and eat it too, because I play in the band but I’m not really in the band … it’s nice to just turn up and play and it helps me retain [the feeling of] being a fan.”

‘I’d rather be the one performing than hitting record.’

Dolf de Borst

Joining the re-formed Hellacopters as a touring member in 2018, de Borst was on the road in March last year when the band’s festival shows were shut down.

“We had to cancel a few shows,” he said, recalling the growing worldwide concern around COVID-19 last year. “We got back to Stockholm on the last flight in and the next day they cut all flights, it was pretty weird.”

He said “restrictions here are a little different” to New Zealand or Australia with authorities in Stockholm “walking this fine line of trying not to be too authoritarian” and instead putting faith in citizens voluntarily complying with health measures.

“I try and walk everywhere I go anyway and I wear a mask most of the time, but I also tend to live in my own little bubble,” he said.

It’s meant more time working on other projects, but while he enjoys the recording and production parts of making music, the more technical aspects of engineering leave him less excited.

“I’d rather be the one performing than hitting record,” he says.

“I have an ear [for production] but it all comes with the territory these days if you want to make records, particularly with the Datsuns scattered around the world.”