The Accidents : Dead Serious Drunken Rock'n'Roll!

By Jens

Once in awhile a band comes along which has best of different rock'n'roll worlds to offer, The Accidents are such a band. The big guys infuse their fast energetic kickass tunes with classic English punkrock, greasy rock'n'roll and a touch of vintage country. Their excellent debut album, "All Time High", is one of the best Swedish records I've heard this year, so I was quite curious to hear what these guys were about, and their extraordinary drummer Rick Rebel Jennings was kind enough to let me in on some Accidents secrets. Other members incl. Kid Kreole (guitar), Fred Tank (bass) and singer/guitarist D. Vacuum.

LC: Gimme some Accidents history.

RR Jennings: Ok, well, its a quite complicated story involbing a lot of like Babs, Buzz Aldring, Tommy Cash (Johnny's brother), Tommy Salo, Albert Järvinen, but I'll try to make it short. D. Vacuum went to Greece og all places with the old drummer J. Carlzone. Vacuum tried the rock'n'roll spirit of Greece but didn't manage to find it. The answer to his rock'n'roll trip in fact close he thought. After a hard day's work trying the Greek rock'n'roll spirit he got back to his and open up a bottle of beer. Not satisfied at all at, he drank a case of beer, and at the same time he listen to some good old LPs with Status Quo, Hurricanes, Zero Boys and Eddie Meduza. Then finally he found it! He got to Sweden called Kid Creole, Fred Tank and Me. With me deeply into outlaw country music and Mr. Tank and the Kid deeply in moonshine and with Vacuum's Greek experience we had the perfect combination to rock.

LC: I hear classic UK punkrock as well as American r'n'r and rootsmusic in your tunes? You do a Hank Williams Sr. cover; "Pan American"?

RR: Well, we all grew up to great bands like U.K. Subs, Stiff Little Fingers,
G.B.H., Blitz and bands like that so it just comes natural that you hear kinda
British influences. What we try to is to strip the music down to it's core. Just
like Anti-Seen or The Ramones did. I mean you can take a Ramones track and make a perfect country out of it 'cause it has the same elements as a country song. We listen to a lot of different. And when we make songs our influences just get mixed up but we strip'em down and make Accidents songs. I like Hank Jr. too and his son Hank III but I think Sr. was the best song writer of them.

LC: "All Time High" (Bootleg Booze Records) is a fuckin' great party record, what kinda alcohol etc. would you recommend to it?

RR: I wouldn't recommend Fred Tank's moonshine even though it's probably responsible for us making the record. I like to recommend cheap wine like Kir, Auroa and Körbärsvin, and if you just had your pay check you should buy Baileys and vodka and mix'em.

LC: Pros and cons of having the same outfit (white shirt, black pants, suspenders) on?

RR: Our mums and dads taught us how to dress. They like that we look good on stage. Just because we are losers doesn't mean have to dress like losers.

LC: Tell me about the new "Dead Guys" 7" (also on Bootleg Booze Records), it's a tribute to your heroes?

RR: Yes, it's a kind of tribute to great people who made some awesome music and then went on. We recorded it in a couple of hours just some weeks ago here in Örebro. On this 7" we play songs from Buddy Holly, Johnny Thunders and Eddie Meduza. It will be released in a couple of weeks and the cover will be something special.

LC: Mickey Fitz of The Business is a friend of yours, so you're soccer hooligans as well as drunks?

RR: Kid Kreole get along with Mickey 'cause they love soccer. Vacuum has recorded with him for a Burning Heart special cd. We're just drunks.

LC: "Fixin' Up To Die" is a pretty serious song since most of your songs is about alcohol, girls and fighting?

RR: Since we are The Accidents, everything is serious. We're fucking dead serious with every song we have made. We don't use rock'n'roll as an image like of the eightball action rock do. We write songs about we like and stuff we have been through. Alcohol, girls, hurricans and fighting is our life. If you smell what The Accidents are cooking.

LC: If you were a world dictator, what'd you do?

RR: Give George A. Romero as much as he wants for "Land Of The Dead" (the 4th zombie epic after "Night", "Dawn" and "Day Of The Dead", ed.). That's about it. Get some of them Mopars, Hemicuda Charger 500 '68.

LC : You played with Zeke last year, how was that?

RR: That was ok. That Kid played half the set without plugging in his guitar. I had killer hangovers and dropped about 700 drumsticks. Otherwise it was great. It was Zeke's last on that tour they played an awesome set. Great guys and we'll probably play with them again in the near future. So don't you fucking miss us then. I mean, The Accidents and Zeke, what more could you ask for! Did I hear one say Motörhead?

LC: Craziest incident on the road or at a gig?

RR: Every time this question comes up my mind goes blank. There's just too much to mention.

LC: The Duke vs. The Fonz, who'd win a fight? Lets say without guns (sorry John Wayne).

RR: Hmm...I´ll go with Fonz on this one.

LC: Any new kickass Swedish bands Lowcut readers should look out for? I'm nuts about The Locomotions of Stockholm.

RR: Never heard of The Locomotions, maybe I should check them. Just wait. (5 minutes later). Checked out their website and listened to "She Got Her", not my style. I think The Coffinshakers are Sweden's best band at the moment. Black Knights are also good. If you into old Pentagram (I am! ed.) and Roky Eriksson you should check out Witchcraft.

LC: Future plans? Anyhting to add?

RR: Get the "Dead Guys" 7" out and record a new 7" at the end of November. Play a lot of gigs. We'll try to our ass to Denmark and play too. We played there 2 years ago with Anti-Seen and it was just great. We'll try to record our second album in February but nothing is sure yet. We're now taling with big record companies so we don't know when the second album will be out. See ya all.

http://www.theaccidents.net