Bargoed based punk legends Dodgem-X are one of the hardest working bands on the scene right now, they have played literally hundreds of gigs and have released 2 EP’s, both which you can download for free. The band are Luke Davies – Guitar, Geriant Bodman – Drums, Ross Morton – Bass and we recently spoke to frontman Jody Davies to give us the lowdown on the band.
Who are you and what do you do? – I’m Jody and I’m the singer.
Where did the bands name come from? Well, we started off as just Dodgem many many years ago, and I think that came about in a discussion while drunk, but as we’ve been through many many line up changes – we’ve been through more bass players than spinal tap has with drummers haha, then we decided we just wasn’t dodgem anymore and for legal reason there was another band in america called the dodgem or the dodgems or something so we took the same action is liberty x did added an ‘X’ to the end of it.
How did you get started? Well, not many people know this, but Luke our guitarist is actually my brother, and he was starting something up and I’ve known geraint our drummer since school and at a gig in blackwood miners institute many years ago we started a band, although we started off as a 5 piece with me playing bass, after many line up changes I ended up as the singer!
What have you got going on at the moment? At the moment we’re trying to write some new stuff ready to record and release later on in the year.
Favourite music and why? Well I like to listen to a lot different stuff, it depends what mood your in really. It can go from Metallica to Asia, Incubus to Dimmu Borgir or Black Flag to W.A.S.P, and lets be honest ‘Wild Child’ by W.A.S.P is a massive tune! But if I was gonna name a few bands on the ipod at the moment it would be Killing Joke, Deftones, A Day To Remember, Magnum, I listen to planet rock a lot in work haha, Pearl Jam, Candlebox, Young Guns, Black Flag, The Smiths/Morrissey, Therapy?, and not normally my thing but I’ve got quite into The XX.
Favourite book and why? ‘The Wrong Boy’ by Willy Russell, its about a boy named Raymond Marks who writes letters about how bizarre his life is to Morrissey, I love it becuase its really funny and a bit different in the style it’s written, so its definitely worth checking out.
Favourite film and why? Lord Of The Rings, but all 3 of them as one film, which would be a long film, its just an epic story, although Top Gun would be a close second.
Best experience in the business so far? Up there would be getting to support Capdown in TJs years ago and playing a gig with Nine Black Alps’s Sam Forrest, who was an awesome guy and gave us plenty of advice.
Why should Soundscape readers care? Well for a start, if they listen to us they’ll realise there aren’t really many bands out there doing what we’re doing and we’ve lasted the test of time as we’ve been together in some shape or form for the last 10 years.
Tell our readers an interesting fact about the band? Random fact about a band member, our guitarist Luke was once in a band with Matthew and Snoz from The Blackout and Jolly who used to be in Foreign Legion in the 80’s, called Summer Dyin Fast, I think they still have a myspace page up and they were pretty good.
What’s the best and worst things about touring? Best things about touring are probably playing in different places and seeing people actually getting into your set, and maybe singing along to a few songs if they know them…..Worst thing about touring, a few people may relate to this, but that moment you wake up in a garden of a random hotel in england in your boxers and a headband realising that last night you was extremely drunk and trapped in a pair of net curtains for 45 mins while doing drunken impressions of Terry Wogan, have a look at our tour diary on youtube haha!!
Most embarrassing thing to happen to you while in the band? I’d have go with actually knocking myself out onstage more than once, our first gig with me singing I was very nervous and I got so drunk that I had to hold myself up on the microphone stand and eventually face planted the floor off the stage.
What’s your writing and recording process like? We just get in our practice room at the practice pad in Aberbargoed and jam it out, if something sounds good enough we work on it and then I’d come up with a vocal melody and write the lyrics along to it.
What inspires you? This may be a bit of a crappy answer but life is an inspiration, the bad things along with the good. In the lyrics I write I try to draw on various experiences I’ve had, issues that bother me and I hope that people can relate and hopefully strike a nerve in people.
Best thing about coming from Wales? The music scene is awesome at the moment so many great bands on the local scene like Falling With Style, Seconds From Ruin, Replaced By Robots, Jets To Zurich, Bankrupt Pug, Clear The Auditorium, Beasts, Fjords, to name a few I love, and with Exit International well on thier way to greatness, and what a live band too, and I believe Reaper in Sicily will be massive and love I those boys too, it’s a great time to be from from and playing in Wales.
Who are your role models or idols? Role Models for me, I could talk for hours about people like Kurt Cobain, Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman, Andy Cairns from Therapy?, Henry Rollins, all great frontmen who have inspired me in equal amounts to be in a band.
Hardest thing about the current business? Hardest thing is probably being constantly skint, trying to do something you love doing, it’s worth it though, otherwise we wouldnt be doing it
What are your future plans? Write some new stuff, record it and then see how things pan out.
Favourite Batman actor? Its gotta be Micheal Keaton, I know everyone loves Christian Bale but Batman Returns is still my favourite Batman film.
You can download all of Dodgem-X’s tracks for free right here – http://dodgem-x.moonfruit.com/
