Welcoming (Back) The Dandy Warhols

BBC - Radio 1
by BBC
October 19, 2001

Wait a minute...the name rings a bell...
If you can't remember exactly who or what then you may have been there. These spaced-out tai-dye cowboys began their harmonizing psychadelia back in 1994, Portland, Oregon. They signed to the local Tim/Kerr label before being snatched up by Capitol Records.

I smell an Indy band...
Well, kind of. The ingredients are varied - from easter rhythms to wall-of-sound synthesizers, layered guitar noise to daisychained peace-and-love melodies. What runs through it all is an instinct for that ever elusive pop-hook and what sometimes feel like a suicidal tendency toward harmonising.

How did all this malarky begin?
The first album 'Dandy's Rule, OK?' enjoyed great popularity, but it was the second album (made after Capitol Records famously dumped the band claiming they had 'no hit potential') that everyone remembers. Titled 'The Dandy Warhols Come Down' it was released in 1997 and spawned that MTV single and award-winning video 'Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth.'

So what brings them back on the scene?
They were always there in spirit. But then again there's nothing like a corporate-backed nationwide television advertisement to really turn on the spotlight, is there?

What the Press are saying:
"...Every track seems like a hallucination of great pop hooks and melodies from The Byrds to the Stones and Nirvana..." THE GUARDIAN
"..Thirteen Tales is plain peachy keen. A stoner.s paradise from start to finish. Most pleasurable..." MOJO
"...A melange of rock, pop, psychedelia and harmonies with the sheen of clever songwriting..." NME
"...This album is ace. Growing up never sounded so good..." TIME OUT

What the band are saying:
"...We felt like we needed to make the last classic rock album, a record that would be (sonically) shaped somewhere in between 'All Things Must Pass' and 'Workingman’s Dead'."

Where can I hear them?
The latest single, 'Bohemian Like You', as mentioned above, can be heard to lovely moving images of David Beckham, spotty teenagers eyeing up women, and other miscellany on the TV advert for Vodafone. You will find it in the shops along with the latest album, released back in June 2000.