Dead City Ruins // Interview & Tour Preview

Meet Dead City Ruins, a Melbourne rock quintet who capture the metal musicianship of the 70s and 80s and combine it with bluesy rock riffs. 


We caught up with Lead Singer Jake Wiffen ahead of the band's extensive European tour...

Where are you guys from and how did you get together, because I know you have a history in London and have played all over the world?
Dead City Ruins is based in Melbourne Australia; the band started way back in 2007 in ol’ London town. After playing around London for a while the original line up disbanded because both Mick (bass) and I (Jake- singer) had to head back to Australia. We moved straight to Melbourne and began looking for new band members. I met Tommy (lead guitar) when he was looking for a singer for a band he was putting together. I convinced him to start something new with me. He knew a drummer (Drewsy) and I got Mick on board, and just before our last European tour we brought in Blanchy (rhythm guitars) to fill out the sound.

You are coming over to Europe on a mammoth tour this summer; are you looking forward to it?

We cannot wait!! We are all sick to death of working and can’t wait to be on the road again. The highways of England and Europe are where Dead City Ruins belong.

What are the best and worst things about being on the road for a long tour such as this?

The best thing is waking up every day and knowing the only thing you have to worry about is getting to the next show. The worst thing is running out of beer, or maybe finishing a show wanting to stick around and party but knowing we have a 15 hour drive to our next show, so you have to load the van and get driving.

What can we expect from the live show?

Being at a Dead City Ruins show is unsafe!! Our crowds tend to be full of women screaming at the top of their lungs and drunks falling over each other. We always play our asses off; if there are 1000 people or no one we still do our best to destroy ourselves!

Your name “Dead City Ruins”; how did that come about?

Its just one of those things. I could spin some s**t about where it came from, but the truth is we were sitting in Shepherds Bush in London thinking of names and that one was the only one that didn’t sound crap.

Your music definitely captures that anthemic classic rock sound; who are your influences?

As a band we take a lot of influence from British Heavy Metal, the N.W.O.B.H.M. and the American bands that were spawned from it. If we had to mention specific bands I guess they would be something like this: Black Sabbath - Zeppelin - Motorhead - Thin Lizzy - Megadeth - Alice in chains - Rose Tattoo - AC/DC ....... if you like this kinda’ stuff you will see where we are coming from.

Would it be right to say that you have taken a DIY approach to getting the “Dead City Ruins” name and music out there; do you think that’s set you in good stead and that now the hard work is paying off?

Yeah, Dead City Ruins is a proactive band, no one has helped us out in the past; when we booked our last tour through Europe, we left Australia with only 15 shows booked for a three month tour. No one took us seriously when we were trying to book shows. So we just turned up at venues and asked for gigs any day of the week. We ended up playing 50 shows in 11 countries over three months.... it was f*****g crazy. We were sleeping on the side of the highway in one tent, living off of one sandwich a day and just playing every night. It didn’t take long for people to come round and the word spread about our live show.This tour has been damn easy to book in retrospect. So yeah, things are on the rise for us.

And finally, as well as a lot of touring what else do you guys have planned for 2012?

Well this tour we will be supporting Mastodon in June and Wolfmother in July, along with quite a few festivals. We are hoping to get more tours booked from this tour. Then when we get home we will be straight into the recording studio (in between working to pay all our debts) to knock out our next album which is in pre production (in fact that’s exactly what I’m doing right now).

http://www.facebook.com/deadcityruins

Be sure to catch Dead City Ruins on their European Invasion Tour