Luger Boa Interview 26/11/2010

Luger Boa rose from the ashes of The D4 with singer Jimmy Christmas taking Rock n Roll to a new level. I was lucky enough to get the chance to talk to Jimmy Christmas just before a show recently.

Terry: How would you describe your music to the uninitiated?

Jimmy: I would say that Luger Boa's music is about pure sex with a very very large bottom end some delectable tops and pretty sonic middle.

Terry: Who are your favourite Kiwi bands and Musicians that have influenced you?  

Jimmy: I guess the biggest thing for me growing up was being involved with Frisbee up in Auckland which was kind of a collective guys like Nothing At All were really important bands like Smack, Gestalt there’s a couple of guys Dave Graham and Rich Mixture were a key part of that to me they were the unsung heroes. Really amazing songwriters really amazing performances and I think as a young man I was playing in other bands and then I hooked up with Dion who had been Nothing At All got involved with that so the Frisbee thing was pretty special. But you know there’s plenty of guys I really love Shihad, they have that longevity and I know those guys real well and their unit The Mint Chicks are fantastic and The Datsuns are good brothers there’s a plethora.

Terry: What are you currently listening too?

Jimmy: Right now I’ve been listening to a bit of Curtis Mayfield I’m really into the Funk and Soul I really like it because it’s a real counterpoint to where we come from. Selector Sam who plays guitar for us he is also a DJ and his vibe is Motown and Soul and that sort of stuff a lot of really great Funk music so I’ve been listening to that he has been making me a lot of compilations so I’ve been enjoying that and yeah always got to fall back on your Punk Rock, could be here for hours.

Terry: What is the best gig you have ever been to?

I guess I was a big fan of The Hives and yeah we were fortunate when I was with The D4 we did a lot of shows and we seen and were on the same bill for about 30 shows and they were amazing every night Pelle as a front man I tried to take a leaf out of his book because I thought he was the pinnacle of modern performing and they were just killer every night. The Buzzcocks I’m a big fan of those when they played a couple of amazing shows in New Zealand. Mind blowing things that changed my life. Stiff little fingers last time they were here were pretty awesome.

Terry: What is the best live gig you have ever played and who was it with?

Jimmy: We have been fortunate to have played a lot of cool shows with a lot of cool people a lot of cool places with large amounts of people and crazy small shows, club shows, The D4 homecoming after we had been away for awhile we played this place and it was like 300 people and it was packed to the gills the stage tech was having to hold back the monitors and the crowd was breaking up over the stage like a wave of humanity and it was really beautiful there were cheap beers so everyone was hammered and we hadn’t been in town for a long time everyone was upstairs everyone was worried about the floors breaking and it was absolute chaos. I played a show on Randall’s Island in New York City for Little Stevie he put on a festival He’s Steven van Zandt from The E Street band and he got us over to do a festival that had The Stooges first time they had reformed and had The Dictators, New York Dolls, Nancy Sinatra, Bo Diddley, The Pretty Things, 34 Elevators’ all bands I had ever cared about were on that bill you know and we were playing too. We had ten days in New York and that was pretty wild. Foo Fighters show in Auckland 14,000 people at the super top D4 were really at the height of our powers there so playing What I want and the mosh pit was half way back into the tent and people were singing the whole thing. With Luger Boa we have opened for Kings of Leon, we have played some tours with Shihad, Airborne and the Living End. The Legal Tender tour was pretty awesome big stages and big crowds. I’m a lucky man

Terry: Who would you most like to support live?

Jimmy:  I would like to open for The Stooges and we kind of are at the Big Day Out just much earlier in the day.

Terry: Where is your favourite NZ place and venue?

I love Christchurch a lot it’s a real Rock n Roll town always had amazing experiences down there. The Christchurch Town Hall actually I think a full Christchurch Town Hall which I have been lucky enough to play a couple of times is one of the most amazing places in New Zealand sonically, it's incredible it’s a really amazing and beautiful building and it's all soft and no reflective surfaces and the crowd are just right there and there’s like 3000 or 4000 in there and it's really really amazing so I think that’s one of my favourites’. The State of Rock tour we did was pretty insane Waiuku the Kentish there it was packed to the rafters and just went off I really love a real intimate personal wild live show and specially when u get a place like Waiuku, Butlers Reef was pretty amazing  

Terry: 'Mutate or Die' has been out for 2 years now and we have had the 2 singles 'Paralysed' and 'Lazy'. When can we expect a new album?

Jimmy: February. There’s a whole lot of different stuff on there. It’s called 'New Hot Nights' and comes out February.

Terry: How did it feel doing the Shihad Tribute at the Music awards this year?

Jimmy: Very honoured to be asked to do that and I have a lot of respect a lot of love for those guys and to be given the run of the Vector Arena. Do the tribute and make it great was the brief. So I thought how do you do Shihad without sounding like a weak knock off I guess the answer was do lots of their songs and put more players in there so we recruited Shayne Carter, Dolf from The Datsuns, Beaver from The D4 so that gave us 2 drummers we had control of all the visual so we filled the stage with Marshalls had a really great time with rehearsals the put us all in a back room in the Vector and they ploughed us with booze and we just hung out with our mates and then we were back stage and we heard Shihad receiving there award and then it really kicked in the emotional level of it people ask me how drunk were you at the awards and I’m like I was sober I was just amped honestly I had decided I was going to be really disciplined and not touch a drop until afterwards and I did but it didn’t look that way.

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