What drives the Datsuns

The Datsuns, (from left) Christian, Dolf, Phil and Mat, produced their third album themselves after a fruitless search for the right producer.

It doesn't seem to matter how much hype you throw at the Datsuns. They have a way of bringing things back to earth.

"To think of myself as a professional doing this is quite funny," says frontman Dolf de Datsun, 27, on the phone from London, where the band is based. "We're all so young and seeing what's going on. I'm still bumbling my way through it."

Bumbling might be a modest way to describe the way things have panned out for the Cambridge band. It feels like only yesterday they were the rock gods of New Zealand, about to embark on their OE after signing to Richard Branson's V2 label. Cambridge went from that place you zoomed through to the place that bred the boys with the skinny jeans, lank hair and vicious riffs.

See them live and you'd agree Dolf, Christian, Mat and Phil Datsun deserved their collective surnames, adopted in the style of the Ramones. John Peel did. The NME did too, calling them "the greatest band since the Rolling Stones". And when former Led Zepper John Paul Jones was brought in to produce their second album Outta Sight/Outta Mind, it seemed things couldn't get much better. Then the album came out. And the scathing reviews.

Now the Datsuns are preparing to release their third album and the hype has started to mount again, for good reason. After two fast and furious rock records that provided a capsule of their live gigs, Smoke & Mirrors is the Datsuns' most ambitious, considered effort. Songs like Who Are You Stamping Your Foot For? and Stuck Here for Days still have the fiery 70s bluster that fans love them for, but there's a distinctly rootsy feel to much of the album, thanks to Christian's slide guitar. A gospel choir adds a rousing, emotional element to All Aboard and Emperor's New Clothes.

"Some of other early songs we wrote were way more extreme, completely different from anything we'd done before," says Dolf. "Every time we wrote something that sounded similar to what we'd done before, we'd think we're not being creative. It might have been good but it wasn't turning us on."

It's also vocally more adventurous. Dolf sounds, well, more like a singer.

"I think my voice is indicative of the changes in the band. In the past it was a very instinctual thing, quite manic and visceral. It was much more from the gut, the result of playing live. I'm not so scared now. I've realised people are listening to what I'm singing about and how I'm singing. In the past I've always viewed us as this live band and our records are a souvenir, and I still think 75 per cent of the band is a live experience, but we very much want the records to start living up to that."

But living up to expectation took longer than expected as they struggled to find a producer. A lot of people looked good on paper, had worked on classic albums or been in successful bands. Some were technically brilliant, others had the personality.

"They all have different opinions about what's going to make your band great. We met with a lot of people but we didn't really click with anyone. It just didn't feel right."

After a fruitless search, they decided to produce the album themselves. That way they only had each other to argue with.

"It's definitely a problem in our band," Dolf laughs, "all four of us grappling over who's going to take control, whose vision will dominate."

That wasn't an issue on Outta Sight, Outta Mind but you have to wonder how much input John Paul Jones had, and whether it could have been more or less. The collaboration had seemed a match made in heaven but one critic summed up a lot of the reviews when he complained the Datsuns' second effort made them sound like "a 1973 youth club rock band".

Dolf says it wasn't your standard producer-band relationship, where the producer directs, and ultimately influences the sound of the record. Jones was introduced to the band as a PR arrangement: hover in the studio, give advice here and there and and Bob's your uncle - instant story, instant cred. He knows this because journalists have wanted to ask about Jones ever since.

"With all respect to John Paul Jones, he just changed a few minor things around. He was there to say, 'That's good, do that again'."

You'd imagine the negative criticism would have taken its toll on the band but the Datsuns have always been unfazed in that regard. "We still play a lot of those songs live," says Dolf. "I don't really think about it too much. I've always been of the school of thought that you do something and move on as opposed to fretting about it. It's all part of the cliche of being in the industry. Because you make music for yourself. You do it first and foremost because it excites you."

Lowdown

Who: The Datsuns, Cambridge-bred rock superstars.
Real deal: They might share a surname but their real names are Dolf de Borst (vocals, bass), Mat Odment (drums), Christian Livingstone (guitars, vocals) and Phil Buscke (guitar).
Albums: The Datsuns (2002), Outta Sight, Outta Mind (2004), Smoke & Mirrors (2006). For information on their EPs and 7 inches.
Tour: Dates coming soon.