ARTIST
A-Z

The Datsuns came flying out of New Zealand in whirl of retro riffs, tight trousers and media hype. Or so it seemed in the UK in 2001, but The Datsuns has been heavy rocking in their home country since 1997. The Datsuns all took the name of the band as a last name, but whether they wanted to be a Ramones-esque band of brothers, or just to avoid the taxman is unclear. Nonetheless the slinky-hipped vocalist Dolph Datsun and his cohorts took Britain by storm, with support from John Peel and huge amounts of hype from the UK press. They started their tour sleeping on sofas and ended it with various record companies fighting to foot their hotel bills. The Datsuns signed to V2 in 2002 and released their self-titled debut album. They followed it with 'Outta Sight, Outta Mind' in 2004.

"They were just incredible. They were all over the place - playing upstairs, hanging off the balcony, jumping on top of speakers, jumping on top of the Hammond organ we'd set up. Plenty of guitar solos with their heads right back, the works. And it didn't matter that it was for a session. There's not many bands that put that much effort into a performance. Afterwards they were collapsed on the floor, completely knackered, because everything was focused on that hour performance, like how a footballer trains all week for those 90 minutes on the pitch on Saturday. Absolutely stunning."

- Simon Askew