Live at Big Green gathering on the TRIBAN stage (IG PIC)

Sitting around a campfire at the Big Green Gathering while the band were getting ready to play the triban stage we got talking about what exactly chap rock is. “It is characterised by the loud and boisterous” Don tells us. “It is definitely danceable and humorous. It obviously needs to have an element of chapness to it. It harks back to the days of Ripping Yarns”.

“Yes, Ripping Yarns”, Don interjects, “Terry Thomas, Trevor Howard, Viv Stanshall, The Bonzo Dog Do Da Band and Ray Harry Hausen films”. “It seems to go down well,” adds Don, “we seem to change genre almost every song”. Don agrees, “It has so many different influences, its not just swing, or rock, or east European, there are just so many different influences. The musical influences are as varied as our own, and there are six of us in the band so there are a hell of a lot of influences”

If you are getting confused, perhaps this would be a good point to point out that everyone in this band is called Don Bradman. “The everybody being Don thing came about from an egalitarian approach,” Don tells us, “like on the album cover it credits songs to Don Bradman so no one person stands out as being more important than another”. Another Don chips in..”its almost Zapatista like!” Fuck it…. From now on just assume everything is being told us by someone called Don Bradman…

“Yes, it is quite anarcho in its approach and although we are all quite political we did not want to start writing songs about things people already knew about. Lyrically we are not a political band, but if you look at the gigs and benefits we do you will see that although we stay away from politics in our music we are fully supportive of the radical movement. We have played benefits for the Kebele (social centre) in Bristol, and played with Spanner and Inner Terrestrials as well. We are doing a benefit soon for a save the Tara Mountain. I went out there a while ago and came back all fired up, so we are going to try to help raise some funds. They need money for all sorts of things, like legal fees but they have also been paying for archaeologists to explore the site and they are finding more and more reasons to not destroy this mountain, they are obviously going to need equipment for various direct actions”.

From left to right, Don, Don and Don

They have played one or two other ‘interesting’ events as well. “We also played at the world beard and moustache championships in Brighton, which is a much bigger event than it sounds. The Bavarians take it very seriously. There were people with things like the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge carved out of their moustache. We used to have a rotating moustache policy in the band where we would take it in turns to grow a moustache, but it got stuck on Don”

The Dons are no newcomers to this band malarkey, in the past members have played with festival stalwarts such as The Headmix Collective and The Tofu Love Frogs. “Don and I were doing this walkabout entertain people thing anyway, even when we were still with Headmix. We used to have like menus with a list of our songs on and walk about and get people to choose a song off the menu and then we would sing it to them. They always ended up choosing the same songs which was a bit annoying so sometimes we would have to say such and such song was off the menu that night. We carried on doing that after Headmix split up and about a year later along comes the Don Bradmans”.

Don expands on the walkabout thing. “At the 2002 Big Green Don, Don and meself, who were in Headmix at the time, stayed up late into the night, wandering around with a guitar trying to serenade people in the tents. We met this woman and asked if we could serenade her and she said yes because we sounded wonderful so we sang ‘Lovely Day’ to her, by Bill Whithers and it brought her to tears because it was her best mates favourite song and she had just died, so she gave us lots of alcohol and made us follow her around and we became like her troubadours for the rest of the morning. Then Headmix spilt up and people went off to do other things.

Clearly these Dons do things differently. Dare we ask where the idea of the name Don Bradman came from? “My best friend in Brighton had a pet spider called Don Bradman”, Don tells us matter of factly. “I thought that was a brilliant name. Then I was away in Guatemala and I sent a post card to the rest of the band and said ‘why don’t we call the band the Don Bradmans’. But then I completely forgot about it. When I got back Don had organised a gig at Beautiful Days festival and one of the organisers was saying ‘we need a name for the band’ and I was thinking.. well, I cant think about that at the moment, then I said ‘we are called the Don Bradmans’. And that was the bands first proper gig as the Don Bradmans, we were still doing cover versions then but after that we started writing a few new songs. Then Don Joined, closely followed by Don, till we arrived at the six piece you see before you.

Live at ENDORSE IT IN DORSET (IG PIC)

Not all of the Dons are seasoned stars of stage and screen. One of them has been developing his talent behind closed, and indeed locked, doors. “Well, Dartmoor actually, I strayed off the rails a little bit” Don tells us, “I missed out on punk cos I was so punk.. yeah, I was so punk I was in borstal when all that was going on. So my musical background is a mixture of Dartmoor prison and Chichester musical college. I saw the band a few years ago and used to go around telling people, ‘Whatever you do, you got to go and see the Don Bradmans!’ then out of the blue I got a phone call asking me if I wanted to join, and I said ‘of course I do Don’ and it has been non stop fun ever since.”

The Tofu Love Frogs of course have recently reformed, without Tofu Don. There has been talk of Headmix reforming, but given the feelings of some of the Dons, it is unlikely to happen. “It has been suggested but I don’t think there is any danger of it happening” one of the Dons tells us diplomatically. “I am just dead against bands reforming” another Don tells us slightly more forcefully. “I cant speak for the other Dons, but I think it is just typical of this decade, remakes of films that don’t need to be redone, and all these bands reforming I just think ‘What’s the point? Get over it!’. And you can quote me on that,” says Don. “Headmix belonged to a certain time, that energy has changed.” On the whole the Dons are pretty much in agreement over this point, but Don adds, “I have to admit it was nice to see RDF at Endorse It”.

Headmix were something of a phenomenon, and serving in the band meant getting quite a few miles under your belt. It came at a price though, with two very serious accidents while driving between gigs. This has focused the minds a little. “Because of Headmix and the accidents we have not done many gigs over seas. We formed the band wanting to play gigs and go and see our mates, we have no plans for world domination.”

Perhaps the lack of ambition to be stars would explain how they have time to get involved in other projects and Dons can be found performing with other projects such as ASBO Derek, Tragick Roundabout, the Dirty Cakes and Bella Emerson, among others.

Live on the TRIBAN stage (IG PIC)

They have released one album so far, ‘Ah’ll Flaming Well Kill YA!” , but even before that was released they had another full albums worth of material recorded so it should not be too long before that is sees the light of day. There is also the possibility of a live album.

As the formal bit of our chat drew to a close we started chatting about old times and what everyone has been up to in recent years. We chatted about Eastern Haze Festival and what a pain it was to get there. At this point we started to consider the merits of writing a song called ‘It’s a Long way to Lowestoft’. Yes, nothing is ‘normal’ with the Don Bradmans.

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