Music
Singer Rob Damiani takes us through the songs that shaped his life.
Nominated for Best Album in June’s Kerrang! Awards, pop-rockers Don Broco have been busy coaching the finalists in the Red Bull Studios Live At Download competition. Frontman Rob Damiani talks us through his own musical history.
The first song to stop me in my tracks was… My Name Is by Eminem. I was in my mum’s car when I first heard it, being dropped off at school. This came on the radio and I’d never heard anyone like it, this white rapper talking about which Spice Girl he wanted to impregnate. It had so much swagger, and it turned me into a proper little Eminem fanboy. My mum wasn’t so keen.
The soundtrack to my first kiss was… Another Level's Freak Me. I loved this tune growing up and I don’t think I realised how filthy it was at the time. It was at a school disco, and her name was Philippa. She went to the local girl’s school. It was my first slow dance and first proper tonguing sesh. I can still remember it now. My friend ended up pulling her at the next disco, which kind of ruined my romantic memory.
The first track that made me want to make music was… Pardon Me by Incubus made me want to be in a rock band. Incubus are a huge influence on Don Broco and I used to pretend to be Brandon Boyd singing this one in my room. I love that he’s not a traditional rock music singer. He’s got this melodic, soulful R'n'B vibe going on.
My best mosh-pit moment was to… We had a gig in Leeds and went to a rock club night afterwards. Roman Holiday by a metal band called Every Time I Die came on, and it suddenly it was the most mental moshpit I’ve ever been in, more brutal than any live show, huge guys just throwing themselves around the room. Me and Simon our guitarist came out the other end knowing it was the most intense thing we’d ever been through.
My karaoke track of choice is… There’s not loads to do in Bedford, so when me and my home mates meet up there we might get involved in a bit of karaoke. Daniel Bedingfield’s Gotta Get Through This is a big favourite, and once I almost got to do it with him live on stage. We were playing at the Scala in London and when we rocked up, Daniel Bedingfield was just waiting for us in our dressing room. It turned out he was a fan of the band – I don’t know how he’d even heard about us. Two songs in he came on stage and started freestyling over one of our tunes. If I’d known he was going to do that, we could have prepared a duet. Instead we were just sort of singing over each other!
The song I’ve stolen the most from is… We definitely ripped off Biffy Clyro’s Glitter And Trauma when we started the band – an earlier incarnation of Don Broco, when we were still at school. Biffy Clyro are my favourite band and I love the way that track brings in so many different elements and messes up all the structures, but somehow brings it all back together into this perfectly formed song. We never admitted it to each other, but somehow we’d all independently ripped off elements of that track, so we ended up with a tune that sounded exactly like it. We don’t do that anymore, obviously. But we’ve definitely nicked that way of writing.