{"id":1644,"date":"1986-08-01T00:00:23","date_gmt":"1986-08-01T00:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=1644"},"modified":"2012-02-18T02:19:03","modified_gmt":"2012-02-18T02:19:03","slug":"feature-detente-mf19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-detente-mf19\/","title":{"rendered":"D\u00c9TENTE – Breaking The Law (MF19, 1986) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

D\u00c9TENTE – Breaking The Law<\/strong><\/span><\/span>
\nBernard Doe<\/span>
\nMetal Forces, Issue 19 (1986)<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\u201cI really think the metal scene should concentrate more on the music than on the money, because there\u2019s so much contrived bullshit out there right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those are the words of Dawn Crosby; founding member and lead vocalist of Los Angeles, California-based metallists D\u00e9tente, who\u2019ve just had their debut album, Recognize No Authority<\/em>, released in Europe by Roadrunner (Metal Blade in the US). But while that statement will be echoed by many metal enthusiasts, the truth is it will never happen. The whole music business is one big money making machine, with selling records the name of the game. Unfortunately, a vast majority of the record buying public do like, as Dawn puts it, \u201ccontrived bullshit\u201d, and as long as they do then bands will continue to adopt previous successful formulas in a hope of finding their own fame and fortune.<\/p>\n

But Dawn Crosby refuses to compromise \u2013 keeping her punk \/ metal roots is very important. Much of that earlier musical education was gained whilst living in London for a couple of years, as I found out when I spoke to Dawn during a recent promotional visit to Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to London in 1983 when I was 18 and it taught me how to write better, become a better musician and be more original. I have about five full books of lyrics and ideas that I got just from being there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Were you in any bands? \u201cYes I was in a punk \/ metal band called First Attack and also some all female punk bands, but we never got very far; it was just a learning process.\u201d<\/p>\n

What were the reasons for you coming to London? \u201cWell in Southern California at that time all the bands around my age wanted to play cover songs, but I wasn\u2019t into that because I wanted to find musicians to write original material. I just couldn\u2019t find those elements in California, so I went to London.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was also into early Iron Maiden as well as punk and I was attracted musically to what was going on in London.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what made you return to the States? \u201cWell, I had gone to Germany to audition for some bands after one particular punk band had broken-up, and when I came back the squat in Lambeth North where I had been staying had been broken into. So I had nowhere to live and no money for about two months, and eventually I decided to go back to America. In fact, it\u2019s worked out quite well because there are a lot of good musicians in LA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was D\u00e9tente the first band you formed when you got back to the States? \u201cActually, no it wasn\u2019t. I formed a band called Allies, but musical direction was a problem and there were four different personalities, so we broke-up. Then I put together D\u00e9tente.\u201d<\/p>\n

Have D\u00e9tente done many live shows? \u201cWell, we\u2019ve played in LA, San Diego and San Francisco, and done about 10-12 shows in twelve months, which is not bad, because hardcore shows are really hard to get in LA, and there\u2019s only two or three venues really worth playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

What sort of audience are you trying to reach? You\u2019ve mentioned the hardcore scene, presumably you\u2019re hoping to attract both hardcore and metal fans? \u201cYeah, I think so. I\u2019m more into hardcore and punk than metal, but I couldn\u2019t find the right hardcore musicians for D\u00e9tente, and the other members of the band are very metal-influenced; stuff like Maiden and Mercyful Fate. So I feel we are metal music with a punk attitude, which I think is good because sometimes punk lyrics are better than punk music and metal music is better than metal lyrics. So if you can take the best of both worlds and combine them, then maybe you can appeal to a wider range of people. It wasn\u2019t intentional, but if we can reach both punks and metallers then, yeah, it would be great.<\/p>\n

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Dawn Crosby<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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\u201cIn the future, I think I\u2019d like us to get more rawer; I definitely don\u2019t want to get commercial. We\u2019re not into the big money at all. We\u2019ve survived so far quite nicely living poor, and the most important thing for us is that we\u2019re happy once we\u2019ve recorded an album \u2013 that\u2019s all that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re happy with Recognize No Authority<\/em>? \u201cYeah, I\u2019m happy to an extent, especially as it\u2019s our first album and it\u2019s on an independent label, so we weren\u2019t on a very large budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the quality of the production is high. In fact, sometimes I think it\u2019s too high. You see, it was produced by Dana Strum who\u2019s the bass player and producer of Vinnie Vincent\u2019s Invasion, and he\u2019s also worked with Ozzy Osbourne. So he\u2019s not into thrash or punk; he\u2019s a very Hollywood type of person. But I still think he done a great job and he really stretched our budget \u2013 doubled it almost \u2013 because of his skill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does it worry you that you\u2019re probably gonna be compared to Warlock? Not musically \u2013 I think you\u2019re much heavier \u2013 but more because of your vocal style, which, like Doro Pesch, is very raw and aggressive. \u201cWell, I\u2019m happy you think that we are heavier because you\u2019re right, I am a little worried that we will get compared to Warlock. I really like Doro\u2019s voice, I think she\u2019s an incredibly talented woman, but I do believe we\u2019re not as commercially as accessible as Warlock, which is what I want, so hopefully not too many people will compare us.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do you react to people who say that there\u2019s no place for females in metal? \u201cWell until recently there wasn\u2019t anything female you could say was metal or hard rock. I mean, the minute there was some hype about a supposedly female metallist, you would go out and listen to the record and find out that it wasn\u2019t metal at all. So I can\u2019t really blame metal fans writing off female musicians they hear about, because in the past it\u2019s been such a let-down.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now people like Doro are changing that and I hope that I can be accepted. I\u2019m trying to be, I write the music myself and I don\u2019t wear sleazy clothes and try to get off on the sexuality aspect; I\u2019m trying to be as equal as a man in my field.\u201d<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t you think because D\u00e9tente are a female-fronted band, that it gives you an added attraction, and therefore an advantage over other bands? \u201cWell I guess so, but I hope that\u2019s not the main reason that people will like us, because I don\u2019t think I could stand the pressure of being the main focal point of the band, what with all the publicity pressure and having to look good all of the time from a sexual point of view \u2013 I\u2019m not into that at all. I\u2019m into the music being what they wanna hear.<\/p>\n

\u201cD\u00e9tente is not a back-up band for the singer. D\u00e9tente is a band with everybody contributing on every song. And that to me is really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well those of you who haven\u2019t heard Recognize No Authority<\/em> yet, should go and check it out, because you will find that D\u00e9tente are more than your average female-fronted metal band. In their ranks are five very talented musicians. As well as Dawn, there\u2019s guitarists Ross Robinson and Caleb Quinn, bassist Steve Hochheiser and drummer Dennis Butler; all of whom gel to produce a fine mixture of speed \/ thrash and melodic metal. What more could you want?<\/p>\n

Interview taken from Metal Forces, Issue 19 (1986)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

D\u00c9TENTE – Breaking The Law Bernard Doe Metal Forces, Issue 19 (1986) \u201cI really think the metal scene should concentrate more on the music than on the money, because there\u2019s so much contrived bullshit out there right now.\u201d Those are the words of Dawn Crosby; founding member and lead vocalist of Los Angeles, California-based metallists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-detente","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1644"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4266,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644\/revisions\/4266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}