We spoke to brothers Johnny, Jesse, Dylan and Danny from the rock band Kongos ahead of their Cape Town performance with Linkin Park. 

The big news is that you guys are the opening act for Linkin Parks Living Things tour in SA – how are you feeling?

We’re all wearing brown pants. (Laughs)

We just finished with the sound check and Linkin Park gave a special private concert for their super fans who are part of their underground club. It’s still pretty surreal! We were just standing on stage and hearing echoes going through the stadium. It’s crazy.

What’s your process before a live gig? Do you have any traditions or routines?

We put on pants! (Laughs)

There’s really no tradition. Generally the shows that we’ve done have been rushed so sound checks are pretty quick and happen right before the show. So we kinda get to the dressing room, or whatever is available, and wait around until we’re ready to go and then kinda hop on stage and play. None of us have any rituals – we’re pretty simple. Maybe we’ll start to develop those when we have the time to relax and think about it.

You guys have toured both the States and South Africa. Do the audiences differ? Do you have to tailor your performances?

South African crowds are generally a lot bigger for us as we’ve had a lot more success here. We actually just toured the US and got to do about 20/22 shows. There were certain cities we saw which were really similar to South Africa in terms of enthusiasm and energy.

When we toured South Africa the last time, our album had been released for about a year already so most of the crowds knew the words to most of the songs. In the States, we’d only released our album Lunatic in July. People are still getting to know us and are becoming more aware of who we are. Of course there are certain songs which do better for different audiences.

So what’s the one song that your South African fans go crazy over?

It changes all the time but definitely I’m only joking – that’s the song which launched us in South Africa. It really got our career started here. Come with me now was the follow up and that does well too. It really just depends on where we are. The song Escape references Cape Town so the Capetonians enjoy that one.

Talking about fans going wild, have you ever had anything bizarre thrown at you on stage?   

A massive, massive bra! You could go hang gliding in it. That was at the Queen’s Plate in Cape Town. It’s happened once before in Pretoria but in Pretoria you sort of expect it a bit more. At the Queen’s Plate everyone is in their best attire, trying to impress, and then you have this massive bra, which almost took out an eye, thrown at you.

Let’s talk groupies! Do you have any and how do you deal?

We have a spread sheet…we have to organise it. (Laughs). Rock ‘n roll isn’t like it used to be… well not for us anyway. We’ll tell you our experience… or actually no, we won’t. We’ll have to come back to you on that one!

Catch Kongos live at the Linkin Park Living Things concert in Joburg on the 10th of November at Soccer City (FNB Stadium).

WIN! WIN! WIN!

We’re giving away five copies of the Kongos’ album Lunatic. All you have to do is name one song from the album and email your response to [email protected] with “Kongos” in the subject line.

Competition closes on 16 November 2012 at noon. Winners will be notified by email.

By Lauren Lee
Photos courtesy of Daniel Kongos