Few things in life are guaranteed. But after 29 years and 12 albums, Danko Jones have reached the same level of implacable reliability as death and taxes. Leo Rising, the Canadians’ latest record, is another fine slab of power-pop-infused rock’n’roll, big on riffs and choruses and with more hooks than a fisherman’s knapsack. Classic Rock caught up with vocalist Danko Jones the man (aka Rishi James Ganjoo) to find out how 2025 was for the band.
Twelve albums in, is it safe to say Danko Jones are not looking to release a 47-minute prog epic about Lord Of The Rings?
Yes. We know we know who we are by this point. The thirteenth album is gonna sound like the twelfth album, give or take. You can have that as an exclusive [laughs].
What do you make of the response to Leo Rising?
You know what, across the board it’s been, like, ninety-five per cent positive. That’s a high percentage for us! We’re used to fifty-five or sixty per cent. I’ve been scrolling through the comments trying to find the negative, which is usually the opposite. We got Marty Friedman on [Diamond In The Rough], so that’s added some spice in too.
Danko Jones and Megadeth’s former guitarist is not an obvious match.
Well, our friendship is like fourteen years old, and I was on his solo album [2014’s Inferno] a way back, so I’ve played with him a bunch. It’s been a long time coming to get him on a Danko song. But I didn’t want to just ask him to be on a song just cos. We’ve released what, six albums since [Inferno], so it’s taken this long to find a song that Marty could sink his teeth into. It’s a Kiss-esque song, and I know his two favourite bands are Kiss and Ramones, so it was a good chance to sink his teeth in.
Last time you spoke to Classic Rock you took a swipe at the fact that Danko have never won an award. Then you got nominated for a Juno. You didn’t win one, but have you got high hopes for Leo Rising?
No. But I like to go to the ceremonies, when I can. Not to see if we’re gonna win, but to see people I’ve not seen in a while and meet people I’ve wanted to. It’s a schmooze thing. I brace myself whenever our category comes up, but I also go: “It’s not gonna happen”. And it doesn’t.
Do the Juno Awards get as messy as the Grammys with after-parties, or is it all a lot more polite?
They do have some parties – every label will have one. I’ve only been to one, though. I think it was 1999 or 2000, and AC/DC were there. I met Malcolm and Angus! People were going up to Angus constantly, but nobody even noticed that Phil Rudd was there too. It’s a random Canadian ceremony where everyone is having too much champagne and caviar; they probably know Highway To Hell at best, you know?
But [Phil] was being totally ignored! So I went right up and went: “I’m a huge fan!” And he introduced me to the Youngs. Someone took a photo of me, Malcolm, Angus and Phil. I’ll joke about Danko being like AC/DC, Motörhead or whatever in that all our albums sound the same… but the reality is it’s extremely hard to come up with those songs.
You’ve played a few places for the first time ever this year, including Greece and parts of South America. How was that?
Yeah! Sao Paolo was a real standout for me. I think we maybe did a little mini-tour of Brazil in 2009, then played Mexico City in 2024, but we’d not done a proper run down there. Give us a couple more of those and for people to get acclimated to us, it’s gonna happen. There were people who were saying: “We’ve waited a long time for you guys to come out here”.
Next year Danko will have been going for thirty years. Have you decided how you’re going to celebrate?
I think we’ll celebrate it exactly how you’d think we will – by not making a big deal of it. We made a big deal about our twenty-fifth year, but it was like, nobody cares except us. So maybe we will end up doing something. Don’t quote me on not doing anything at all, but it doesn’t matter more than the band thinks it does. It’s more of a marketing tool these days for bands, where it’s like: “Oh we’ll play this album front to back”.
Danko have toured with plenty of legendary bands over the years, but who’s taken you on your wildest night out?
It’s funny, in that movie based loosely on Judas Priest, starring Mark Wahlberg [Rock Star], there’s a scene where the Rob Halford character is like: “I’m the singer. None of you realise that I have to go to bed at nine or I won’t be able to perform!” I watched that and was like: “They’re revealing it all – it’s all true!” But to answer the question, I’d have to say Lemmy. He showed up to one of our gigs in London and took us around a few spots. I don’t think we got much sleep, because we’d got an early start to go to Finland the next day, so it was literally like he dropped us at the hotel, we got our bags and left. That was amazing.
Lemmy’s tour of London – so Stringfellows?
Yes [laughs]. We went from the gig, took a cab and walked through this parade thing with Lemmy, which was crazy because he doesn’t look like your average Joe and I was just watching people react to him. Nobody bothered him. Stringfellows was the only place he actively took us to – we ducked in a few places on the way – but we stayed drinking with him until way after closing.
