British rock outfit The Animals are one rocks most defining acts, ever.
Period.
Starting in the 1960s around the same time as The Beatles, The Animals revolutionised public perception of rock music, churning out hits like House of The Rising Sun, We Gotta Get Out Of This Place, Boom Boom, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, I Put A Spell On You, It’s My Life and more.
The band were only the second British band to top the American charts - the other being The Beatles - and they introduced a sound to the world that has been copied and built on ever since.
Now, almost 60 years later, The Animals return to Australia for their Greatest Hits Tour, with, surprisingly, original drummer John Steel still occupying the drum stool.
HEAVY caught up with Steel recently to discuss the tour and the legacy of The Animals.
"It was just before the big lockdown happened," he said when asked when The Animals were last in this country. "We were supposed to be back in 2020 but that was cancelled, and another one was postponed and so on, so here we after 3 years and it's been a big miss because we love playing in Australia. It's a great country with great hospitality, great food, great wine... everything's good. What's not to like (laughs)? There's sunshine too!"
Although the title of the tour gives pretty much everything away, we press Steel on what fans can expect from the run of shows.
"We will be doing the big hits," he affirmed, "but we've got a good repertoire of B sides and album tracks that we can mine. Danny, the lead singer and guitarist, he's an encyclopedia on 60s music, particularly The Animals, and he's a big Beatles fan, but he keeps digging around and bringing up songs that I haven't played for 50 years. He's like "Johnny, how about this one?" (laughs). So we give it a try and if it works we throw it in. It keeps the set fresh so that we're not playing the same thing every night, the same way every night, which is good for us and good for the audience too."
In the full interview, Johns talks about keeping the songs fresh and interesting despite playing them for over 50 years, how The Animals stage show has changed from when they started to now, the early days of the band and the musical climate they came into, The House Of The Rising Sun and it's phenomenal success, if he thinks the band were ready for what came after, recording that song in one take, their formula for success, the enduring success of The Animals and more.