And I see a lot of similarities-as different as our musical genres are.

Because when people get it, they’re diehard forever. People either got it and loved it or hated it. That’s kind of where we come from in Hollywood we’re really a lifestyle band. If we have two rock bands it becomes more of an obvious show. One, because I feel that you guys really ignite the audience in an unusual way and you also inspire us and ignite us in a different way than say, a similar-genre band playing with us. NAVARRO: I’ve been fighting to get you guys to play with us for over maybe a year and a half now. It’s kind of weird for us, opening for people. It’s the first time we’ve opened or rolled with someone that we actually like. Let me say first that Jane’s Addiction is super-happy and honored to have you guys playing with us. NAVARRO: I actually find that problem with the world at large. The show has almost nothing to do with the audience. It doesn’t matter if you’re into it or not. We wanted to make a show that’s more like attack. Usually you have a lot of these idiots standing around half-watching. A lot of times you’re doing a show and you’re kind of at the mercy of a retarded audience. But a lot of the time, the majority doesn’t-they’re a bit retarded in South Africa. In South Africa, we’ve got a real small fan base, but they’re, like, super fierce. I think the last five years, we’ve been working out what we wanted. So when we worked out Die Antwoord, it was a strange type of thing-the sound and the style and everything. We’ve been doing different stuff before this. It’s kind of a double-edged sword, because you get the room and the stage, you get to have a lot of people, but they’re all sitting there, and it’s not the most inspiring of environments. We’d never actually played a show in our lives with seats. I find, personally, I like the size and the room in big venues like that, but I don’t necessarily like the seats. We’ll have a setlist ready to go and then based on the reaction-sometimes it’s the room, too-will dictate how our set goes.

We go through the same thing all the time. You’re doing a performance, but it’s relative to who’s there. NINJA: We just gauge our shows sometimes, and when we enter a totally new audience, I think we kind of have shell shock. NAVARRO: I looked at your setlist, and you didn’t do “Enter The Ninja.” How come? So naturally Navarro (with an assist from Interview‘s Dan Hyman) didn’t have to be asked twice to interview Die Antwoord, just after a show in Philadelphia and 24 hours prior to touching down for a joint gig in Williamsburg.ĭAVE NAVARRO: How did it go for you last night? For two years, he practically begged Perry Farrell and the rest of his bandmates to bring Die Antwoord out on tour. Now they’re touring with Jane’s Addiction, whose guitarist, Dave Navarro, is a nerdboy-Die Antwoord fan. What Ninja and Yo-Landi Visser, the coed twosome that comprise Die Antwoord, came armed with was mind-warped, aggro-hip-hop rife with Afrikaan phrases and South African slumdog culture they also had hair the likes of which had never been seen before.īut it was through their irreverence, a heart-swelling disdain for the establishment-the duo rejected a reported $1 million deal with Interscope following the release of their debut album, $o$, as a result of creative differences-that bred a rabid fanbase and an independently-released sophomore album, Tension, that includes a comedic skit in which a man clearly meant to be Interscope’s Jimmy Iovine has Yo-Landi sit on his lap like a creepy, overly-touchy uncle. Here was a bone-skinny white dude, deathly angry, flopping around in a pair of Pink Floyd boxer shorts, shouting at you in language you couldn’t comprehend. Chances are it was their video for “ Enter the Ninja,” or maybe “ Zef Side“-in either event, your eyes and ears were at once assaulted, confused, and enraptured. The bombastic, rhyme-slinging hip-hop duo from South Africa likely appeared before you on a computer screen circa 2010.

It’s easy to remember the first time you heard-or rather, saw-Die Antwoord.

Die antwoord tour phioladelphia