INTERVIEW: After 35-year pause, A Doll’s House is back
Photo: A Doll’s House consists of, from left, Seth Rafkin (bass), Tony DeFranco (drums), Dav Petrunich (guitar) and Dave Santos (vocals). Photo courtesy of A Doll’s House Music / Provided by official site with permission.
A Doll’s House was perhaps ahead of its time in the late-1980s. The alternative rock band was finding success in Los Angeles, in particular in the iconic clubs that lined the Sunset Strip, but the group’s members were in their early 20s and unsure of how to capitalize on their musical moment. Rather than venturing further into the uncertain music business, A Doll’s House amicably disbanded, and the players entered civilian life to start growing careers and families.
Now, more than a quarter of a century later, A Doll’s House is back together again, and this time with new music.
“We started in the late-’80s, and it was me and the guitar player Dav Petrunich and our drummer Tony [DeFranco],” said Seth Rafkin, bass player for the band. “We all grew up in the Valley in L.A., and Dav and I met as 16-year-olds. We are best friends and started writing songs together as teenagers. We formed A Doll’s House with Tony in 1989, and we made a pretty good run of it in L.A. We were playing places like the Roxy and the Whisky and other places around town, the Troubadour. We were building a nice little following, but, as I always like to say, we never had an adult in the room with us to try to tell us what to do next or how to try to do something more with it.”
Rafkin said that eventually life took over, and people went their separate ways. They stayed in touch over the years and kept playing independently, but A Doll’s House was finished. It was only four years ago that Rafkin started to play around with some recording projects. He credits his older son with the inspiration, mostly because Rafkin received a tutorial on how to use GarageBand.
“And that kind of started things, and Dav and I started doing these songs and recording good demos,” he said. “Then, we just decided, you know, let’s just make a record. We always wanted to do that. The idea was just going to be, let’s just write these songs, and let’s just make an album just for us, so we can go to our grave and say, ‘All right, we made an album that we’re really proud of.’ And then, it just kind of snowballed from there. We got back together with Tony. He really liked the idea. We found our singer, Dave Santos, who also grew up in L.A., so we were just working on these demos.”
When the actual recording process was about to kickoff, a most fortuitous event occurred. Petrunich lives in central California, and as a veterinarian he had a pretty famous client: Brian Wheat of the legendary band Tesla. Wheat is an avid supporter of other groups, and he records and produces their albums.
“He has a really nice studio, and so through dumb luck we stumbled upon his studio,” Rafkin said of Wheat’s musical digs. “We connected with Brian, and he ended up producing the album. And from there, we just decided why don’t we actually try to get some stuff out there, and here we are.”
That journey has led to the creation and release of A Doll’s House debut album, called Annum, which features 10 tracks, including the tunes “And Time,” “Woven,” “Witch’s Tree” and “Chimney.” Wheat is credited with the producing, mixing and engineering. Petrunich and Rafkin are credited as songwriters on each track. The sound is alternative rock, which might come as a surprise when one hears that A Doll’s House originated on the Sunset Strip in the 1980s. Those were the waning days of hair metal, but Rafkin’s band leaned toward the newer sounds that were eventually established in the 1990s.
“It was definitely the era of Mötley Crüe, but we were more on the alternative rock side,” he said. “I guess when we really starting, it was more on the tail-end of that hair metal thing and more on the upswing of other L.A. bands like the Chili Peppers and Jane’s Addiction, which I don’t really think of as being grunge, but sort of the antecedents to grunge. So we really fit in that, the Jane’s Addiction-Chili Peppers genre, alternative rock.”
Annum has brought great joy to the band members, and they don’t look back at the intervening 25 years with any sense of regret. They lived their lives in other spheres but always kept the spark alive for a possible return. Now, they’re back, and who knows what’s next.
“Now I’m in my early 50s,” Rafkin said. “I have a son who’s about a year younger than I was when we called it quits with the band. And so I can look back now, gee, maybe we should have kept at it a little bit longer for another two or three years because when we stopped, we were literally 21-22. But, you know, when you’re that young, 30 seems ancient. We really don’t have the regret. I do think if we had stuck out a little bit more, maybe figured out how to get with a manager or something like that, who knows what could have happened. But I also feel like we are such veteran songwriters now and musicians, and there’s maturity that comes with it, that there’s no ego involved in the process now. When you’re in your early 20s, there can be a lot of ego in the songwriting process and people getting upset over, ‘Oh, my part is getting cut,’ or whatever. Now, there’s none of that. It’s all just let’s try to get to the best song we can, and so I really don’t think any of us really have regrets like that. It’s a pretty fun place to be now.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The debut album from A Doll’s House is called Annum and now available. Click here for more information.
