Not too many bands have been able to do what New York Dolls achieved with their comeback album, 2006’s One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This.  Not the Pixies.  Not the Stooges. Not The Police, nor any other resurrectionist artist of recent vintage, save perhaps for Wire.

New York Dolls not only maintained their legacy with One Day it Will Please Us to Remember Even This – they possibly managed to enhance it. With former NYD fanclub leader Morrissey to blame (it was he who convinced David Johansen, Syl Sylvain and Arthur ‘Killer’ Kane to get the group back together in 2004 for the Meltdown Festival), Sylvain and Johansen rode through the tragic death of Kane from leukaemia mid that year to come through it with flying colours, returning the spirit of cathartic rock ‘n’ roll pleasure like it was 1972 all over again.

New York Dolls lead a turbulent career. While they never managed to break through commercially, their musical approach resonates to this very day, providing a certain sense of style and approach that was immediately influential, giving punk rock as much a grounding as the Stooges did, but also influencing glam rock, new wave, and indie rock too.

“I’m one to look forward to the future,” Sylvain proclaims. ”It took us 30 years to get this first [reconvened album] out, so I hope it won’t be another 30. But it could definitely happen – I’m writing songs now, and that’s the sort of entertainers and musicians that we are. I know for a fact that even if I wasn’t doing this I’d still be writing, much as I was before the success of the reunion of the New York Dolls.”

It’s something that’s become something of a plague – as always, the New York Dolls probably kicked off the latest run, with the likes of the Pixies and the Police have now jumped on the bandwagon too. New York Dolls beat ol’ sparring partners Iggy and the Stooges to the punch by getting back into the studio, and they thrashed ‘em whilst in there, as anyone who has heard The Weirdness will attest.

“It’s always up and down in showbiz – that’s the way the gig is that I’m doing and that I’ve been in since forever,” he says. ”I hope that you can’t blame us for bringing them all back, but some obviously should come back, and maybe some should not.  But it’s all about the public seeing them, and they should have the last call on whether they see these bands or not; the public rules.”

The public certainly seems to want New York Dolls – they’re the latest addition to rock fest V Festival, and it’s something that Sylvain, Johansen, and their touring band are looking most forward towards. ”It’s going to be our first time ever in Australia,” he confirms, “so for the New York Dolls I’m so happy that our record has gotten some success over there; enough for us to come down.  Just that alone makes it as exciting as hell. I’ve known Australians and played with some in Canada, and I know that they’re a lively, cheerful bunch, and they just love rock ‘n roll.

“If they want to see the pure rock ‘n’ roll,” he continues, “there’s not that many bands out there. There might be a lot of reunions, but there’s hardly any bands that DO rock ‘n’ roll, and that’s what they’re going to get [with the New York Dolls].”

Promising to pluck from their back catalogue as well as their current release, Sylvain says that when the reformation originally took place playing without the entire band was different, but something to which they were easily able to adapt. ”We weren’t stupid to go and try to REPLACE anybody,” Sylvain affirms.  “Obviously I know most people are irreplaceable, and you can’t make those changes. But we were smart enough to get guys who we thought ‘this guy IS a New York Doll’ and that’s what we really went for, to keep the same spirit going and keep it as an evolution of music.”

After an initial teething period, he says that as soon as the New York Dolls got up on stage it made any line-up shuffles irrelevant. ”It all makes it clear whether it’s right or wrong,” he proclaims. ”They loved it, and that’s why we keep on going – the only reason we’ll stop is when the audience has had enough of us.”

That’s not likely to happen in a hurry.

New York Dolls play the V Festival. For full details click here