NEW ZEALAND is famous for its rugby team - the All-Blacks inspiring fear and respect in opponents the world over. Yet the country is no slouch either when it comes to producing good music.
The islands have produced Crowded House, The Black Seeds, Flight of the Conchords, and hard rockers The Datsuns - named after the make of Japanese car that is was the forerunner of Nissan
The Cambridge, New Zealand, based band will release their new digital single ‘So Long’ on February 16. The release will be preceded by a short Irish tour which will take in the Róisín Dubh on Thursday February 5 at 9pm.
The single is taken from the band’s most recent album Head Stunts and band vocalist/bassist Dolf de Borst describes it as “catchy power pop”.
“It’s more Cheap Trick than AC/DC, even though we’re meant to sound like Deep Purple,” he says. “Maybe we’re heavier than we think. It’s very much based on that pop aesthetic, with lots of hooks. I loved Cheap Trick’s image, and they exploited it really well, with the hunks at the front on their Harleys, and the geeks at the back on their trikes.
“For a while I thought it might be nice to put on a costume or a superhero outfit before hitting the stage or going into an interview, where everything becomes a bit more cartoon-y and exaggerated. Almost like stepping into character. But we haven’t given ourselves the luxury of that so it’s not so clear cut. We change opinions on things and we all have conflicting viewpoints to each other, which is much more human I suppose.”
It’s reflective of the band’s approach to music. As de Borst says: “We’re just a rock’n’roll band playing music the way we want to do it. It can be too light for people into heavy metal, and too heavy for people into straight garage – we purposefully make it so it doesn’t fit into one place.”
Tickets are available from the Róisín Dubh and Zhivago.
