Interview: DARTZ

Radio BurgerFuel (RBF): It's been a couple of years, and you guys have been working real hard and releasing lots of tunes and videos and albums and doing heaps of shows since then. Has it felt as hectic as it sounds? 

Clark: Yeah, yeah. It's just been real busy, which is cool. Except my cat's not too happy with me spending a lot of time away from home. But yeah, we're just about to hit up a big European and UK tour - flying out after the Dawn Service tomorrow at 6:00 AM. So yeah, last day in Wellington for a while, which is pretty sad, but you've got to leave Wellington in order to spread the message of Wellington to the people so...

RBF: That tour looks awesome, 7 or 8 different countries through Europe right?

Clark: I think so, yeah. I'm excited about seeing what's on offer, and going to all these different places that I've never been to. We went to Germany and the UK last year, but never been to any of the other places like France and Italy and Scandinavia. Is that a country or is that three countries?!

So just starting to get it to do it with the boys. I think we've far surpassed at this point, any expectations we ever had when we started doing this or like where things would go. So it's just yeah super cool.

RBF: What were your expectations? Was it just to jam some tunes and drink a few beers with mates?

Clark: Yeah, pretty much. So at first, it was opening for The Chats in Wellington like five years ago. And we pretty much made the band for that show. And then just kind of kept going and spent the first year mostly just playing around Wellington. Playing heaps of house players and stuff because we were obviously a little bit young.

Once you've put out two albums and played with Elemeno P, kind of everything is ticked off the bucket list. When we played some shows opening for Elemeno P last month, I thought, 'Oh my God, this feels like a side quest'. You know what I mean? Like we've completed the main story and we're going around getting 100% completion on all the achievements. So it's pretty cool, and definitely keeps you very humble too, to play with those huge bands from your childhood, right?
 

RBF: It's great that it's still the same crew as well right?

Clark: Yes. Just the four of us. Well, our drummer Rolly, he actually broke his ankle a few weeks ago. So we're taking someone new to Europe, which is crazy. We're actually taking over a new bass player, which is kind of hectic. Crispy, our guitarist is switching to play drums. Because, it turns out we don't have any friends who drum. We've just got five friends to play bass. 

Our mate from Auckland is coming, and honestly what a good mate. He also got in on the job quitting, and turned around and quit his within 24 hours of getting the call. But I think to essentially get an all expenses paid trip to Europe for two months. I think that's pretty hard to turn down, right?

So yeah, it's obviously a bit of a bit of a bitch that Rolly can't be there with us, but apart from that, we're just super stoked.

RBF: Apart from a new lineup, what's the plan for this tour then?

Clark: I'm definitely gonna make the most of it and just have some fun. Between all of us getting to quit some jobs and make a proper go of it, it's what we've been itching to do for a while.  

Last year we were only over there for three and a bit weeks, and this time it's seven-ish weeks. Last time we had a lot of hectic events like lost passports in Berlin and the kind of usual stuff. Somehow we managed to pick up a rental car in the UK using only a New Zealand learner's driver licence last time because we lost everything else. So if that's any indication of what's going to happen, well, hopefully not. But we'll see!

I think it's a good thing for us as well, as most of our writing songs and stuff just come from sitting around in the car talking crap. So I'm sure there'll be plenty of time for doing that.

RBF: So basically, you've all chucked in your jobs, you're leaving for a couple of months and then what happens after that?

Clark: I think after that we're pretty much going to be back to writing our third album, which is real exciting. We've taken quite a bit of a break, since putting our second one out last year. I think it's probably the longest we've kind taken off working on new stuff. Up to then, it had pretty much been a continuous rolling thing. 

But the past year has been like so much touring that to have a bit of a clean break, it's gonna be a nice thing to come back and do that and hopefully get some more music out for summer, which is gonna be cool.

Last time we were lucky to get some funding through NZ On Air to do the recording. But I think this time we get everything done ourselves. And then take it out to some overseas labels. So work through that whole process ourselves and get a finished product before moving forward. But she'll be fun whatever we do.
 

RBF: So you have a song 'Moving To Melbourne', and last weekend you played a show in Melbourne. What's the story, you're not off are you?

Clark: Yeah, we played in Melbourne on Easter weekend. It was crazy we sold out our first show in Melbourne at like 300 people, which we never expected to be able to do that. Very, very cool. And there weren't even that many New Zealanders in the room!

I think we might have caused a little bit of confusion with that song [Moving To Melbourne] because we've definitely written everything literally. We've trained the audience - the boys have a Toyota Corolla, they've got a song called Toyota Corolla. The boys live at 40 Riddiford St, they got a song called 40 Riddiford Street. But, 'Moving To Melbourne' is actually more about the vibe, and a feeling of how in the past year, with every week, it feels like you're at someone else's leaving party. So many mates are going overseas.

So we're not actually moving over there, but we did have a chat about this recently. I think we're like kind of at a point where we're busy enough as a group so we'd be pretty fine with anyone living anywhere as long as that can make that work. I've been talking about potentially going to my step mum's house to save up some money. and we're busy enough to to do that.

I kind of feel like we're going into the next phase. The first five years of this band have definitely been based around Wellington, meeting up every week and having the same shit chats and songs coming from that. But going forward we might do it a but differently.

RBF: And amongst all of this, some great news for you guys with all those Aotearoa Music Awards nominations.

Clark: Yeah, it's crazy. We never expected that kind of stuff at all. Definitely not expecting any wins or anything. Like, we were at the Taite Awards in Auckland last week and were definitely just there for hangs more than anything else.

It's so crazy to be up there in that Best Group category. How are we in there with people like LAB who are the biggest band in the country. What's going on there?

RBF: But it must be kind of cool to see that other people do recognise what the hard work that you guys put in.

Clark: 100%. We made a real determined effort to try and get our stuff playing on The Rock and Hauraki last year. So to see that come through with the Best Rock nomination was real cool as well. Cause I remember as a kid watching on TV when The Mint Chicks won and Elemeno P won and stuff like that. 

And also to get the video nominated was very cool. I had no idea that was gonna come through. But especially because I think we're so big on this because we love music videos. It's probably not good a good business decision that we spend as much money on music videos, but we treat it as more like art.