Interview: Team Dynamite - 'Respect The Process' Tour

Six years in the making, Tāmaki Makaurau hip hop champions Team Dynamite have returned with an all-killer new album that's sure to be a fixture on end of year lists once we make it through 2021. Released via Years Gone By and aptly titled Respect The Process, Tony Teez, Haz Beats and Lucky Lance are currently in the midst of their first nationwide tour in more than half a decade celebrating their long-awaited record, taking over stages in Wellington and Christchurch this weekend. Team Dynamite fan and staunch Warriors supporter Liam K. Swiggs, founder of Canterbury's The Big Fresh Collective, stepped up to the plate and got on the blower with Haz Beats. Read their chinwag below and grab tickets for these mandatory attendance shows while you can — Dunedin readers note this Sunday’s Starters Bar event is no longer taking place...

Undertheradar proudly presents...

Team Dynamite

Friday 30th April - Wellington, San Fran*
Saturday 1st May - Christchurch, Cassels Blue Smoke*
Sunday 2nd May - Dunedin, Starters Bar [cancelled]
Thursday 6th May - Tuning Fork, Auckland

*Tickets available HERE via UTR
Auckland tickets via Moshtix

Liam K. Swiggs: Been a while boys. Team Dynamite — Auckland city's finest hip hop trio. Coming off the back of a brand new full length drop Respect The Process, sitting down with myself Liam K. Swiggs on behalf of Undertheradar. How’s it all going man?

Haz Beats: Bit tired from tour but yup it's going good.

So your first release of length in around 6 years; Respect the Process — it says it all in the name — fucken awesome album. A lot of loyal fans have been waiting for it including myself. How does it feel to finally get it all out there?

Long time coming... For me personally it's like a big weight off my shoulders, I guess it's the same with the boys too. It's been quite a while since we last released something. It's a good feeling to have some music out, for people who have been bugging us for years [Liam laughs]. We're all happy. We've got a good manager behind us now, got the ball rolling again, got the album released.

There's some cool credits on the album, with Bailey Wiley, Diggy Dupé and Louis Baker featuring. Christoph El' Truento as well did a track...

We got him on an interlude... 'Island Songs'.

Fuck yeah. How was the process of putting it all together?

We had all these songs that we had put away for this album, we didn't know what it was going to be called. We kind of just chipped away at it every year and got down to, maybe the top twenty songs that we liked. And then from there we just refined it some more, started chopping songs out. There was heaps of songs that didn't make it that I wanted on, but the boys didn't so it didn't quite fit.

It just took ages... the boys wanted to record some stuff, I wanted to change heaps of stuff. I wanted to get more instrumentation on there. It just took aaages man. We were just a bit fussy with the whole thing. At one stage Liam we started scrapping songs, putting them back in. It was a mind fuck. [laughs]

At the end of the day we got it down to maybe twelve songs, two of them we cut in the end. Got management involved and they kind of helped us push it out.

I really enjoyed the documentary by Years Gone By, Respect The Process. Some pretty amazing insights into everything there, some real cool old footage and it featured a bit of the dark times as well. Can you give us a bit of a rundown behind the process of making that, was it cool?

We wanted something to show people where we'd been and what we're up to with ourselves personally. Tom was like, why don't we try to integrate it with the release of your album? Just to show everyone that we do have our demons and we still are trying to fight with ourselves, to better ourselves everyday.

We didn't film it all together, we filmed it all separately. The main thing that came out of that was we all kind of spoke the same things. The doco really helped push the album anyway.

Speaking of the album, you guys are back on tour this Friday. What can people expect from a rejuvenated Team Dynamite?

We're down in Wellington this Friday at San Fran... We gone from a three man band to a five man band now. We've got a keys player, Adam Fuhr, and Elijah White on drums, so we've got a little live band thing going on, which is pretty good. It kind of gives more life to our album now, on a live aspect.

Are they going to tour with you all over the country?

We've just finished Gisborne and Napier with them, it's been good so far.

I've got one last question, it's a bit of a personal one... Parramatta these past few years is shaping up to be bit of a contender eh? Any NRL grand final predictions?

Parra will make the top four, I dunno about the Warriors man [Liam laughs]. Maybe they need some more Aussie players on there, show them the way to play y'know? Show them the work ethic and shit.

'Respect The Process' is out now digitally and on vinyl via Years Gone By Records.