Been around since?
Our first show together was on Saturday, October the 13th 2001. And by
some strange twist of fate, our album was released exactly five years
to the day of that show on Friday, October the 13th 2006.
Current line up?
MF Joyce on bass, Anthony Pompeus on drums and Edward Gains (myself)
on guitar & vocal noises.
Where are you based?
We are based in Auckland, New Zealand. I moved up from Dunedin in late
2000 and met Marcus & Anthony pretty soon after that.
Your current label is?
I AM EVIL RECORDS, which is our own label that we set up to release
The Demi Whores album, and now home to all my solo records.
Musical history? What were you listening to back in high school?
Man, you don't want to know what i was listening to in high school!!!
I was so totally uncool. I had every Billy Joel album known to man,
some Springsteen, even fuckin' Huey Lewis & The News. Know wonder i
got picked on. Then I discovered Flying Nun & The Smiths and it was
all up hill from there, thank god.
The state of music in NZ is..?
Pretty bloody good. There are some great radio stations playing the
whole range of whats going on, and people seem to be getting on with
making music and making crazy videos and stuff without waiting on
someone to give them money to do it. And to have something as great as
Alt TV on the air gives hope to every twisted video director in the
country!!!
What¹s your favourite place to play?
I have to say I really like playing in Wellington. Whenever we've
played there people just come and stand right at the front which is
great, unlike maybe Auckland where people can a little stand off-ish
and hang back at the bar quite a bit (i have to say, I am sometimes
one of those people!!!). Of course that depends how early or late you
play in the night and how many beers people have had. I gotta say i am
looking forward to playing with The Demi Whores in Dunedin, because
The Whores have yet to play a show down there.
What was your favourite show?
I'd have to say all of our shows have been pretty fun to play lately.
Ole' MF Joyce is having a couple of drinks now before he plays so that
always makes for an exciting time. Our show at Real Groovy the day our
album came out was pretty choice. It felt like a major weight had been
lifted from our shoulders. Five years worth of weight actually!!!
What is your recording process?
This album was done pretty quickly. The basic tracks were done in a
day and then I went back in to do some more guitars and vocals for a
couple of days and then Marcus went and did some prunes and custard on
some stuff and then we roped in Nathan Means from Trans Am to do some
keyboards on tracks like 'Title is Untitled' which he made sound
amazing.
What's been your best recording experience?
This album was alot of fun to make, and Murray Fisher was awesome to
work with. He's super talented and this recording wouldn't have
sounded as great without all the hard work he put into it. My last
solo record, 'Bel Hevi' was pretty fun to record too because it was my
first time recording onto a computer so I just went nuts with hundreds
of guitars.
What¹s been your worst recording experience?
I remember recording songs for my second solo album, 'The Girl with
1000 Boyfriends" in a bedsit in Streatham in London. My girlfriend had
just moved to France, and I was working on a building site, carrying
bags of cement up 4 flights of stairs from 8 at night till 8 in the
morning and somehow I was still broke. I would come home and switch on
my four track and all this crazy noise would come flying out. Maybe
the recordings were what kept me going though. The recording process
is what you make of it. Just choose your time and find some like
minded souls and you'll be fine.
Favorite radio show/station?
I work in a place with alot of people, but luckily everyone likes the
same kind of music, so BFM is always on, sometimes Kiwi Fm, and even
The Rock. Although as soon as Nickleback comes on I feel like breaking
something. Seeing them open for The Rolling Stones was a close as I've
come to being awake and having a nightmare.
The Future holds?
Another Demi Whores album for sure, as we've got heaps of new songs.
The next one may be a little more lo-fi though, just because we are so
broke after putting this one out by ourselves that we may only be able
to afford to record onto a cheap cassette recorder from Dick Smiths. A
tour of New Zealand would be great, I'd loooove to go to Japan oneday
with this band, but who knows, we're just really stoked to have
finally released an album that we are proud of.
