You might have seen a post from UTR last week on Christchurch band BnP (who used to be called Bits N’ Pieces) – since we found their particularly cynical outlook on their album Welcome To Mediocrity so interesting, we sent off a few interview questions to the band to see what they would say. They came back to us (labeling their answers ‘Doctrine from BnP’) with some suitably oblique responses no less entertaining than their album.
How long have you been lurking around?
Lurking: To exist unobserved or unsuspected. After a brief war with the enemies of stagnation in two-thousand and nine, the original BnP members, forged from refined malcontent, depravity and cheap rye whiskey; laid to rest beneath the earth's crust. Broken free from our shackles by the emigration of weak bastards from our hometown, Christchurch, we return to provide meat packets with a reason to drink without leaving the house.
Any reason for the name change?
Bishops and Paedophiles, Bigots Nobodies Perverts, Bloody Nasty People, Breathing Not Properly, Brain Natriuretic Peptide, Bashing Nice People, Bow Now Pagan, Breeding Not Pleasing. Etc.
What other bands have you been involved with?
Christchurch music is fairly incestuous. But who honestly hasn't thought about their fit cousin at least one to five times in their life? BnP rents to, Doctors, Phobos Eros, The Brian Tamaki Massacre, Piha Rescue, Thrill Collins and The Dance Asthmatics.
Where’d you get that image on the album cover from? It looks creepy.
That is Elizabeth Bathory. She was a cool dude from 1560. Just down for whatever, cheap drinks, probably some rough lines. Reminds me of this family that lived next to me at my parent's old house. We used to hangout by the river and catch small fish, until they moved away. When we met again years later it was for the film "Monsters inc". I hated it, what a shit film. Electrical energy from screams? The fuck is that. Get some coal you idiots.
Who did you record the album with? And where?
With the current members of BnP. Stephen Nouwens, John Harris, Ben Dodd, Jamie Stratton's ghost, Rhett Copland. Ben Dodd recorded and mixed the album extremely adequately in Jamie's mausoleum before succumbing to the North Islanders.
Are you happy with the way it came out?
Let me put it this way... I wanted to hear Sex On The Beach and all I got was a shitty guitar band.
Who would you say particularly inspired this album? Non-musically speaking.
Jamie Stratton's heart wrenching departure from this world... then unimaginable joy meeting him in his newly ethereal form, hearing his stories about the unending nothingness on the other side and how to play guitar with metallic hands. Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother fourty whacks, when she saw what she had done, she gave her father fourty-one.
What are all those samples?
In order of appearance, we have... Kevin Sorbo fucking his lines up, Lizzie Borden 1975 TV Movie / young women singing a Lizzie Borden nursery rhyme, a segment from an Ally Acker short film entitled 'Silver Apples of the Moon', A scene about necrophilia from the film Brazil and Robbie Coltrane in The Comic Strip's, Gino.
What was going on for you in your lives when you started making the album?
Riding the floor cleaning machine at the Ferrymead Mitre 10 Mega, selling cars, mowing lawns, smoking weed and rebuilding christchurch.
What does everyone do for work or study?
Half of us work on bettering the populace, the other half have legitimate jobs.
What was it like for you on the recent anniversary day of the Canterbury quakes?
Three years goes fast.
Are there many other bands like this in Christchurch at the moment?
Very few bands survived the Stagnation War of 2009-2011. From the waste we like, Pylon, Von Klap, Boltcutter, God Destroyer, Ipswich and some other bands occasionally.
Any plans to head North? Or South?
Reluctantly we will be revisiting all the non-believers that fled Christchurch after the reptillian ground assault led by Bob Parker. Wellington and Auckland. Around April(?) or another month. Probably April. (?)
