Catch Up: Missing Teeth

Missing Teeth are back together briefly for a couple of shows and to release a compilation album featuring past releases which are out of date including their self-titled debut album and the Disaster EP along with unreleased tracks and demos. We caught up with 'the Directors' (Koyla, Dean and Dave) for a quick chat over email ahead of their show in Auckland on Saturday....

Hey, how’s it going?

Koyla (K) - Fantastic. Seamus just cancelled practice.
Dean (DJ) - Ah just great, just bloody great you know…
Dave (DH) – It’s great, thanks.

So what’s bought the band back together for the recent shows and new release?

K -Jonesey (Dean) has been living in England and is back for a spell, so we thought why not have one last crack at it? if only to catch up with old mates and re-live former glory before we all get too out of shape and brain damaged to play anymore.

Going back to the start, when and how did Missing Teeth get together?

DJ - Kolya and I have been playing together in bands since high school, then this one time we met a sweaty bogan guy playing bass in a nu metal band, apparently he could smack the shit out of the drums so we started hanging out and jamming together, - mainly pixies and operation ivy covers.... then one day seamus (who we knew from intermediate school(do they still call it intermediate school?)) came out of no where and pretty much walked into the practise room and started doing all the vocals...at that point we started playing at west auckland parties using all of roof dogs gear ..... alas, through our mutual hatred of milk, the teeth was conceived...

What artists inspired and influenced Missing Teeth in the beginning?

K - We all had our own backgrounds, but common ground would have been, Pixies, Operation Ivy, Nothing At All, Choking Victim. We shared a lot of music and influenced each other.

DH - [adds] Dropkick Murphy’s, Dominion brewery's

What was the scene like back then?

DJ - When we first started playing the hardcore scene was thriving, we played heaps of shows with DSM, and the likes, but a lot of different style bands would gig together as well it was fucking rad, on the same bill you could see something like Sommerset, Missing Teeth, Evil Priest and the Rudies....... so a cool mix of punk hard core and ska.

K - It was pretty smoking for a while there. Shows at Necropolis on Symonds Street were always decent, I guess that was 2003/4? And there were some legendary shows in caves and kitchens and skate ramps around N.Z.

And how it is playing shows now in comparison?

K - It's still pretty fricken awesome. We played a show at the thirsty dog recently that went off. It was full of old school G.C's having good as times. if you weren't there suffer in ya jocks.

DH - Most of us have continued playing shows with other bands the whole time anyway, so it’s hard to say. Playing with the teeth for me feels no different. It’s like putting on a dirty old sock, it fits right to your foot.

Any great bands you miss from the old days that maybe never got the attention they deserved or dissolved too quickly?

K - Yeh quite a few - The Sound Laydee was years ahead of her time, The Rudies were our mates we used to play lots of shows with, they were a great ska-punk band. Evil Priest? I guess they did get a lot of attention. We put together 2 compilations called "the pick of the litter", which documents the local scene. Grab a copy if you can its still a great listen.

DJ - Yes, The `Rudies, The Spoilers, NOTHING AT ALL!, The Sods, SMD, Risto Rockers, Garage Fodder… I’m sure there's plenty more.

‘Same ol' Brew Re-bottled’ is a collection of your past releases – how was it looking back and listening to your old material again?

DJ – It’s not a collection of everything- it doesn’t include the last album 'ill Gotten Gains' for instance. I never really much liked listening to most of our stuff, especially the first album,(self titled) but after a good break I can hear it more objectively and now I think it’s great. Although Dave won’t agree, the Disaster EP is furious, nice raw recording of some decent songs. The other tracks on there are from our two 7"s, one 6", the PuppyKillerRecords compilation tracks, previously unreleased b-sides and some rare early demos.

DH - For me some of it was like hearing it for the first time. There is defiantly some stuff on there that I’m proud of, and lots of stuff that sounds like utter dog shit. Quite a few amusing moments listening through all the live stuff too - it was nostalgic.

K - I hate listening to any of my old bands. The b-sides and rarities are still fun, but yeah, I grimaced a lot.

Was it hard to pick what to include on the album?

DH - It was harder to find than to pick, luckily I have an old biscuit tin full of CDs and DVDs of most of our masters, it took a few tries to get the whole list agree'd on, but it was no harder than deciding what flavor pie ya gonna get at the gassy'.

Any plans to write/record new material?

After we played our last show in 2008, Kolya, Dave and myslef (the directors) wrote and recorded 4 new tracks that are still kicking around somewhere so you never really know do you.... life is buzzy... get invloved, get in the bin....

Same ol' Brew Re-bottled is out now.

Catch Missing Teeth live in Auckland this Saturday for the last time in awhile, possibly ever - click here for tickets.