Video: Spawts - Big Fresh (UTR Premiere)

Auckland-based trio Spawts are just about to roll out their second EP Big Fresh Corner, Milky Way, and in the build-up they are sharing a humdinger of a video for lead single 'Big Fresh'. The group, which is made up of Jamie Hannah (drums), Kieran Ormandy (vocals, guitar) and newly recruited bassist Isaac McFarlane, enlisted the help of two pals in Wellington to cook up the video - which tells the story of a love triangle centring around a San Pedro cactus. Feast your eyes on the clip, and then read our interview with the band below...

Hi Spawts! The video looks great! The cactus owner character is awesome. Where did you find him?

Our friends in Wellington, Julia Ludbrook and Jonathan Mines, who made the video met Ian through theatre and film projects they had done. Extra for experts, Ian has a great moment showing up in What We Do In The Shadows.

Where did the storyline for come from?

After we finished recording 'Big Fresh' we sent it to Julia, and she offered to make a music video for it. From there her and Jonathan came to us with the concept - they did all the work.

They had heard about friends in Christchurch stealing cacti to make mescaline, and had a friend becoming increasingly attached to his growing cacti collection. So that sparked the idea of a cactus owner and a cactus thief character who both identify with the same cactus and seek to alleviate their loneliness by befriending it. There is always the chance of the two characters connecting, but like their cactus, their defence mechanisms prevent a connection.

‘Big Fresh’ is from your upcoming EP, can you tell us a little bit about it?

It will be our second EP and is the our first with our bassist Isaac McFarlane. It's is coming out on the 29th of July, and is called Big Fresh Corner, Milky Way. We named the EP after a shopping centre just down the road from our flat in Auckland, that we all recently moved into together. Our flatmate Brad, who played some extra guitar and Korg on the EP; his family refer to the centre as Big Fresh Corner, even though the Big Fresh supermarket is long gone and been replaced with a mediocre Countdown.

For this EP we wanted to have a crack at doing more of the recording and mixing ourselves - all the guitar and bass was tracked in Kieran’s old flat bedroom in Christchurch, and vocals were tracked in a couple different garages with some makeshift booths. We were lucky to have our friend Alex Harmer in Christchurch record the drums for us in his lounge - he mixed those too. Steven Marr from Nakey mastered the EP, and our friend Natasha Wong painted an amazing piece of artwork for the cover. It was a team effort all round.

Spawts are celebrating the release of their new EP with a release party at The Wine Cellar on Friday 29th July, with support from Trip Pony and George Wills. Head over here for more information.