Interview: Creeps Record Parlour - Creep On Creepin' at Wellington Museum

Creeps Record Parlour have been the beating heart of Newtown's music community since opening their doors in mid-2019, morphing into reality from the almighty Death Ray Records, which kicked off around 2012. Owner / operator Boss Dude heroically runs (with assistance from Dartz singer Danz and Pinky) a must-visit shop sporting an ever-updating array of killer NZ releases, a wide range of top tier new and second hand international vinyl LPs, and exceptionally swish merch created by the Creeps in-house design team — plus occasional street-side gigs by the raddest local groups. Creeps join forces with Wellington Museum to present Creep on Creepin’ this coming Friday, featuring dream / surf crew Soft Plastics, E.U.G. (Extra Utero Gestation) and DJs Ben Ray and Boss Dude himself. Chris Cudby hit him up for the low down on this weekend's shenanigans, plus an insight into what it's been like running a staunchly independent record parlour during the unpredictable mad times brought by Covid-19...

Creep On Creepin'
Featuring... Soft Plastics, E.U.G. (Extra Utero Gestation), DJs Ben Ray and Boss Dude
Friday 12th February - Wellington Museum, Wellington (8pm, koha entry)
For more info head along here

Chris Cudby: What's a day in the life like running Creeps Record Parlour?

Boss Dude: Hahaha a combination of real chilled, but super busy. The attitude is to always try and be chilled and love the fuck out of being a record store owner. To turn up and rant about rekkidz with thee regularz. make some cash money to feed my nine year old and have enough casholla to hook up Bill and our mate Hazy Beersies. But making the money is always the hard thing as the shop is a destination and we really only deal in records and tees. Money stresses are real constantly. But nine years now opening that front door. A real privilege.

What's the history of Creeps? How did you become the proprietor of one of Aotearoa's finest independent record stores?

Firstly Creeps ain't the best record store, but our customers and people from around think it's easily the coolest fucken record store. One of my cuzzies, ole Ben Ray opened up Evil Genius in Lyttelton 10 years ago and some shitty earthquake flattened the O.G store after seven days or something. I was putting on record fairs around Wellies and sorta wanted to open a record store. I used to hunt real hard for records back then. We kinda met and he told me his story and then we re-opened Evil Genius in Berhampore with our mate Rosie who looked after the coffee side. We had heaps rad in stores featuring Delaney Davidson, Marlon Williams, Tami Neilson, Aldous Harding, Tape Man, Mara TK, Aaron Tokuna, EB & Sparrow, French for Rabbits, Louis Baker.

What kinds of sounds have the customers been fiending for at the moment?

When we first opened, it was all about weird and interesting. But mainly to stock NZ. We got all the rad rock n roll trash from Kato records and we still proudly stoke Stink Magnetic. But the main sellers have been local punk, hip hop, experimental, stoner doom metal, indie dream pop, psych / kraut / prog, jazz, African fuzz and Jamaican dub and reggae. But yeah Radiohead, Smiths, Faith No More, Talking Heads and other dad rock brings in the cash money.

Creeps and Death Ray have had some of the best poster and tee designs in recent times. Who's responsible for the killer designs?

In Creeps it's been myself, Danz who you'd know as Yeehawtheboys and singer of the band from Wellington New Zealand, Dartz. Also the amazing Pinky does a bunch.

Is it just you who runs Creeps? Anyone else involved?

Yeah it's just me but Danz and Pinky cover. And we find excuses to drink beer and play records.

How did Covid impact on business for Creeps? Have there been any other challenges that've emerged over the past year?

Yeah it was a bit of a fucken worry really. But ole mate Jacinda and her crew helped us out and sorted the Covid fund. It really helped. Pretty much put all that money back into the shop and purchased new records. When we opened back up people were so fucken amazing. The support was something different. It's since died the hell down. You know it was nice to eat good for those few months. Felt like the business was actually growing. We're back to stressing out about money and the lack of used trades coming in hahahahahahahahaha.

What can punters look forward to at Creep On Creepin' this Friday?

Two really rad bands! I've seen Soft Plastics a bunch and their music is soooooo cool. I just thought very Twin Peaks. Alty psych indie rock. E.U.G are more noisier. They're more a super group of rad musicians. Jono From Church of Goya, Soft Plastics, Spectre Collective, Emerald from Linen, the Charlton Brothers, Frasier and Kenny and Jordan from Mothers Dearest. Full noise, bit droney, bit rad. Fuck yeah, see yah there mates.