Interview: Ringlets 'The Lord Is My German Shepherd (Time For Walkies)' Album Release Tour

Tamaki Makaurau’s post-punk four piece Ringlets are quickly becoming indie darlings for their tense yet melodic art rock sound. They released their second album, The Lord Is My German Shepherd (Time for Walkies), the group's debut on Flying Nun Records earlier this year, and are about to embark on a release tour in early August. Oscar Toy (Lavender Menace) caught up with lead singer Leith Towers, who was phoning in from the car park of a Taupō Subway...

Ringlets

Friday 1st August - Wunderbar, Ōhinehou w/ Grifthorse, Velveteen
Saturday 2nd August - Secret Show, Ōtepoti (tickets not available for purchase)
Friday 8th August - Meow, Te Whanganui a-Tara w/ American Muscle, Raiden Freeman (solo)*
Saturday 9th August - Whammy Bar, Tāmaki Makaurau w/ Community Treatment Order

Tickets on sale HERE via UTR
*Tickets available via ringlets.co.nz

Oscar Toy: I’m sure you get this a lot… Do you wanna tell me about the title of this new album? I know it comes up in the second song, 'I Was On That Roof Once'.

Leith Towers: It was plucked out of the song to be the title of the album, but the lyric came first. It’s funny, I've been asked a bunch to explain myself about the lyrical side of things and I'm still trying to figure out the best way of answering it. A lot of it is metaphor and free association and humour as a way of not being too overt about writing about things that are quite personal, experiences or thoughts that are more private. You know when you’re a bit pissed, and you tell someone you don’t really know something really personal, and the next day you’re like, "Ah, man…" I guess that lyric is part of one of those broader personal experience things. That lyric was sort of something that had an element of humour to kind of disarm it a little bit, but it was a line that spoke out enough that we decided that would be a good album title. The added parentheses were worth it, it’s good to use your keyboard more broadly.

When you’re writing lyrics like that, are you writing them as an internal monologue? Or are they supposed to be a spoken dialogue?

I guess there’s a little bit of that. The process typically is that there’s some chords or something stirring already, and then the melody is there. Then something comes into my mind when I’m in a brooding state, or when I’m doing one of these long drives, it sits nicely over the chords, or it seems important to me at the time. It’s not like a very rigid kind of academic style of lyric writing, but it seems to sort of work. Sometimes it’s that thing that you don’t shout at someone because it sounds a bit crazy or angry or something.

So you're saying the music is what informs your lyrics? And that’s how it works for you guys writing your songs?

Well the music informs the cadence and the rhythm of what the words are gonna need to be, and then just sort of thoughts that are swirling. They’re kind of the right shaped peg for that hole. I guess that’s the best way I can describe it right now.

Fair enough. I wanted to ask you about the band name itself, is it Ringlets like the hairstyle, or like the butterfly?

My workmate asked me that today and I was like, "Ah…" László (Reynolds) the guitar player came up with the name, and his rationale, which is a very László kind of rationale, was like, "It’s a single word, and the Bandcamp URL isn’t taken." There isn’t another one, and there’s not a lot of (available) words, with how much volume of music that’s out there, that have a nice sound to them. So he came up with the name. BUT he’s the only one with curly hair, so maybe it was a tactical move on his part, to name it after his own hair. I don't know. I do love a good butterfly.

On the album, you’ve got some new sounds coming in compared to the first album, some acoustic guitars and things like that… was that a conscious choice?

I think we did want to have more texture and more timbre, have it be a bit more rich in that regard. Then I think as well it was a lot of what we listened to, makes use of more of those acoustic instruments. László, a lot of his solo output is very steel string acoustic, which informs a lot of his electric guitar playing as well. The way he uses arpeggios and phrases things and the patterns he uses. I think it was a little bit of natural progression as well, to bring more of what he was doing anyway. We talked about how we wanted this one to have something a bit different about it, and that was kind of it. On the whole, the record's got a bit slower bpm, and I think when you’ve got a bit more space like that, you’ve got a bit more room to have some softer textures. All the songs formed in a rehearsal space, with electric instruments and a standard rock ensemble configuration, but 'Ancient Gays' was kind of just screaming out to be acoustic guitar instead.

Going off that, what were you guys listening to while you were recording this album? Obviously it still sounds like you’re keeping your post-punk influences, but was there anything new you discovered that informed the new tracks?

There were some reference tracks we sent to the engineer and the producer and amongst ourselves when we were starting to bring it together. It had like, Idaho and Boris and ISIS… One kind of random one was there was a Jimmy Eat World song that we quite liked the snare off. I don’t know how close we got, but that was one. There were some random things, but that was more on the production end of things. We’d already written a lot of the material and I don't think in that writing process there was too much said out loud between us on what we were going for.

Just personally for you, what’s been on your turntable?

On this drive I've been listening back to an audiobook, Running The Light (by Sam Tallent), about a comedian. I guess a lot of the reading and stuff informs maybe thinking about the way you can put some words together. I listened to part of the new Awning record on part of the drive up. Gosh, what else? My partner played me May You Never by John Martyn. I've been playing that the last couple of days, it’s like a Joni Mitchell acoustic guitar piece. I’m a big fan of Robert Wyatt. I don't know, it’s a real hodge-podge. My playlists aren’t a very cohesive listening experience.

It’s interesting, listening to you talk, and the way you sing, with — I'm not gonna call it a British accent, but…

When I was real little, in the UK, I think it was more just the stuff I’ve grown up with, like a lot of British comedy is drilled into me. And I had a weird one where... a teenager, at the time the only other performing I had done was in school plays, where I was always doing a California accent. So my early musical forays were with this horrible American accent. Now, in an effort to correct that, I’ve over corrected it. It’s gone all Pom. I'm not very good at self-monitoring, I don't know! [laughs] 

What plays did you do in school?!

I did Xanadu, with the roller skates. I think by the virtue of me being good at roller skating rather then acting or anything, that was really fun, good Electric Light Orchestra, that was sick. Then another one, which was a smaller, more modern one called The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, I played a kid that got an erection during a spelling bee. I had to sing a song called 'My Unfortunate Erection', that was quite fun.

Did that affect the costume design at all?

No! It was pretty bold of the music teacher to be doing that in a school play anyway. But no, it did not. I didn’t go method. Just the pulling your t-shirt over your crotch kind of erection, one of those ones.

Fair enough, fair enough.

An assumed erection.

We’re running out of time here, so I’d like to finish off by asking if there are any local bands, or friends bands that you really like, that you’d like to shout out?

That's an epic question. I’m just blatting up to Auckland and I’m hoping to see my friend's band Neither Do I. I might miss it though, it’s not looking good. The new Awning record’s great. Raiden Freeman, the Wellingtonian. I'm a colossal Raiden Freeman fan and I think, I hope, that Jack Mells is gonna perhaps play our Wellington show coming up. That’d be so sick, if that’s actually the case [Confirmed since this interview took place - Ed.]. Cold Ceiling, great metal band that my mates are in. Too many to even say. There’s so much great New Zealand music.

Well, thank you for your time!

Thanks, really appreciate any media opportunities!

'The Lord Is My German Shepherd (Time for Walkies)' is out now on major streaming platforms and vinyl LP via Flying Nun Records and Leather Jacket Records.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.