Interview: Bunchy’s Big Score & Dolly Possum - '2EPs' Release Shows

Wednesday provides an double interview befitting the fab new 2EPs split release from Ōtepoti Dunedin's ascendent Dolly Possum and Bunchy’s Big Score, just launched into our physical reality on vinyl LP via independent champs DUN Records (who also brought you 4EPs). Teased digitally with advance singles 'Knapsack' and 'Magnet', the only way you can currently hear the complete package of Dolly Possum's Hunting EP and BBS's Good Friends EP is to grip 2EPs on vinyl, from your friendly local record store / merch table.

Each group passed the mic around for a glorious in-depth chinwag about their new musical offerings, artistic ethos and lots more. Read onwards and make your way to this week's all-ages 2EPs Live! event at Port Chalmers Pioneer Hall, featuring both bands with special guests Sick Of You...

Bunchy’s Big Score & Dolly Possum
2EPs Live!

Friday 6th November - Pioneer Hall, Ōtepoti w/ Sick Of You (all-ages)
Friday 15th January - Grainstore Gallery, Ōamaru
Saturday 16th January - Ōtautahi, Darkroom

Tickets on sale HERE via UTR

Dolly Possum (Keira Wallace and Kristian Groves)
Interview conducted by Bunchy’s Big Score (Max White and Jack Ingram)

Bunchy’s Big Score: Dolly Possum began as a duo. How has the band dynamic and songwriting changed since then, after you’ve morphed into a three piece with Caleb on drums, and now a four piece with Mack on bass?

Keira Wallace: We actually hadn’t written any original songs as a two-piece, we were more so a covers duo. Which was fun, and sort of helped us establish our style. But, it’s become a lot more “bandy” and fun with four people.

Kristian Groves: Yeah, it was quite hard to write songs together with just the two of us on guitar. It’s good having Caleb who can be, not impatient but — sort of wants us to hurry up and make decisions.

Keira: And then also everyone is a multi-instrumentalist, so everyone else can play everything else as well.

Do you have plans to write songs as a four-piece together or will the two of you remain to be the brain of Dolly Possum?

Kristian: I don’t really know if it ever was like that to be honest, maybe you (Keira) and I will write the structures? But I think we all kind of ask each other for help on lyrics sometimes.

Keira: Yeah, it’s quite collaborative, I think.

What was the scariest aspect of creating this Hunting EP?

Kristian: I think having my whānau listening to it. I’ve got a very Christian grandma and the first line on shotgun is pretty gross… kinda. But maybe that’s just a fear of being perceived, I suppose.

Keira: It’s a little scary that we hadn’t finished our album yet, because I was worried we might put it on the back burner and never finish it. But, we did eventually get round to recording Bandit which took a long time, because we all needed to be there to record it in the room together. But it did get done, and then it wasn’t so scary.

The sound and songwriting of Dolly Possum appears to take influence from American folk / country lineage, from the likes of artists like Frog, MJ Lenderman, also going back further to artists like Neil Young. Being an Aotearoa, and specifically Ōtepoti-based group, would you say your surroundings here, influence the development of your songs, and if so, what aspects specifically?

Kristian: Yeah 100%. Well I’ve only really listened to MJ Lenderman in the past few months. A lot of our influence definitely comes from Frog. I grew up in Osborne in quite a rural area. Lots of our songwriting is about my childhood out there, or things I can remember. I tend to name drop people from my whānau while also making up different characters. Everyone says the gloomy sound kinda comes out of Dunedin, and I agree, it breeds a different kind of creativity.

Keira: I really like the storytelling in Frog’s songwriting and how it’s able to create such a vast world in each song. With my solo stuff, I want to be more introspective whereas with Dolly Possum, I feel like we can make up little characters and do a bit more storytelling.

Aotearoa as a country is already very geographically isolated, and so you mentioned growing up in a rural area like Osborne here is like the nth degree of that separation. Do you think that intense isolation comes through in your songs?

Kristian: Yeah, I suppose so. I actually moved back out to Osborne a couple years ago and thought "I’ll become a bit more introspective with my writing being secluded." But I think it ultimately just drove me a little bit crazy, and I just wanted to come back to Dunedin.

What is your favourite track from the EP at this very moment?

Kristian: I really like 'Howl'. It’s got a nice low end and fun lyrics. That song specifically is very inspired by Frog, particularly the lyrics are quite tongue and cheek and there’s a bit of yearning and outlandishness in there too. Talking about wanting to murder someone…

Keira: Yeah, I really like 'Holy Dirt Bike Wreck 2009', it’s a fun one. I like how we layered it with cymbal scrapes and there’s this one bit in the song where the violin morphs into a cymbal scrape and it’s really cool. It’s just a cool song and it’s got banjo which is always fun.

If every member of Dolly Possum was a track from the Hunting EP, who would be each track?

Kristian: You’re 'Knapsack' probably (to Keira).

Keira: Yeah… it is quite a Keira song.

Kristian: Maybe Caleb is 'Holy Dirt Bike Wreck 2009', because he makes sad music. Maybe I’d be 'Shotgun', and then…

Keira: Mack can be 'Buffalo'.

The cover art for the Hunting EP is a wonderful surreal photo that to me, brings to mind family lineage. Could you tell us more about the EP cover art and why you chose this photo to pair with this particular collection of songs?

Kristian: My Nana showed me that photo. It was a print of my great-grandma Elsie and her siblings on horseback. She’s 104 now, so the photo is 100 years old. But I’m very interested in lineage and tūpuna. I also really like the look of the photo. It’s quite dark and dingey and has the lines across it, and it communicates the rural feeling with a bit of unease because of how dark it is, and that’s also what we try to communicate in our music. The photo is quite distorted too, and that’s also a bit of us. Rural distortion.

Keira: I feel like writing about lineage is quite a Dunedin thing in itself. In some other places it feels like music is a competition for who can be the most unique and original, but here people have always made music for fun and it’s with our friends. It also helps the weather down here feel more bearable.

Are there any big differences between writing Keira Wallace songs and Dolly Possum?

Keira: Yeah, very different. Usually, Kristian brings the bones or a piece of a song and then we all piece it together, so my role in the band consists more of adding layers and textures, rather than conceiving the foundation of a song.

Kristian: I always wanted to ask you that.

When you’re (Keira) writing solo stuff do you instinctively go to a guitar?

Keira: I think guitar is my comfort instrument. But if I’m feeling particularly brave, I might go for the violin, and then if I’m feeling funky I’ll reach for the banjo.

Kristian: We’re the only band that has two banjos.

Keira: We put the band in banjo.

What do you hope to achieve with the release of the Hunting EP and beyond as a group?

Kristian: Hmmm. Rich and famous. Lots of money. 1960’s Jaguar… the car and the guitar.

Keira: Whole lotta hot chicks.

Kristian: Nah, I dunno. I guess just to show people our art.

Keira: Yeah, I don’t think there are any big plans for world domination with Dolly Possum, but just resonating with the right people, and hopefully that equates to a big audience.

Kristian: I really like having stuff that people can connect to.

What are some of your favourite Aotearoa based groups and have they had an influence on your songwriting and music?

Keira: Womb has been a big one for me, they were based in Pōneke but now they’re in Tāmaki, and they’re sort of dream pop with strings with lots of beautiful ambient stuff. They’ve informed lots of the layering I do with harmonies and violins. I teared up for every song I listened to the first time I saw them live and I also met one of the members at To The Front camp in 2021, and the member has remembered me which is so sweet!! Which is such a cool thing about doing music in Aotearoa, the artists who are bigger are really nice and welcoming. Also, Jazmine Mary is another big one for my songwriting.

Kristian: The Garbage and the Flowers definitely, U-No Juno, Alistar Galbraith’s solo work, and Darcy Clay of course.

Bunchy’s Big Score (Max White and Jack Ingram)
Interview conducted by Dolly Possum (Keira Wallace and Kristian Groves)

Dolly Possum: If you could guarantee that any singular person in the world, dead or alive, back to the dawn of time could hear 2EPs, who would they be and why?

Jack Ingram: I think if we showed it to Genghis Khan he would’ve stopped his tyranny.

Max White: One person? I’m glad my family can hear 2EPs… I can’t think of a good answer right now that will get me more aura. Paul McCartney? But I feel like if he heard 2EPs, he might be like "Oh, that Dolly Possum stuff is quite interesting, the other group is a bit sort of derivative though."

Do you have any big aspirations or goals for Bunchy’s Big Score? Or is it about making music with friends because it’s fun?

Max: My favourite part is making the music, and I think Jack probably feels like this too. You finish the creating part and it’s like, "okay I’m really done with this now and want to move onto the next thing." For me, that’s the good thing about making music in general, trying to do something or get at something each time you do an album or a song. You’re never going to be able to do it exactly how you conceived of it in your head. The only remedy for that is to try to get at it again with the next one, like a dog chasing its own tail. I definitely want to continue making music forever and see how far we can go with Bunchy’s both musically before it feels redundant, and also in terms of popularity too. Let’s be real, we want people to hear the music.

More specifically, I want to get to work on another album first thing next year. Hopefully people hear this EP too, and I guess we should tour outside of the country.

Jack: I just write music for fun.

If social media didn’t exist, what would be your new promotional strategy?

Max: I love and hate posting and social media. Everyone says you must use social media as a band, which I don’t think is necessarily true, particularly if you can foster a scene in your area and meet people in real life. Honestly, it’s unfair that musicians are expected to do social media as it can feel humiliating in a lot of ways. So, my instinct is to try and lean into it and have fun. If social media didn’t exist, I’d probably focus on showing our music to people I know face to face, which I guess would be just playing live more. Social media is supposed to function as a substitute for all that, but it isn’t really that social and ultimately fails. You can still have fun with it though, but it is antithetical to music and music scenes.

Jack: I feel so immersed in social media that I can’t imagine what we’d do without it. How was it the Beatles got popular? They probably would have been on Reels to be honest.

Max: It does get you down when you think about it too much. But I think this is why this 2EPs release and the previous 4EPs are such a breath of fresh air being strictly physical.

Jack: I really like it, I was sceptical of how it would work with 4EPs, but it worked so well.

What are your feelings towards collaborating with a band that has no material out?

Max: Well, we know you, so we’re just putting something out with our mates, aren’t we? Dolly Possum has been around for a year or two now. It’s good because there is anticipation around what Dolly Possum will do as a group and so thinking of it like that makes it more exciting. Doing something with a new band who haven’t released any music is a mystery.

Jack: I just heard 'EP' and blacked out because I needed to quickly write some more music.

Max: Yeah, to be completely honest that was the first thought. We were like "oh shit, we need some more songs."

Was it a rushed songwriting process for this Good Friends EP?

Max: Yeah, I’d say so.

Jack: Yeah, it was.

How do you operate under that time pressure?

Jack: Hmmm, maybe the EP would have been different if we had another month?

Max: I think being put time under pressure to produce music is a great exercise, because it’ll turn out completely different to something you do with the luxury of time. With everything that an artist or band does, you should change one thing about the environment you are in to make sure you aren’t reproducing the same result each time. If we had more time, the songs on this EP probably would have just sounded like Wanda’s Bicycle songs which we had more time to make. The songs are quite similar, but they’re more tossed off both in the sense of writing and recording. There are far less guitar layers and it sounds more like a band playing, which is cool given that Wanda’s sounds so produced. It’s great to get away from that.

Is there anything about your environment or upbringing that influences your songwriting lyrically and musically?

Max: Lots of the Bunchy’s songs are about other people, people you come across or people you know. I think that when you write a song about another person, you are ultimately writing a song about yourself. Some of my songs are about people that I find really annoying or inversely people who I really like. I think these observations about other people both good and bad, are really things you see in yourself. That’s probably the lyrical throughline for a large bulk of the Bunchy’s discography.

I think I’m afraid of getting lost in life and becoming distracted from the things that I want to do, which is sort of what 'Magnet' is about. It was written about someone else, and how you can pass through life with goals and aspirations, but buildings and institutions are like magnets that pull you away from the path you thought you were going to follow. I’ve observed that happening to another person, but I think I was compelled to write a song about that because I don’t want it to happen to me.

Jack: Yeah, that’s a running theme then. Because that’s what 'Full Time Academic' is about as well!

Max: Yeah, it is, with a less abstract font, more literal.

What inspired you to write 'Tom Sawyer by Rush'?

Max: I thought it was a really good book and then just heard this keyboard riff in my head.

Jack: It just came to us in a dream and then we woke up and started a video call at the same time and just said "You had that dream too?" Then, Reef had that crazy drum fill.

Max: Just bring it home Reef. And this ties back into what I was saying before, about writing songs about other people, just projecting my own feelings onto Tom Sawyer.

That’s great, I was trying to come up with another question but thought it sounded kinda ridiculous. It was about when I walked in on Max, Hamish, and Jack standing around the TV watching Rush live. I noticed amongst all the bickering and slandering of Rush, there was kind of like a fondness.

Jack: I think Hamish is trying to become a Rush fan by learning some of their, maybe I’ll learn a whole Rush album and send it to him. That reminds me of this time we played 'War Pigs' at a gig for like 30 seconds opening up for S.E.I.S.M.I.C. Then S.E.I.S.M.I.C got up and played the whole song perfectly.

Max: The real winners that night were the audience who got to hear 'War Pigs' twice.

Where do you draw inspiration for Bunchy’s guitar parts?

Jack: It’s just all cliches. I love cliches. Lots of older bands used cliches too but took it so seriously. On 'I Can See the White Cars Coming', there’s a guitar solo and it’s just straight up lifted from 'Free Bird'. I feel like Cindy from Tāmaki is another band who fondly do that sort of thing like us. Geese too. Rock music kind of is just a bunch of satirical and serious cliches. Like, I love AC/DC. I know they are so ludicrous and love them for it.

Something I really admire about your songwriting, is the consistent use of standard guitar tuning, which is slowly becoming a lost art in a world of open tunings. Is it intentional to stick with standard tuning? Do you think with the array of music you’ve written that there is still potential in standard tuning, or are you feeling more experimental?

Jack: Max can’t play guitar… Well, I think alternate tunings are specifically for "guitar music", to make the guitar sound cool. Standard tuning feels more focused on the songwriting and playing with other instruments, centring chord progressions… stuff like that. I will say that every time I use a slide guitar, I do drop the high E down to a D, so I can get a major and a minor 3rd.

Max: Yeah, I think in some ways standard tuning is exhausted, particularly if you are trying to write guitar music like Jack said. Maybe that’s why writers of guitar music veer away from standard to reach a new place? With Bunchy’s songs, we’ve collectively decided there are tried and true elements of rock music that never fail to illicit a certain emotion or feeling. In that way, maybe the tuning is secondary to the mood. I’d definitely be keen to experiment with guitar tunings in the future. Every time we’ve worked on a project in Bunchy’s, I’ll usually limit myself to writing songs on one instrument, and so that restriction could be alternative tunings at some point. There are endless moods and feelings you can achieve with alternate tunings.

If your favourite burger chain collaborated with you to make a Bunchy’s Big Burger, what would be the ingredients?

Jack: That already happened.

Max: Yeah, there was a Bunchy’s Big Burger at Rad Kitchen in Invercargill.

Jack: And it had like three animals in it so Reef couldn’t eat it.

What can we expect from the third Bunchy’s album?

Jack: In January, we’re gonna go spend a week at a scout hall in Temuka and see what happens.

Max: For now, you should go and buy 2EPs and start a band yourself!