Forming new impressions

Dunedin noiseniks Die! Die! Die! tour as often as most people shower.

It's not surprising, then, that for their current tour, promoting new album Form, their first release under the renewed muscle of the Flying Nun arm, they are performing 26 gigs in 20 days, including one at Barrytown, and several daytime high school shows.

While some have described them as having been on a three-year hiatus since releasing their critically acclaimed Promises, Promises, the reality is they've been busily working their way into hearts around the globe.

"Prior to coming home to do Form last year we'd been touring pretty much constantly for four or five years," the band's vocalist Andrew Wilson says. "I reckon if we had gone back on tour at the beginning of this year - we got offered a tour with Brian Jonestown Massacre in March - I think we would have broken up."

When Wilson bought a Flying Nun "the sound is out there" T-shirt from Sanctuary opshop in Dunedin years ago, he never dreamed that one day he'd be in a band signed to the label that was home to the very bands that got him into music in the first place - bands like the Skeptics, Bailter Space and Snapper, to name a few.

"Yeah, that T-shirt wasn't the best shape, it had a bit of a Matrix T-shirt vibe, it wasn't very flattering, but the thought was there," Wilson laughs.

The second signing to the rejuvenated Flying Nun label after Grayson Gilmour, Die! Die! Die!'s signing came about through another Flying Nun connection. While they were recording Form (originally titled Frame) with Nick Roughan, of Skeptics, Roughan invited Flying Nun's chief ears, Roger Shepherd, to come and cop an earful.

Wilson admits that he, drummer Michael Prain and bass player Lachlan Anderson were slightly apprehensive.

"Roger had seen us at SxSW and a few times in Auckland in the early days and I don't think he was very impressed with us at SxSW, we were taking advantage of the free booze. I do remember there was a few dubious characters hanging around us at the time, we were in various states of disarray, and I think he saw us then and thought we were hard to deal with as people.

"He came to meet us in person without any preconceptions and we were taking a few new directions and he loved the new stuff. We started talking and realised we got along."

When we speak, Wilson's in the recording studio with Roughan, recording another album.

"We've managed to write another album and we're recording it at the moment. I can't speak highly enough of Nick, we worked so well together we're keeping the team on."

Although the trio had numerous offers from various major labels internationally, they had an attachment to Flying Nun.

"We didn't have to sign with a label overseas that we didn't really know as people, we don't know if the same people are going to have their jobs in a couple of years because the industry is so f....d. We don't have to sign with a label in Britain, it can all work from here."

True to er, form, Form was written and recorded over July and August last year during a bitterly cold Dunedin winter, upstairs at the Chicks Hotel in Port Chalmers.

"Dunedin's where we go when we want to charge some batteries. I'm proud of the place, too. It's totally unique in the world. It's a beautiful place full of so many freaks.

"We had a bar tab which we had to pay at the end - it was a stupid amount of money but it was worth it. It was good to hang out at home with all the characters."

The track HT stands for home town and it is clear that the Dunedin sound is alive and well and being moulded in new and interesting ways in these raucous hands.

Die! Die! Die!'s rebellious yet polite streak is perhaps symbolised by the video for their first single off Form, We Built Our Own Oppressors, which was filmed in a building the band broke into. Lil Ships, which had its first live airing at an all-ages show in Christchurch last year, was initially titled Little Shits. 'Ha, we went with Lil Ships, you know, like Lil Wayne," Wilson laughs.

This punk trio have chiselled away at their sound and uncovered softer edges alongside the familiar blunt, angular ones. Form is a fierce five-car pile-up of noise, rolling about in the clever use of layers like a pig in proverbial. Wilson's voice penetrates dense layers of reverberation like a chainsaw through butter.

"Yeah the layers do shine through, just because it's so different. We're getting flak because it is not similar to other records but it would be boring if we kept doing the same thing over and over."

Listening to Form is exactly like the sensation of breaking open an orange only to have citrus juice squirt into your eye.

Although the album was completed this time last year, Wilson is glad they have waited and taken their time to release it properly.

"We've always rushed things in the past and I'm glad this has taken a year to come out, it's given us breathing space to talk about it in a positive way. Form was recorded for not much and still sounds good."

The album title and artwork came courtesy of Tina Pihema from The Coolies.

"It is a real beginning for our band. Tina said it was like us starting and forming again and it is. It's a new beginning, a new era for us."

Die! Die! Die! have acquired something of a reputation - how much is true and how much is myth?

"We do seem to attract drug dealers," Wilson says. "This weird seven-foot Jamaican guy decided to come on tour with us around Scotland. Then there was a cab driver in Austin, Texas, who saw us and decided to drive us around Austin for a weekend no charge . . . he seemed to have a drug problem too. We have a real thing for picking up Afro-American drug dealers, they seem to have a real thing for our band."

The tales of venue damage - true or false?

"Yes, we've busted a few ceilings in our time. I've probably put my head through a few ceilings, actually, and Lachlan put his bass guitar through a ceiling at a New Zealand music party in Brighton, England, once.

"Our record had been out in Britain and we'd been there for six months so we had a good reaction from people. We had a big crowd and they were going crazy and crowd surfing. Lachlan was crowd surfing when he put the bass through the ceiling. The Bang! Bang! Eche kids were going nuts, too, so they probably egged it on a little bit."

Wilson laughs when I comment that I recently saw a picture on Facebook of Christchurch's Charlie Ryder of Bang! Bang! Eche! with his arm around Pete Doherty.

"Not a big fan. Doherty kicked us off a show once. We were supposed to be the support band for Babyshambles but he refused to play if we were playing. We were going to be paid [PndStlg]1000 for the show and he cancelled it, so we were on our butts."

New Zealand is finally discovering why Die! Die! Die! have won over overseas audiences.

"Until just recently we didn't have much of an audience in New Zealand but it's changed quite a lot this year, the hard work seems to have paid off.

"Promises, Promises changed things for us. We went overseas and built up audiences in America, London and Australia and Europe. We're looking forward to getting Form released in Australia, America and Europe later this year. In Australia, we've been offered stupid big tours over there."

Life has changed for the trio who, with their first EPs, used to see people leaving their shows quickly. "People used to walk away holding their ears, not a good vibe."

Wilson is looking forward to touring his homeland again and says "we got a big support band somewhere in the middle of the tour as well but I can't say what it is".

If you want to listen to Form, he urges you not to download it.

"This is our first record where we've paid for everything out of our own pockets. This one is easily the one we've put the most into, please, please don't download it."

That would be bad Form indeed.

Die! Die! Die! are at the Wunderbar on Thursday, 9pm; All- ages show Friday, July 30, with TFF at New Media Club.

DIE! DIE! DIE!

* Who: Die! Die! Die! are vocalist/ guitarist Andrew Wilson, bass player Lachlan Anderson and drummer Michael Prain.

* New album: Form is out now through Flying Nun.

* Further listening: Promises, Promises (2007); Locust Weeks EP (2006); Die! Die! Die! EP (2005); Die! Die! Die! full-length (2005)

- © Fairfax NZ News