“Glyn MacLean Is A Douche Bag”

It’s always fun having brunch at Alleluia , but when you’re having brunch with Bang! Bang! Eche! it’s even better. After playing three shows in Auckland in late May, we meet three members of the band to discuss, well, whatever we liked. It was more like a playful discussion than an interview. We got dirt on the band members, found out how to get your own German tour and where to find the best toys in Auckland.

We were all pretty tired. Zac, Charlie and James from Bang! Bang! Eche! had walked from Grey Lynn and after ordering breakfast and coffee we all slumped back into our chairs. The guys had just played three nights in a row, supporting !!! on Wednesday night, playing Sohomo Thursday and finishing with a rapturous performance at Brand New Math’s ‘Moustache Party’ on Friday. We were rightfully tired.

After congratulating the guys on their amazing performances, they quickly hit back by saying they were shit. They were referring to Friday night’s show, when they had to play without T’Nelle who had flown back to Christchurch to work. According to Zac “She is really in love with her job at the bakery and thinks it’s a life long career option.” While they all take their day time jobs seriously, T’Nelle seems more dedicated than the boys.

Perry works at an organic grocery store, Zac works in a cafe and like Charlie goes to uni. James goes to community college, which he seems quite proud of. “There’s no uniform and you can smoke and stuff,” he says, grinning. Charlie adds, “only a special type of person can work in that environment,” perhaps referring to James’s weird school stories, that seem inappropriate for your average classroom. Charlie seems quite happy studying economics at university. In comic style James was quite keen to share a story with us: “Our teacher was telling us that he had a forty-year-old transvestite porn director in his class and he tried to make porn for his assignment. He had to pass NCEA.” He probably just wanted the credits.

Despite being a young band, they didn’t meet each other at school. It was Christchurch’s close-knit indie music scene that bought them all together. Stories coming out of Christchurch seem to suggest it’s a great place to form a band, but perhaps lacking in venues. Charlie explains, “Me and Zac used to be in a folk band, he (James) used to be in a punk band with one of the people in the folk band and T’Nelle was in, like, a sister punk band.” Perry had never been in a band before, he joined to replace another member who according to Charlie, was “a drug addict”. “He had a keyboard and he could play it and he liked good music and he was nice.” But when you sleep in and don’t make it to the interview, you don’t get to stick up for yourself. Jokingly Zac adds, “I’m sure he’s a P-head.”

So when did the band really form? Well the guys know exactly when, they declare May 7, 2007, as the day Bang! Bang! Eche! was officially born. That is the day the band had their first practice at an anarchist house across from Christchurch’s City Mission. Zac says “It was a homeless shelter. When we moved in there were homeless people on the porch, they’re not like house trained, if you know what I mean. But they were all lovely people.” It’s all very punk rock, and reminds me a lot of stories I’ve read about New York in the late 70’s. There is an obvious rebellious DIY side to these guys and the more I talk to them the more I’m learning.

On Friday night while the cops were raiding Whammy Bar, we meet up with James. He was carrying around an amazing looking toy and like an excited little kid, he held onto it like it was his most prized possession. It turns out he found it on the street outside a porn shop, “Me and Mike had just crossed the road to go into a seedy porn shop, the one with the construction worker on K-road. We were looking around and stuff and the guy was like ‘you can’t drink in here’, and as soon as I got out there was this big pile of rubbish and on the top of it was this beautiful looking toy. I have no problem going through the trash.” He makes the whole episode sound like an adventure, but I’d imagine every minute with James is an adventure.

It was James’s determination and general bullshit that paved the way for Bang! Bang! Eche’s German tour in November. Thanks to the bigger and open minded music community in Germany, who dig creative musicians and aren’t afraid to take risks, James managed to convince people to let them play. It was all done via the internet, using myspace as the major catalyst. “I spent 5 hours each night just adding scores of people overseas and half of them would talk to us, half of them wouldn’t” explains James. “what he’d say was, we are going to Europe in November, we are going to tour Europe. Then they’d believe us” says Charlie. James continues “I’d be like, we’re coming over later this year and don’t really know anyone or have places to stay, can you help us out? they emailed back and fuck yeah”. That’s basically it, they now have an agent booking shows and someone is even paying for their flights, “that’s how we can go, otherwise we’d be broke” they all laugh.

The guys seem to be experts at working the system, they have also managed to record and distribute their debut EP for next to nothing. Government grants paid for the recording, Shayna Quinn did the artwork and RDU in Christchurch basically did the rest. Charlie says “not many bands know about all the grants you can get, they’re not advertised or anything”. Christchurch is pretty good at fostering young artists, Zac says “they’ve got a thing called Creative Communities that the Council runs and you can apply for money to do music stuff. It’s normally about a grand”. But of course nothing comes easy, “RDU said we had two weeks . Then they called us up and said we had half a week…they said at the end of the week you have to have all the stuff and we hadn’t even finished recording.” But you know, artists love a deadline. Those of us who don’t become our own editors.

Getting stuff done for free is a credit to the bands hard work and hours of networking. Unlike some bands, they have not searched out fame, but have instead grabbed peoples attention with their killer live performance. The suits don’t often take bands like Bang! Bang! Eche! seriously, so it surprised everyone when they were approached by the Council and offered funding. Zac responds quite proudly “I’d quite like to play at a business mans conference, like a room full of 200 lawyers and 50 doctors, be like yeah man, party time”. The band have played a number of interesting venues, most notably at The Big House in Auckland. Playing as a three piece, the guys did a duel set with Moron says What?!?!, Charlie says “that was the most stripped back we’ve ever been”.

As the band prepare for their German tour, who knows where they’ll end up. Hopefully James hasn’t attracted any weird internet stalkers. With any luck they’ll get to play some more crazy venues, but right now they don’t have a clue. Zac’s doing his best to learn about Germany by reading children’s picture books, which he claims “are an accurate reflection of a culture”. He went on to tell us about a book where a mole has poo on his head. We all laughed hysterically, but a quick Google search backs up his story, The Little Mole Who Knew It was None Of His Business is indeed a children’s book.

Bang! Bang! Eche’s story is inspirational, and if they could afford to take an entourage with them to Germany they would. Unfortunately the rest of the band laughed off James’s suggestion, but Zac did make one promise to him “we can have a full on tour bus with your face on the side of it instead”. Just who would Bang! Bang! Eche! include in an entourage; Mean St, “we heard this story that they were playing somewhere and the drummer fucked up and the front chick punched him in the face”; Little Pictures, “Mark is a genius, their songs are so good”; and of course Moron says What?!?! for protection, “no one would fight Alessandra ever, too cute”. And it wouldn’t be an entourage without us, every minute with Bang! Bang! Eche! is so much fun. I can only imagine the fun I’d have touring with them.

Bang! Bang! Eche!- Nikee: MP3

Bang! Bang! Eche!- Time Mismanagement: MP3

Bang! Bang! Eche!- 4 To The Floor: MP3

Bang! Bang! Eche!- Myspace

Posted by Nick Fulton under New Zealand