Dune Rats: “Fucking Skitz”

The 2015 edition of St Jerome’s Laneway Festival is perhaps the most exciting line up they’ve had in recent years. Renowned for their selections in up and coming acts, and working as almost a showcase for the years to come, some of the world’s bigger artists have played at Laneway.
One of these acts includes Brizzo legends Dune Rats. After their brand of garage punk rock really hit it’s stride this year, they’ve toured extensively all over the world, consistently sold out shows in Aus and have released their debut album to critical acclaim. What started off as a two piece of Danny Beus and BC Michaels extended to a third member, Brett Jansch, before really taking over. We had a quick yarn with BC ahead of their ripper set at Festival Of The Sun, to talk skitz crowds, industry pressure (or lack there of) and just how Dunies tunes are received in places like Bangkok!

Okay so first up, I saw on your Instagram you were in a studio yesterday! What were you getting up to there?

We were writing these funny jingles for theses webisodes we’ve been doing which shows what we’ve been doing on the road and stuff. We’ve been writing an opening song and little songs for segments, and they’re gonna be in the show!

Where were they filmed – all whilst you were overseas?

China, South Africa, South East Asia, and Australia – those kind of places. We’ve also got some sick tours coming up that we want to be filming and putting out there!

I just saw your Dalai Lama, Big Banana, Marijuana clip that came out today – what the fuck is going on there?

Yeah, it’s a bit fucked up hey!

What was happening there? Where did that idea come from?

Good question! It just came out of our brains collectively…

You just wanted to make a fucked up film clip?

Yeah! Pretty much!

Let’s talk about beginnings now; there was a period of time where no one wanted to manage you because they thought you might die on tour, right?

Yeah! We had a meeting with this guy who runs a record label who wanted to sign us. We didn’t really want to sign the contract, but we thought maybe he’d want to manage us. Then, he said to us, “You’ll probably have lots of trouble getting a manager. No one will really want to manage you for the same reason, because to be honest everyone kind of thinks one of you might fucking die!”

Haha! Do you think that fear is still there when you tour now?

I don’t know, I think it’s a bit of a gee up.

With your live show, do you do much rehearsing now having been touring so much? You guys play drunk a lot, don’t you?

Yeah! Yes, we do. We don’t really have a place where we rehearse necessarily. We’re at the studio now rehearsing, or writing these jingles. We’ve rehearsed a few times before this next gig but we haven’t rehearsed in ages. We just play so many shows it’s just not necessary.

I know at the last Dunies show I personally crowd surfed twice – you must be used to some pretty gnarly shows. What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen happen at a gig?

The craziest thing I’ve heard is from my friend Alex who plays in Guttermouth; someone threw a syringe at him whilst they were playing!

What about at your shows?

At Wollongong at this festival, and at CIRCO festival in Perth, we were playing on these big stages with a 3-metre gap between the barrier and stage. People were jumping over the barrier, dodging the security guard and jumping up on stage and trying to jump back to the crowd, but the gap was too far so they’d just run and fuck themselves and other people up! I heard someone broke their back at a show with FIDLAR once!

What the fuck!

Yeah! What else has happened? There have been a few things… One time in China, we were playing this audience at this bar at this stadium. We got put up in 5 star hotels and we got catering and all this shit like fine dining and shit. But, when we got to the venue, there were about 10 people there who we were playing to, all sitting at the bar with their backs to the stage. Then this chick got up and started screaming in Chinese at the top of her lungs on the microphone during our set! That’s probably the funniest shit; we just could not get over that!

You’re booked to play Laneway next year, which is pretty huge! What are your thoughts on that?

I’m fucking stoked! This will be the first time that I will have been on an actual festival tour. We have played lots of festivals, and I’ve even played Laneway before with a band called Comic Sans, which was pretty classic.

But actually touring this time and playing all the dates!

Yeah exactly! It’s going to be sick; meeting the bands and actually being able to hang out with them.

Playing Laneway normally means that bands are going to have a pretty big year – does that put any pressure on you?

I don’t know, I don’t really give much of a fuck about what happens I guess. I know we’ve got big plans for overseas in February. Once we finish Laneway we’re going overseas and playing this huge tour with another mad band I don’t think I can say yet. That’ll take us fucking everywhere for a long time. We’ll have good audiences there. Then we’ll come back. We’ve been writing sick songs too. The pressure is pretty non-existent. I’m just looking forward to having fun at the places and enjoying it, as opposed to freaking out.

Do you find there is more pressure on you to bring in your partying ways as you become more successful and more well known, or are you more like, “Who gives a fuck”?

Yeah, well, people are constantly trying to get us to do shows with us and shit. You run into people at shows and every one of them just wants you to like – well, not every one of them, but heaps of cunts just want to get really fucked up with you. So you get fucked up with one person, but then some other guy wants you to get on the fucked up train with him but you’re already fucked up, so you get really fucked up. Then, some other cunt wants you to get fucked up and they put pills in your mouth!

Where are the wildest Dunies fans, then? You guys have toured to so many places, do crowds go as crazy as Australians?

There are a few different places we’ve played we’re received really well. Last time we were in Bangkok, we didn’t know if anyone was even going to come and see us because we’d never played there before and because, you know, it’s Bangkok. Maybe 100 people came to the show, and drugs are really illegal there, but everyone was just smoking weed inside the venues and jumping off the speakers onto each other and going fucking skitz. They bought every bit of merch we had – it was just fucking nuts.

The other place is South Africa, when we go over there. We put a picture of Puss In Boots up on Facebook, and asked if someone wanted to pay for our flights to go to some crazy place like India or Africa or China. This was in the early days, and this guy responded and said that his brother worked for Virgin and he can get staff prices, and that he had heaps of money and he’d pay for us to go to South Africa, China and South-East Asia!

What a legend!

I know! I emailed Vice to see if anyone in South Africa knew anyone that could book us some shows over there. We didn’t know what it would be like; we thought it would be hell ghetto. They put us in touch with Martin from Purple Sneakers in Australia who put us in touch with this guy Hank, who is one of our really good mates now. He booked us this sick tour and promoted us really well over there! By the time we got over there, everyone was coming to the gig and giving us weed and shit.
The crowds were fucking skitz; our first one was just this small show in this 200 cap room, but it was just packed! We played these festivals there with a couple of thousand people and they were getting photos with us! We went back a year later, and it was the same – it was just fucking awesome!

That’s unreal!

Yeah! China was just straight up fucking weird. No one could speak English and we couldn’t speak Chinese. One of the cities was sick; they all got it and really liked it. The other ones were just fucking weird. Bali was good, but they aren’t really local – they’re just white people coming to the show from Australia and other places.

What can we expect next from you guys? There’s been some talk of a new album – are you going to record it in Brett’s mum’s shed again?

*laughs* Probably not! Not this time around. I think we’re just taking it full easy with this one. We’ll probably go to a bunch of different locations and keep writing songs throughout the year. There aren’t any set dates for it, like there aren’t any set in stone plans but we’ve written a few songs that we like a lot. We’ve got some good touring coming up too!