Still On Form - Die! Die! Die!

There are big things stirring across the Tasman, and we’re not just talking about seismic instability and tectonic plate grindage… Although with their new album Form, Dunedin punk-pop outfit Die! Die! Die! have supplied an appropriately abrasive soundtrack for any nonchalant stroll through the wreckage of downtown Christchurch.

Although more melodious than the almost icy sonic assault of 2007’s Promises, Promises, Form is still a furious dervish of an album. Andrew Wilson builds richly layered guitars over Lachlan Anderson’s sturdy bass and Michael Prain’s unsettled yet relentless machine gun drumming. “We were throwing up names for what we were doing,” says Prain from Auckland, where the band are currently laying down some new songs in between tours of New Zealand (and the rest of the English speaking world.) “And that [‘Form’] summed up the album best in a way, keeping things really simple. If you look up the definition of ‘form’ [as a verb] it’s like a new beginning, a new start – it’s quite a blocky record, it’s simple and to the point.”

Unlike their previous two efforts, which were recorded in a matter of days, with Form the band consciously tried to allow a bit more time in the studio to see what might develop. Good friend, and The Skeptics alumnus, Nick Roughan provided a fruitful sounding board as producer. “We were never like, ‘Fuck, we want this really intense layered album,’” says Prain. “It was never super intentional. As we went along though, we were like, ‘This sounds cool, we should pursue it.’ It was sort of like one of those happy accidents – listening back, we were all a bit shocked, like, ‘this definitely doesn’t sound as nasty as we thought it would!’”

While journalists tend to throw around adjectives like ‘relentless’, ‘blast’ or ‘onslaught’ in describing the Die! Die! Die! sound (as is our wont), Prain is bemused by the hyperbole. “I think our band has always been described as being a lot more outrageous and angry than we ever intended to be. Reviews use words like ‘jack hammers’, but we’ve never been about that; when people see us it becomes apparent that it’s not like that.”

On release, Form enjoyed an entire fortnight at #19 on the official NZ chart, which Prain describes as “kind of a weird thing for us!” Playing no small part of the band’s gradual ascent into the public eye is their internationally cemented reputation for delivering live shows that leave punters dazed, sweat-drenched and plastered with big happy grins. “We want to take different angles on how we do it,” says Prain. “For our last NZ tour, we took our own PA with us and just set up in warehouses and stuff. They were really wild and fun and cool; we really like mixing it up and doing that sort of thing. It’s a lot easier and not as contrived as some other things.”

With a recent move to iconic Dunedin record label Flying Nun streamlining the operational side of things (“they’ve still got the same really good ethos about music, which we can totally relate to. It’s good to be releasing on a label that we’ve always identified with,” comments Prain), album number four or possibly a 7” single is in the oven, and tours to Australia, the US and the UK have been lined up. Die! Die! Die! seem to have their feet firmly on the accelerator. “We haven’t changed – the way people receive the band and react to it have,” says Prain. “It’s an exciting time to be doing stuff.”


First published in The Brag, Iss. 381, September 27th 2010