By Janika ter Ellen
Dunedin punk-rockers Die! Die! Die! are back after a six-month break with their fourth album and opening for the Smashing Pumpkins in Auckland tomorrow night.
They have found that not making music has been the best thing for their sound.
Die! Die! Die! are very much alive.
After a six-month break, they're back with a new album, new record label, new bassist in ex-Mint Chicks guitarist Mike Logie and a new producer they say encouraged their unique, frenetic live sound.
“He was like, I really love the parts about your band where its quite incredibly loud feedback and things like that, that other people have sort of tried to elimate in recordings,” Die! Die! Die! guitarist Mike Prains says.
The band's toured relentlessly since they started eight years ago. Their latest and fourth album Harmony was conceived in a delirious state they describe as "psycho".
Vocalist and guitarist Andrew Wilson was not sure what would happen.
“I thought we were going to put out this dead album by this old band of washed- up 27 year olds.”
Feeling jaded, they refused to listen to it back for two months.
But time away proved just the tonic and now they say the offering is their best yet.
“I couldn't recommend stopping playing music enough, really,” Wilson says.
The band's playing at Wellington bar Bodega any minute now. Tomorrow, they're opening in Auckland for the Smashing Pumpkins.
It's a band they describe as their "heroes" who inspired Die!Die!Die!'s early work.
But based on past experiences of opening for big names - they say they're ambivalent on whether they want to meet them.
“If someone doesn't really want to meet you or they couldn't care less, it's not very nice to try and meet them you know,” Prains says.
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