Interview: DARTZ

Radio BurgerFuel (RBF): It's been a couple of years, and you guys have been working real hard and releasing lots of tunes and videos and albums and doing heaps of shows since then. Has it felt as hectic as it sounds? 

Clark: Yeah, yeah. It's just been real busy, which is cool. Except my cat's not too happy with me spending a lot of time away from home. But yeah, we're just about to hit up a big European and UK tour - flying out after the Dawn Service tomorrow at 6:00 AM. So yeah, last day in Wellington for a while, which is pretty sad, but you've got to leave Wellington in order to spread the message of Wellington to the people so...

RBF: That tour looks awesome, 7 or 8 different countries through Europe right?

Clark: I think so, yeah. I'm excited about seeing what's on offer, and going to all these different places that I've never been to. We went to Germany and the UK last year, but never been to any of the other places like France and Italy and Scandinavia. Is that a country or is that three countries?!

So just starting to get it to do it with the boys. I think we've far surpassed at this point, any expectations we ever had when we started doing this or like where things would go. So it's just yeah super cool.

RBF: What were your expectations? Was it just to jam some tunes and drink a few beers with mates?

Clark: Yeah, pretty much. So at first, it was opening for The Chats in Wellington like five years ago. And we pretty much made the band for that show. And then just kind of kept going and spent the first year mostly just playing around Wellington. Playing heaps of house players and stuff because we were obviously a little bit young.

Once you've put out two albums and played with Elemeno P, kind of everything is ticked off the bucket list. When we played some shows opening for Elemeno P last month, I thought, 'Oh my God, this feels like a side quest'. You know what I mean? Like we've completed the main story and we're going around getting 100% completion on all the achievements. So it's pretty cool, and definitely keeps you very humble too, to play with those huge bands from your childhood, right?
 

RBF: It's great that it's still the same crew as well right?

Clark: Yes. Just the four of us. Well, our drummer Rolly, he actually broke his ankle a few weeks ago. So we're taking someone new to Europe, which is crazy. We're actually taking over a new bass player, which is kind of hectic. Crispy, our guitarist is switching to play drums. Because, it turns out we don't have any friends who drum. We've just got five friends to play bass. 

Our mate from Auckland is coming, and honestly what a good mate. He also got in on the job quitting, and turned around and quit his within 24 hours of getting the call. But I think to essentially get an all expenses paid trip to Europe for two months. I think that's pretty hard to turn down, right?

So yeah, it's obviously a bit of a bit of a bitch that Rolly can't be there with us, but apart from that, we're just super stoked.

RBF: Apart from a new lineup, what's the plan for this tour then?

Clark: I'm definitely gonna make the most of it and just have some fun. Between all of us getting to quit some jobs and make a proper go of it, it's what we've been itching to do for a while.  

Last year we were only over there for three and a bit weeks, and this time it's seven-ish weeks. Last time we had a lot of hectic events like lost passports in Berlin and the kind of usual stuff. Somehow we managed to pick up a rental car in the UK using only a New Zealand learner's driver licence last time because we lost everything else. So if that's any indication of what's going to happen, well, hopefully not. But we'll see!

I think it's a good thing for us as well, as most of our writing songs and stuff just come from sitting around in the car talking crap. So I'm sure there'll be plenty of time for doing that.

RBF: So basically, you've all chucked in your jobs, you're leaving for a couple of months and then what happens after that?

Clark: I think after that we're pretty much going to be back to writing our third album, which is real exciting. We've taken quite a bit of a break, since putting our second one out last year. I think it's probably the longest we've kind taken off working on new stuff. Up to then, it had pretty much been a continuous rolling thing. 

But the past year has been like so much touring that to have a bit of a clean break, it's gonna be a nice thing to come back and do that and hopefully get some more music out for summer, which is gonna be cool.

Last time we were lucky to get some funding through NZ On Air to do the recording. But I think this time we get everything done ourselves. And then take it out to some overseas labels. So work through that whole process ourselves and get a finished product before moving forward. But she'll be fun whatever we do.
 

RBF: Is it kind of normal for people to listen to drum n bass, and rock, and hip hop these days? 

KK: Well, I think New Zealand is a little bit more open minded than overseas. I guess in years past people would just listen to one or two genres, but New Zealand has always been open to drum and bass and always been open to jungle. And so I think with the world changing and music being more accessible, you know there's a lot of festivals around the country. But if feel if you don't play dance, then you get left behind.

And the difference is with me, I can still jump up and play dance or multiple genres. But then rock the mic at the same time. And that's my point of difference where I can go and play my own music for an hour if I have to. But if I don't have to, I can just DJ because there’s not many, probably other than Che-Fu, P-Digggs and Tiki, that are MC's, rappers that can sing as a vocalist. 

RBF: So what’s the plan for the rest of the year then?

KK: My mission is this year is to get out all the old stuff and then move on to some of the new stuff. Hopefully we have a ‘Savage Thoughts’ vinyl release at some stage during the year, but obviously that will get the profile back out there a little bit more. But I'd also like to release it in Australia and some other places. I think I'm pretty lucky that me and probably Che have become like heritage artists where we can still go do gigs without having to have singles.

RBF: A vinyl release for 25 years of Savage Thoughts is cool, that makes sense. But apart from that, do you ever spend much time looking backwards?

KK: The only time is when I had to do a Savage Thoughts tour. And I had to relearn all the songs and some of those songs that I didn't actually perform at that time because I thought that it was a little bit hard. But because there was a Savage Thoughts album celebration. Yeah, I had to learn all the songs and perform all those songs again. It was pretty difficult, but we got the original team back on to come and perform with me and so that was all interesting.

And I love it, but outside that me and my consortium have just put in a bid for a NRL team, so we're looking forward to that in case we get the bid. And if we do, we've gotta have three rugby league teams ready to go into the NRL leagues over in Australia and New Zealand. So that's happening.

With the charitable stuff going, I've got an incredible team and now we have the capacity to do gigs from July and just keep on going through the rest of the year. So with the basketball tournaments and then with the Awhi Project where we take kids snowboarding and doing different sorts of activities that they normally wouldn't do. 

RBF: But first. You tour?

KK: Yeah, I’m definitely doing this tour with Supergroove where we go right around the North and South Islands, and then we go over to Australia in May to do a couple of gigs over there. 

So I can just promote my single while I'm still on the road and tour with Troy Kingi - that guy's a genius, and Rubi Du - Samoan and Jamaican. Love her. She's the bomb. And you know I'm just looking forward to being on the road with Supergroove, but also releasing dope music in the future. And Doing more good stuff with Hoops and Life and the Awhi Project around the country as well.