When did you first start making music and what led you there?
I grew up in a small forest-ensconced town close to the beach in New Zealand, and good music was always around. I learned to write songs listening to Split Enz’s True Colours and Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense. Then I obsessed over every drum fill from Queens of the Stone Age’s ‘Songs for the Deaf’ to learn drums.
Tell us about your new single ‘Strung Out’. What is the story behind it? What inspired it?
‘Strung Out’ is kind of the flipside to my song ‘I Miss My Friends’. It’s about being abandoned or let down, then dusting yourself off, and thinking ‘that’s ok, I can do this on my own’ – even if you don’t believe it at first.
How would you describe your sound and how did you come to it?
I would describe it as early Foo Fighters meets the Beach Boys. Jangly beach rock with a gooey bubblegum-pop centre. I just want people to feel happy when they hear it, and if they’re out for a run or something it might fizz them up and help them tap into that Usain Bolt level.
Being from the music cauldron of Dunedin, has Flying Nun Records had any influence on your music?
Yes for sure. I was in the band Males which some people have compared to 1980s Christchurch/Dunedin poppers The Bats, and the producer of my first single was Tex Houston (The Clean, The 3Ds, Trick Mammoth), so Dunedin is in my bones.
Have you got any new music or tour news on the horizon that PIPSY fans should be keeping an eye out for?
I’m releasing a new album next year in March, so this is the first single of three leading up to the release. The record is going to be as much sherbet sugar-pop as I can cram into 35 minutes of beach rock, so look out for it late March 2019. Thanks for reading and Kia Ora.
