With Dole Manchild’s third EP Natural Born Contrarian, the dance-punk septet once again demonstrate that they’re always a few steps ahead of their audience, the Melbourne music scene and perhaps even themselves.
“A lot of these songs were written over the last six months. One of them was written four weeks ago,” says Dole Manchild frontman Dan Blitzman. “It’s all stuff that’s relatively fresh and new.”
Within two-and-a-half years of conception, Dole has made an explosive impact. In that short amount of time, they’ve released three EPs, an album, over half a dozen singles and a vibrant collection of music videos, as well as played shows interstate and gained airplay on Triple J and Rage. Their work ethic is unmatched.
Dole Manchild – Natural Born Contrarian EP Launch
- Saturday, April 6, 7pm
- Stay Gold
- with Kai Cult and The Institute for Good Girls
- Tickets are on sale now
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“I get bored really easily and I can get shit done very, very quickly,” Blitzman says. “That’s not even a brag, I’m a very hyper-stimulated person.”
“An exercise in patience”, as stated via their Instagram account, Natural Born Contrarian sees the band return to familiar synth and dance-adjacent leanings in line with their previous 2022 EP Year of the Dole. In exchange, the band have reapproached their songwriting process.
“Year of the Dole was super DIY, if not almost entirely DIY. It wasn’t as a collaborative affair as this was,” says Blitzman. “This was very much me again, me writing a lot of these demos and then fleshing them out with the band, but the band has had a much larger say this time around in shaping the sound.”
The opener, Corporate Rock, exemplifies this to a tee. Stubborn synths and massive drums pile under the punkish snark of Blitzman’s vocals, but vanish abruptly and are replaced by Salvador Peralta’s tranquil guitar and sincere Spanish chorus.
“[Salvador] doesn’t have much to prove in the vocal department. He’s like an angel. When he sings, everyone swoons,” Blitzman laughs. “…There’s something about putting two Argentinians in a room together that brings out a very soulful response that you just don’t get with Aussie music usually.”
Dole are at their most grandiose on the latter half of the track. Launching into this huge wall-of-sound finale, Maiya Shirakawa’s harrowing black metalesque screams pierce through the mix. Corporate Rock is barely three minutes long, yet has a seismic impact.
“I was showing this EP to my mum actually, and she said it was very – I don’t know if it’s hip to say this, but – theatrical, very operatic,” Blitzman says.
On closer NBC, the band explores the boundaries of desire, describing this yearning for a lavishly modest lifestyle in Fitzroy. It’s mostly ironic, but for Blitzman it speaks to a broader feeling of cultural disconnection.
“A lot of that is my own longing for where I want to be in my life,” he says. “It’s not so bad sometimes to conform and sometimes it’s terrible, striking that balance has been very hard for me.”
Inspired by LCD Soundsystem, NBC groovily ebbs and flows, constantly simmering with catchy vocals and guitar parts. Taking note from Brian Eno’s studio techniques, Blitzman and bassist Will Pain put together the song in a hot, aircon-less Abbotsford bedroom. Pain’s bass solo at the track’s climax makes you feel the heat they were working in.
“It’s interesting how each song kind of gives you a moment to have with one or two other people,” says Blitzman. “I hope to have those moments with each and every band member throughout the course of this EP and also in the future as well.”
Natural Born Contrarian is a first for Dole Manchild in a variety of ways, most notably their first time in a proper studio. Working with Tyson Fish (Vance Joy, The Living End) at The Alamo, making the move into a real recording studio was a plan Blitzman had spent years working towards.
“These songs couldn’t exist in the context of a DIY setting…[Natural Born Contrarian] works because it has layers, it works because [Tyson’s] switched on and he knows what he’s doing,” says Blitzman. “He’s operating at the top of his game.”
However, what Blitzman’s most proud of is the growth made in his songwriting.
“After 25 tracks where I’ve been screaming my fucking lungs out, you start to feel like a caricature,” says Blitzman. “Being sincere isn’t something you can really do deliberately, it kind of has to happen at a certain point in your journey. I’m glad that it has happened in Dole.”
On this EP, his lyricism and performances contain a sincerity that’s always been gestured at. For the first time, Blitzman feels he’s been able to venture beyond the identity of ‘Dole’ – an uncomfortable but rewarding experience.
“Dole had an identity and lots of people helped make that throughout the years. Dole’s a fucking institution at this point with the amount of musos that have gone through it,” he continued. “This is the first time that I’ve been with an active set of musicians and bandmates who have helped me to take control back from that [image]…It’s hard once you start a project to do that.”
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This article was made in partnership with Dole Manchild.
