Leather Dog is the fourth single from the Ōtepoti art rock band’s forthcoming debut album. The album, which will be titled Happy Birthday, Daniel Johnston!!! Don’t Be Afraid ... 3, is due to be released on February 21.
I watched Leather Dog on YouTube a dozen times, then caught up with band members Max White (vocals and organ) and Hamish Waddell (backing vocals and guitar) to get the lowdown on the track, the band, and what exactly "art rock" is.
Dissonant yet beautiful chord changes and a certain vocal tunelessness give the impression that Leather Dog is on the verge of coming off the rails, but this never eventuates thanks to the great churning energy of drummer Reef Brazendale, which keeps this fuzzed-out embrace of a song afloat.
The song is about the all-too-prevalent men who are supposed to be mentors and role models, but are failing at this. White, speak-singing, proclaims "You’re the blueprint of a dog who has a bone and not a brain". Some more melodious vocals sneak in for the chorus — "The world is now changing, because you’re made of leather" — but these are dismissed with a crash as raw anarchic energy takes over again.
In the video, slightly menacing-looking dogs blend with footage of the band, floating heads, balloons with faces, and cartoon animations of dogs. Sometimes the editing is seamless, sometimes deliberately rough, much like the music itself. The use of fruity duotone filters is psychedelic but also uncomfortably reminiscent of night-vision footage. At one point the band all sweetly harmonise "ooh la la la" as the music loses the plot, and an electric organ gets smashed to pieces.
When I catch up with White and Waddell, they are eager to chat band — funny, self-deprecating, passionate about their music, and falling over each other to finish each other’s sentences.
When I tell them I forgot to press record for the first half of the interview, they say they don’t mind who a quote is assigned to. "We’re a hive mind," one of them says.
A good few minutes are taken up as they try to remember exactly which beach the "old crappy ’80s organ" was smashed on. It was Tomahawk beach.
"We forgot we’d have to clean up afterwards ... that wasn’t fun picking pieces of plastic out of the sand."
Bunchy’s Big Score have been around in their current incarnation since May 2024, forming in Castle St’s famous 660 flat, where Waddell was living.
They say the songs, the videos and the live performances are all equally important components of Bunchy’s Big Score. "It’s a holistic experience."
A live gig is playful; they muck around and abruptly switch the song they’re playing. They cover songs from "dumb hard-rock bands" such as Bad Company and Bruce Springsteen.
"Please don’t say that I said Bruce Springsteen is dumb, everyone in Gore loves Bruce Springsteen," jokes Waddell, originally from Gore.
The audience can also expect to be roped into blowing up balloons as part of a constant, rolling, birthday party for Daniel Johnston. They explain that Johnston, referenced in the title of their future debut, is "the king of art rock and lo-fi, outsider music."
He’s a musician most people probably know best from Kurt Cobain wearing a t-shirt featuring his iconic "Hi, How are you" album art.
"We share his ethos," White says. "His music was quite simple, but he wasn’t afraid to do things differently."
And what is art rock?
"It’s slightly more pretentious than plain rock," cracks Waddell, "more masturbatory."
It’s exploratory and doesn’t play it safe, they say.
"It’s also textural."
White and Waddell are chuffed when I tell them I can hear the influence of the Velvet Underground in the full-bodied, swirling danceable mess at the end of Leather Dog. The organ has been fed through a multitude of effects and pedals to create this sound.
"We try to be cool like the Velvet Underground but we’re really just Weezer," White says.
"When we try to do pretty, or try to do ugly, we always fail and it becomes different. It’s a beautiful ugly mess, but you just gotta commit to it," someone says.
In 2025 Bunchy’s Big Score hope to tour the North Island. But in the meantime, Ōtepoti residents have a chance to blow up balloons with them when they play The Crown Hotel on February 28.
