So after having a look through your bio you guys have actually had a pretty successful career, how long have you guys actually been together for?

10 years exactly

You guys have opened up for Silverchair, INXS, and The Black Crowes... how did you manage to get those gigs?

I suppose just sticking around long enough to have a good manager, and having a few fingers in the right pies, and listening to the songs of our albums and thinking yeah that could work.

We got put forward for a lot of international supports, most of which we didn’t get, but yeah we’re very happy to get those ones, The Black Crowes one was wicked.

Yeah that was really cool...

So that was your favourite?

Yeah there’s been a couple, the Seether show was really cool as well, cos of the venue, it was the first time we’d ever played at vector before, that was cool, quite buzzy. But I’m a massive Black Crowes fan, so for me that was pretty cool... apart from when our drummer looked straight at Chris Robinson and said “hey you’re married to Kate Hudson ae” and they’d just divorced...

And our former bass player wound up their guitar tech something rotten backstage, other than that all in all it was a great night hahahaha

You just said you’ve played vector arena, I’ve heard a lot of different opinions on the venue, what did you guys think?

Nah it was cool, really cool, I reckon the reviews on the first shows when they had the Chilli’s through, I think that was their first major international, there were all sorts of issues with the acoustics in the venue.

Yeah but all the times I’ve been there it’s sounded great.

Yeah but by the time we did the first time it was really cool.

But the other cool thing but the internationals we have done is we’ve always been given the opportunity to use our own sound guy and have full control of the rigs. We’ve been basically, lighting wise, a house light but we’ve always been able to have good sound.

I’ve noticed nobody’s really heard much from you guys in a while... what have you guys been doing?

Ah you know, we did the record, we did the promo off the back and we toured it, that was just life and then we thought fuck it let’s have a break for a while, I mean it was 9 years at that point, and thought you know do something else for a while and see if we feel like playing again, then Mikey turned around and said why don’t we do a single, make a video, and that’s where we are right now, the video’s just come out...

Ok I’ve got to ask about this... your producer for the last album “5^th degree” Krish Sharma- he’s worked with some amazing performers... Al Green, The Cult, Serj Tankian, The Rolling Stones... What was it like to work with someone like that?

He came to our session straight from Mick Jaggers place in France, what he was doing was re-recording songs for “Exile On Main Street”, and it was just fucking epic you know man, that’s probably one of the top records ever made in rock n roll history!

He had the removable hard drives with him, with all the stones tracks and we were able to listen to all the music... and then he went back to LA and left them behind...

“fuck really! I didn’t know that!”

And then they had to get hold of the studio and ask them to courier them back to the states.

He rolled in, ya know, we all kinda thought, fuck, this is gonna be quite nerve racking and the dude turned out to be really genuine and really laid back, yeah nah he was really cool. It was just that experience man that made me feel totally relaxed in the studio which is cool, he was a mellow dude.

You guys have had some pretty big singles over the years and now you have a new single out now “The Review” how’s that going?

I think we’ve had about 13 singles over ten years and I think 7 of them charted in top twenty, a couple of top 5’s and one number one, I don’t think The Review has even gone to the charts yet, basically at this stage The Review is just sitting on “Off The Record” on The Rock and hopefully they’re gonna playlist us...

Have you got a video for that yet?

Yeah, the whole idea of The Review is um... we came under some heat with the NZ on air policy/funding scheme...

Is this the new policy changes?

Nah before hand, there’s a lot of bands that copped a lot of flack and we were one of them, we copped flack BECAUSE we were funded, and because we continued to receive funding... which was kind of the point of the scheme.

We came under fire from one particular journalist and we decided to make an example of him on behalf of every other fucking band in the country...

So that’s what the song is all about?

Yeah if you watch the video it portrays that as well...

Are you going to let us know who this Journalist is?

Yeah, Simon Sweetman, he basically has single handedly taken it upon himself to try and dismantle every commercial act in the country AND now he’s moved onto the comedy circuit which is good of him ya know...

Yeah completely understandable... it’s not like kiwi musicians need the money or anything...

It’s about time we started being honest about him ae, no point fucking around, we made a video about it...

If you watch the video you can see exactly what’s going, I think actually without knowing that the video can be a bit fucken weird.

Enough people will work it out...

You guys have been together for ten years now, there must have been some funny moments on tour... you want to tell us some?

We had a corporate show in Lake Hawera once, a long time ago, and at the time we had a drummer called Reece, it was quite a serious crowd everyone was kinda 40+ and there was a really good turnout. It was an outdoor setting, it was beautiful, ya know it backed onto the lake just gorgeous and the stage kinda sat on the edge of a cliff, the whole thing was amazing. There was a curtain drawn between us and the crowd and we were getting ready to play and we’d set up, and Reece the drummer was kinda off in another dimension... We knew it was time and the intro music had started and it was great! And then the curtain drew and the crowd looked a little bit stunned and Mike couldn’t figure out what the fuck was going on and we turned around and Reece had his pants down to his ankles and he was just leaking into the river, he had his whole arse out, no undies or anything hahahaha

Can you tell us something interesting about another member that nobody else knows?

Our guitarist Mike carpenter was Props Boy on What Now...

I don’t think we should put that in there...

Nah he was talking about it just before...

So yeah that’s a pretty big one, he was a daytime television presenter...

Has he ever gone onstage dressed as Props Boy?

We had a gig early on at The Kings Arms and word had gotten out somehow that he was Props Boy and these middle aged mothers from all around the country started a blog up and had decided to fly to Auckland to meet him so we had this very unusual table of very prim and proper housewives... at The Kings Arms...  and at that stage he just HATED people knowing...

So it was a bit of a cougar safari?

Yeah I saw opportunity... he didn’t haha yeah he was quite harsh to them actually, told them to fuck off hahaha I think they stopped watching What Now after that

Any final comments for  your fans?

Watch the video, keep listening to music, were not gonna bullshit anyone, we’re just doing this for fun now...

If you want to watch Autozamm’s new video for The Review check it out here!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ySq9C5UVEU

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