Four years ago, Danny Beusa and BC Deusa of Dune Rats were sitting in a pub with their mates from fellow Brisbane band DZ Deathrays, saying, as Beusa puts it, “Fuck, what are we gonna do with our lives?” They’d been in bands since high school, and looking at their future it was starting to seem like maybe they’d have to give up on that dream.
But here they are in 2014, part way through a world tour that’s sent them around Europe and Asia, and will have them back home in time for their self-titled debut album to come out on, as they’re calling it, “Dune 1”. That dream’s worked out OK so far. Of course, in that same time DZ Deathrays have put out two albums. Any rivalry there? “Yeah, full rivalry,” says Beusa. “You get us and DZ in a room, only two people leave. Maybe a hybrid band will leave!”
There was one genuinely competitive moment between the two Queensland groups, when DZ Deathrays put out the video for ‘The Mess Up’ in which they work through a bottle of JКgermeister (and some beer) in three minutes, predictably ending in a power spew. Dune Rats saw that and figured they could go one better, uploading a video for ‘Red Light Green Light’ in which they motor through bong after bong. It earned them a warning notice from YouTube, but were they worried before they put it up?
“In all honesty, the night before that went to air on YouTube both BC and I were talking about it. You just lie in bed and think, ‘Tomorrow’s gonna be a fucking different day,’ when you drop on YouTube you smoking a lot of bongs. Mainly we were thinking, ‘What’ll our parents think?’ But luckily enough by the time my mum and dad saw it, it was about two months on and it had a fair few views. They were like, ‘I dunno, you kids today. You’re fuckin’ idiots.’ They’re pretty cool.”
That video recently got them in trouble with a festival in Hanoi. Supposed to be part of their current tour, they were pulled off the bill when organisers of the festival, which is sponsored by the Vietnamese government, saw the clip. “I don’t know if the government really wanted to attach its name to a band that choofed a fuckload of weed,” Beusa suggests.
Following that video with a new one for their album’s first single ‘Funny Guy’ has been tough. How do you top that? “We could sit around a table and snort a fuckload of cocaine and maybe that’d possibly get half the reaction,” says Beusa. They tried to film something while they were in Amsterdam but too many drinks were consumed beforehand, and “the film clip ended up just being a bunch of fucking drunk c**ts doing kick-flips over a guy’s testicles, which we couldn’t really use.” Being in Paris inspired them to try again. Though Beusa is enigmatic about how the video they filmed there will turn out (“We wanted to do a film clip mocking the fact that we were even there”), he says it’s very much in the spirit of what they do.
And what they do is have fun. “We’ve never been keen to write music when we’re not having fun,” says Beusa. “To me that’s a bit of a fuckin’ weird one, where people get depressed and write music. When I get depressed I fuckin’ get drunk and try and root a chick to make me feel better.”
To keep themselves in the fun zone while making Dune Rats, speed was of the essence – they wrote all the songs in one intense period. “We just locked ourselves in a shed for a month or two and smoked a fuckload of weed – that wasn’t deliberate, that just happens when you’re in a shed writing music – and by the end of it we were pretty well-drilled in the songs and real tight.” Inspired by Steve Albini’s loose and lightning-quick work with Nirvana on In Utero, they recorded the entire thing in a week.
Helping them keep the velocity up was their newest member, bassist Brett Jansch. “Bretty’s been in the band now for two years but everyone thinks it’s a new thing to have a third member,” says Beusa. “But that’s only because people have just started putting press photos with him in there. For us it was a first time writing as a full-on three-piece.”
Now they’re getting ready to launch the album in Australia, Dune Rats are planning something special for the tour – something that harks back to their own days starting out as kids in bands. For the all-ages shows they’re playing, they’ll have under-18 acts as the supports.
“All of us were in high school bands, have done that and thought, ‘Fuck, imagine playing with one of your favourite bands.’ To be playing under-18 shows and not have an under-18 support seemed like a bit of a joke. That’s the one show kids who are 16, 17 can actually rock up to.”
And Dune Rats have a lot of fans in that age bracket, for obvious reasons. A gang of potheads who never grew up and don’t seem likely to start now – they’re living a teenager’s dream. “We met a lot of rad kids that are in bands that come to shows,” Beusa says. “We just thought, ‘Fuck it, we’d rather hang out with them.’”
Dune Ratswill be released on June 1 throughRatbag/Warner. Catch them at Oxford Art Factory on Sunday June 21 (tickets here) and at an all ages gig at the Metro on Sunday June 22 (tickets here).
