All Episodes

April 28, 2026 14 mins

Auckland rockers Clap Clap Riot are touring New Zealand in May and June, playing songs from their upcoming album including the latest single Like A Lover. Their guitarist Dave popped in for a chat about life on the road, hanging with the Pixies his new hatred of bananas 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Radio Hold Our Keys Off the Record podcast
with Greg Trible.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Let's have a chat with Clap Clap riot Kilder Dave.
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Yeah, it's great to be back. It's been a wee
while since we've been in the realms here.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
How long has it been?

Speaker 3 (00:17):
I think potentially the last show we did in Auckland
was twenty twenty four, so we may have popped in
to speak to you then. But then the last release,
the last single we put out was twenty twenty one,
so it's been a good minute.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
I feel like those twenty twenties when we were all
in lockdowns and stuff, it seemed to me, and I
might be wrong, but it seemed to me that Clap
Clatt Right was probably the most unlucky band in New Zealand.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
I think there is officially correct. I would say that
I think we had a tour that we effectively postponed
three times and then canceled it on the fourth.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Just the last minute, there would be a lockdown, and
the whole city or the whole country would be in lockdown,
and it was just about when you were about to
do a gig. And then the same thing would happen
six months later. Yeah, it was happening.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
We kept on getting hit by the window of doing it,
and then when it came time for effectively what was
going to be the fourth postponement, we were like, we
can't do it to the fans. We can't like tell
them that gig has postponed again after they've already had
three postponements, and so that got put aside, and I
think that was a that sort of felt like a

(01:21):
pretty large derailer for the band, because every single time
we went to go redo the tour, it was all
the new reorganization of the tour, and so effectively, for
what felt like a year and a half, we were
doing admin and never getting the fun part of doing
the shows. And so I think we had to take

(01:42):
a bit of a breath after that fourth tour got
canceled and you know, just be like, all right, well,
we'll leave this bee for a little while and we'll
come back to it when we're ready and rearing to go.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
And now you are in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
We were ready and rearing to go in twenty twenty four,
and that was a great little blast of a show
and getting those releases and stuff out. But I've been
a busy chap with touring elsewhere in the world, and
so now it's just come to that point where it's good.
I've got some time and some space to really throw
one hundred and ten percent into clack Clap, because.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
You are involved in lots of different bands, not just
clack Clap.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Right, I am, Yes, So I play in Phaser Days
and I also play in Georgia Lines, and both of
those girls have had their big record releases and sort
of the period of maybe twenty twenty four, twenty five
twenty sax and so it's mint lots of We've done
lots of touring and US and Australia. Whereabouts in the
States did you go? We did two runs in the

(02:37):
States with Phaser Days. The first run we did with
the band Pond, which is sort of subset of tamer Palor,
and that was kind of all over the main cities.
You know, you're in New York's and your Alas and
all that sort of carry on. And then the most
recent run that we did at the end of last
year was with Pexia's and Spoon, and that was everywhere,

(03:01):
literally everywhere in America. We drove on that trip fourteen
thousand k's.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah, up and down the sides, straight across the middle, because.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
It's about five thousand k's across, So if you're zig
zagging all over the place, fourteen thousand k's.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
It was narly. It was narly. The benefit was is
when you go across you get to do places. We
played at Red Rocks and Denver, which was pretty special,
and then some of the places that are in the
kind of met America Stakes are kind of really pretty
outdoorsy venues. But yeah, if I had to see another

(03:37):
thousand k's in that van by the end of that tour,
I don't think I would have coped.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
How did you cope with eating on the go?

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Well, it's interesting that you mentioned that, actually, Greg, because
eating on the go was a large challenge of the
tour as a whole. So generally what we did is
we'd have our rider every night and we'd take some
bits from the rider, carry them with us and kind
of eat those bits throughout the next at the venue
would give you yeah, and so we had we made
sure on our rider we had stuff that wasn't brutally unhealthy,

(04:07):
because when you're doing kind of six weeks of that,
the unhealth, you know, just kind of catches up on
you and stops becoming a treat, and just it does.
And you're already feeling rubbish with the amount of time
you're spending, like sitting in a car and late nights
and early mornings and all that sort of stuff. And
so we take some stuff from the rider. But the

(04:27):
one challenge that we did have was just sustaining the
health of the food from the rider inside the warm
insides of the van, which in turn created a bit
of dramas with the van smelling not the best, having
debates with certain members of the crew about what needed

(04:50):
to be hoarded and keeped onto and what was fine
that we were going to get at the venue you know,
the next night. I think at a point we ended
up having like sixteen Peter pockets, and we ended up
getting in some form of argument about throwing away four
of the Peter pockets when we were in throws to
get another six Peter pockets at the venue that very evening.

(05:11):
So food was a big chalch on the road.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
It's still a touchy subject.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah, it still cuts a bit deep, if I'm gonna
be honest, But yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Those warm bottles of milk just a few days.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
I think bananas. Bananas are the worst ones. They're the ones.
And john O, my friend from the Bets, I remember
I asked him once kind of ahead of a big
tour that we were doing. I was like, what are
some good tips for, you know, spending long times in
the van? And john O one of his key things
was no bananas in the van. And I was like,

(05:43):
after that tour, I was like, that's why he was
so specific about that, you know, like that of all
the fruit, of all the things, you know, he gave
me lots of great details about kind of important techy
things that you needed to get ahead.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Of them as a guitarist and that kind of stuff. Yep.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
And then one of the things I was like, what
is it? Why is this like one of his top
kind of criteria No bananas in the van. I found
that out at the end of last year in a
big way.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
And how the pixis, what's it like hanging out with
those guys? Pexis are great.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yeah, Spoon over there as well were incredible to us.
They really looked after us on that tour. And Spoon
I think are a band in the States that are
like Berg in the States, but we haven't quite condomed
to them down our area in the world, and so
it was really interesting watching them. They had great fans,
great response, and then equally they were just so welcoming,

(06:36):
so lovely. They gave us like they looked after us
with hotel rooms and things like that, when we were
kind of shy of them. In terms of Pexis, we
were kind of at the other end of the spectrum
in terms of seeing them, heaps of them because when
we played, it was us playing, spoon playing and then
Pexis playing, which in turn meant the sound check Water

(06:57):
was kind of the reverse of that. So Pexis would
sound chick right at the start of the day and
play right at the end of the day, and Phaser
days kind of ended up in the middle. So for
us there was relatively limited interaction, but the times that
we spent with them were really lovely. They were great guys.
Joey was a big fan of the band, and on

(07:18):
the Joey Santiago Yes, And on the last show, David,
who is the drummer, did a massive like magic show
for us, which was particularly impressive because we've got what
kind of tricks is in he's really good. So apparently
when Pecksis stopped, so it would have been you know,
like nineties ish, and then they came back in two

(07:40):
thousand and five. His full time gig was a magician,
so he's he's the real deal of practice. Yeah, and
I saw him do a trick twice and you know
when you watch it the second time, you're like, I've
got you. I'm going to figure this out.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Just couldn't.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
There was just nothing. I just I just could not
peck what he was doing. That's how good he was.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
I guess as a drummer, he's good with his hands,
he's good with the independence of limbs and so juggling
and that sort of thing.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
Is yeah, I would have to say yeah. And he
is one of the great drummers, David there were. After
that tour, I got a really new appreciation to how
great he was within Pexi's and how integral he is
to that band.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
So it's given you a whole new appreciation of their music.
It does, Yeah, I think going on tour with them
and seeing them night after night.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, it really really does. And one of the special
things Pexis do is they don't have a set list
and so every night they come out and they kind
of know, they've talked to each other about what their
first kind of three songs are going to be. And
then Charles, who is Frank Black or Black Francis, he

(08:48):
has this little microphone on stage which he calls out
the songs. And even just watching that and thinking again,
thinking about it, like from a guitar perspective, where I
would be thinking, how do they manage to change all
their settings and get ready for the next song in
three seconds and fire away into it. If it was

(09:08):
me and I was in that scenario, there'd be large
gaps between the songs to kind of create the space
for it.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
But yeah, some bands, when you see them on stage,
they change guitars between songs. Someone hands the guitarist and another
guitar and they swap them over and or they have
to retune or something like that.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, so all their songs are the same key no
no no, So all of that again still occurs with
him calling out the songs, and so that just a
lot more efficient. They're just they're so used to it
that they're so used to reacting to it, so they're
even you imagine their guitar tech he has the same drama.

(09:46):
He's got to listen to what the songs are called out,
and as soon as he hears it called out, he's
got to know what guitars he's got to bring out
to Joey and Charles. And even that little ballet dance
of doing that is as if it's not getting pulled
out on the time, but watching it is so impressive.
And the fact when they're doing it, the repertoire of

(10:07):
songs that they're pulling from is huge. It's not like
randomly calling out twenty different songs. It's they go deep
and they change it and they literally do what they
feel like every night. You know, they've always got the
classics kind of dotted in there, and there's little patterns
you notice with like certain songs working well together. But again, yes,

(10:29):
you know you learn a lot from watching the Masters,
do you know? Masters do their thing.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
And now you can take some of those learnings and
bring them to New Zealand because you guys are playing Auckland,
Wellington christ Church.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
We are, yes, So we're starting off in Wellington and
on the twenty second of May, and then Auckland is
twenty third of May, and then we finish off in
christ Church on sixth of June, So that is going
to be really exciting. It has been I think possibly
between the last Clap Clap show and now, I would
have had one hundred and fifty shows under my belt,

(11:05):
and so for me, everything that I've learned is getting
encompassed in the camp and so I feel like Clap
Clapper going to be as big and as great as
we've ever been then plus some, because the wealth of
knowledge that we've gotten, the wealth of experience in the
camp is massive.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, and it's so awesome that you can take all
that back to the band. And I'm sure that we've
all been doing other things as well, so you all
bring in different stuff and.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yep, everyone's bringing in their own little thing. And it's
also great we're doing it, you know, we're really doing
it at this point in our career because we just
love doing it. It's a real passion to get out
there and tour again, and it's nice getting together with
friends and also having that communication between each other where

(11:50):
it's just natural. We have played so many shows together
that we know how to read one another in a
live context and also even just the the live concept
of Clap Clap has always been direct live like no
bells and whistles, nothing, It's a band playing on stage.
And a lot of the work that I've been doing

(12:11):
in recent times has been stuff that's kind of working
with wider things like laptops and playing to a grid.
So just the freedom of getting out there and watching
a set kind of flow and things change and things
get longer, things get shorter, depending on what's going on
with the crowd. That concept is going to be really exciting,

(12:31):
I think.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
And you've got the new song to play for everybody, Yes.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
Like a Lover. So we did that song with Tom
Healy at the Labs. So Tom did our last record
with us, and he's a good friend of ours. And
it has been kind of the sum of this record
really has been again really focusing in on what Clap
Clap are as a live band and making sure that
the entire record is representative of who we are, part

(13:00):
of a record that I think we are so deeply,
deeply proud of. The rest of the record will be
later on in the year, So I'm going to say
next year, but this yeah, that's good.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
No, we'll get it.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
We'll get it out this year. So it'll be once
we get this tour underway. Well, I think we'll have
another release or two in between now and then maybe
another tour tail end of the year potentially for the record,
and then that'll be record out out in the world.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
We've got all those details on our locals onnipage at
hidache dot co dot m Z. Day from Clap Clap Riot.
Thanks for coming in, man pleasure, Thanks for having me Greg.
Can I offer you a beverage or a banana?

Speaker 3 (13:40):
The stack of old wine on the table is either
appealing or unappealing at this stage. No bananas, thanks, No
bananas for the foreseeable future. I'll take a I'll take
a water to go. I think it's yes.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Radio hod Aches of the Record Podcast. Why not subscribe
so they doubt load automatically and don't forget to rate
us five stars? Thanks mate. Find out more about this
podcast and the people who make it at hodache dot
co dot nz
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.

Bleep! with Ana Navarro

Bleep! with Ana Navarro

Fear thrives in silence and confusion. Ana Navarro rejects both. Her voice is an antidote to today’s chaos. Her new podcast, Bleep! with Ana Navarro, takes on today’s most pressing issues with the voices most connected to it: decision-makers, political leaders, cultural shapers, and people on the frontlines of the story. The conversations acknowledge the emotions we all feel—despair, sadness, fear— but emerge with knowledge, perspective, and hope. The belief is simple: fearless dialogue can transform fear into courage, and courage into change. When fear dominates the headlines, this show digs deeper. Because information, debate, and conversation don’t just ease fear, they give us power to shape the future.

Hey Jonas!

Hey Jonas!

Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2026 iHeartMedia, Inc.

  • Help
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • AdChoicesAd Choices