May 7, 2026 • 9 mins
Christchurch rockers The Response have just released their new song Hollow Hour, their singer Andy called up for a chat about their recent tour of Australia, the anthropocene and the merch item that keeps on giving.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Radio hodarchis Off the Record podcast with Greg Preble.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Let's have a chat with the response Kyoda, Andy, Hey,
how's it going? Yeah? Really well? Thanks mate. How is Christchurch?
Speaker 3 (00:13):
It is a beautiful day today at a twenty one
degrees and the sun is shining.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Nice and you leve there, you work there, your band
is based there, and you've been making music for a
few years now. As the response, your last single did
real well to a yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Absolutely. At the last end of last year we had
our first single from a new kind of album cycle
called Where Do You Run To? Thanks to you guys
and New Zealand Rock Radio, we managed to get number
one on the charts, so that that was a career
highlight for us. But yeah, now we're all onto the
next song called Hollow Hour.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah right. And so once you've got a big charting
success song, do you kind of think why did that
song chart? What can I do to put that sort
of I don't know if there's a formula or a
thing about it into the next song. Does that cross
your mind?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Oh? Yeah, I mean it's so easy to get caught
up and all that kind of stuff. I think it's
one of those, right, time, right place situations. But yeah,
people were just really jelling with it and it kind
of led to some cool gigs for us as well.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, for instance playing with Transfision Vamp.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, I mean they were an amazing band. To be honest,
we hadn't heard of them, but they killed it on tour.
We got to know them really well and got to
know their music fantastically. Nine dates throughout Australia, got all
the way out to Perth, got to play some legendary
venues like the Inn More in Sydney to a couple
thousand people. It was a real blast.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Is that the first time you've been to Perth.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
It's the first time we've played in Australia actually full stop,
and it's the first time we've been all the way
out that way?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Nice and what were Perthians like?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I do didn't do any research on this, but I'm
guessing that it's a bit of a uni town because
far out at like one in the morning after we
were like packing out, the streets were alive with like
a lot of maybe university students, that a guess, and
it was it was getting pretty chaotic that you know,
a lot of people getting pushed around in trolley's and
a bit of fun. I wouldn't want to stay out
there too late though.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, right, and nine days. So where else did you go?
Apart from the end more in Sydney.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
We started in Brisbane two nights at the Trifford sold out.
That was such a cool venue. It's an old converted
World War two plane hangar, so it's this big, cylindrical
kind of shape.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I mean it's quite echoey always. The sound okay in there,
the sound.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Was amazing and I don't know why, because you're entirely right,
it should be terrible, but it was really cool. And
they've had some legendary people through there. Just all the
green rooms at every place we played, you're seeing, oh
look there's a signposter from Dinosaur Junior, and look there's
something from someone else. It was like, yeah, a real
cool time. But after that we went to the Sunshine
Coast and we got to play at a place called
(02:46):
Ossie Land, which is like a theme park. So our
green room was like the closed roller coaster area, so
that was a bit of a blast as well.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Did you get a chance to go on the roller coaster?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
No, they were all closed. I was probably already feeling
nervous enough as it is, so I didn't want to
get on something that's going to make me throw out.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
What are the Aussies make of the response?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Love a New Zealand crowd, but far out the Australian
crowds go pretty wild. They yea, really into everything from
the moment we played. I mean, Transmision Vamp were amazing
and their fan base is rabid and so even like
an hour before even we started playing, there's like a
line up around the block for everyone to get into
the venue, and the rooms were just heaving by the
(03:28):
time we got to start, so it was intimidating. We
had to convert them from the first song, but I
think I think we did a good job.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, well done. And of course, Transmission Vamp back in
the nineties I Want Your Love was? Was he maybe
back in the eighties a song Wendy was and the
philms of blasting that out and that song would have
gone off, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Oh yeah, yeah they I mean that was a clear hit.
But I think a lot of the fans just knew
every song. Like sometimes you couldn't even hear the band
singing because the crowd was singing so loudly. That was
a cool, cool vibe.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah. And so meanwhile back in New Zealand and you
have done some shows around here of the last time,
so I think I saw you on stage at in
christ Church at the town Hall for the go Live
festival last year. Yeah, and you had I'll Make from
Good Shit Rodney Fisher performing with you guys as well.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah, that was a really good show. We haven't played
with Rodney since then, but that was yeah, so much fun.
And we'll be attending go Live again this year. I
hope you'll be agreg. I'll see some Push Push and
Opshop and Pluto.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely in the Boone Docks and Vaults are playing.
This is a really good lineup once again. And you're
part of Vaults too, aren't you.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah yeah, I mean that's going to be such a
good show. And we've played shows with the Boon Docks
as well and they're the coolest guys. So much fun.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah. Great, So that's one thing that's coming up for
you guys August twenty two around the christ Church town Hall.
Is there anything else on the horizon or are you
focusing more on getting more songs for your upcoming album.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
This is our second single from a new album, so
we're kind of in release mode at the moment. I mean,
we have a home studio so we record everything ourselves.
So it's kind of a blessing and a curse because
you know, our album's finished, but we keep adding songs
or cutting songs, or endlessly tweaking high hats EQ and
stuff like that. But it's all good fun. The other
thing we have coming up at the moment is at
(05:15):
the end of the month for New Zealand Music Month,
We'll be playing at dark Room on the thirtieth of
May with another band of ours, Imperial April, for a
coolly thing called Echo Chamber, where christ Church bands play
short sets where half their set has to be covers
of other christ Church artists.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Right. I love that idea. I've heard of other towns
doing that before. It's so good that Christchurch is doing that.
Have you had a chance to think about who you
might be covering.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, we've got our setless still planned out, and we
might even be doing a cheeky we released before the gig,
so we'll be sending something your way, but I'll keep
a secret for.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Now, Okay, So it's not the Exponent song.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Okay, that's not so secret. Yes, I'll give you that one.
We'll be playing that because we got to. We've got
to play Victoria when our front person's name is Victoria.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah, totally nice one. And so this new song, Hollow Hour.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
The very first ideas for the song probably was back
in twenty twenty four, which feels like a lifetime ago,
and like most things, it's just me noodling around on
the guitar. But it was actually probably coming up with
this walking bassline thing to go along with my boring
chords that really made it into something worth pursuing. Once
we got that walking baseline thing down. I think the
(06:26):
other thing that really just kicked it into overdrive was
me taking a little too much inspiration from Say It
ant So by Weezer with a big Unison bend in
the chorus. I think we turned it to something of
our own. But yeah, I love that part.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, great, and a nice nice inspiration too. That's a
good track. I can hear how that fits in with
your guys sound. And then I've heard of happy Hour,
but what's a hollow Hour.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
It's a tune that I came up with to describe
you know, yeah, what do we live in the anthroposcene
right now or something? So it's like a period of
time for humanity that I have deemed the hollow hour
that we live in. And you can make of that
what you will.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Okay, And with your crystal ball, do you foresee us
coming out of this hollow hour and coming into something fuller? Well?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
If I was that smart, I probably wouldn't be playing music.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Well, there's always hope, I guess, isn't he?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
So if anyone wants to delve into that song or
keep tabs on the gigs you have coming up that
one at the dark room or May thirty where you're
doing covers of other Christchurch bands, or the go Live
Music festival, anything else you happen to do. Where's the
best place to find some information?
Speaker 3 (07:39):
The response in zed and if you want to follow
Imperial April, Imperial April Music.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Right, And so that's the response in Zen or Imperial
April Music. Those are beyond Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and then
there's websites as.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Well, Imperialapril dot com and the response in z dot com.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Do you guys do much?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Yeah, I'm a graphic designer by trade, so we got
plenty of T shirts and stuff. If you want to
check them out, they're all on our band camp and website.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Actually, it reminds me when I was at that go
Live music festival in christ last year. I bought a
couple of things and then I was like, oh man,
I got to carry these things around with me. Hell,
you know carry I don't want to carry all this
stuff with me when I'm trying to go to gigs
in there. And then I saw a response bag a
topeck Okay, one of those I put on everything, and
then it's kind of, you know, supporting you guys and
(08:31):
then actually being practical as well. So nice work because
you guys are the only ones that had topext.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Oh man, Yeah, I mean it's Topeag's a kind of
old school now it's like yesterday's match, but yeah, we
still still got to have them.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah, well the Foux fighters do them, so you know,
not everyone's given up on them yet.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Oh yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Andy from the response, thanks for your time on Hodache.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
That's great, Jedd, and thank you Radio hod Aches Off
the Record podcast.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Why not subscribe so they download automatically and don't forget
to rate us five stars.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Thanks mate.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Find out more about this podcast and the people who
make it at hodache dot co dot nz.
Welcome to Radio hodarchis Off the Record podcast with Greg Preble.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Let's have a chat with the response Kyoda, Andy, Hey,
how's it going? Yeah? Really well? Thanks mate. How is Christchurch?
Speaker 3 (00:13):
It is a beautiful day today at a twenty one
degrees and the sun is shining.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Nice and you leve there, you work there, your band
is based there, and you've been making music for a
few years now. As the response, your last single did
real well to a yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Absolutely. At the last end of last year we had
our first single from a new kind of album cycle
called Where Do You Run To? Thanks to you guys
and New Zealand Rock Radio, we managed to get number
one on the charts, so that that was a career
highlight for us. But yeah, now we're all onto the
next song called Hollow Hour.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah right. And so once you've got a big charting
success song, do you kind of think why did that
song chart? What can I do to put that sort
of I don't know if there's a formula or a
thing about it into the next song. Does that cross
your mind?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Oh? Yeah, I mean it's so easy to get caught
up and all that kind of stuff. I think it's
one of those, right, time, right place situations. But yeah,
people were just really jelling with it and it kind
of led to some cool gigs for us as well.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, for instance playing with Transfision Vamp.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, I mean they were an amazing band. To be honest,
we hadn't heard of them, but they killed it on tour.
We got to know them really well and got to
know their music fantastically. Nine dates throughout Australia, got all
the way out to Perth, got to play some legendary
venues like the Inn More in Sydney to a couple
thousand people. It was a real blast.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Is that the first time you've been to Perth.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
It's the first time we've played in Australia actually full stop,
and it's the first time we've been all the way
out that way?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Nice and what were Perthians like?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I do didn't do any research on this, but I'm
guessing that it's a bit of a uni town because
far out at like one in the morning after we
were like packing out, the streets were alive with like
a lot of maybe university students, that a guess, and
it was it was getting pretty chaotic that you know,
a lot of people getting pushed around in trolley's and
a bit of fun. I wouldn't want to stay out
there too late though.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, right, and nine days. So where else did you go?
Apart from the end more in Sydney.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
We started in Brisbane two nights at the Trifford sold out.
That was such a cool venue. It's an old converted
World War two plane hangar, so it's this big, cylindrical
kind of shape.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I mean it's quite echoey always. The sound okay in there,
the sound.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Was amazing and I don't know why, because you're entirely right,
it should be terrible, but it was really cool. And
they've had some legendary people through there. Just all the
green rooms at every place we played, you're seeing, oh
look there's a signposter from Dinosaur Junior, and look there's
something from someone else. It was like, yeah, a real
cool time. But after that we went to the Sunshine
Coast and we got to play at a place called
(02:46):
Ossie Land, which is like a theme park. So our
green room was like the closed roller coaster area, so
that was a bit of a blast as well.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Did you get a chance to go on the roller coaster?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
No, they were all closed. I was probably already feeling
nervous enough as it is, so I didn't want to
get on something that's going to make me throw out.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
What are the Aussies make of the response?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Love a New Zealand crowd, but far out the Australian
crowds go pretty wild. They yea, really into everything from
the moment we played. I mean, Transmision Vamp were amazing
and their fan base is rabid and so even like
an hour before even we started playing, there's like a
line up around the block for everyone to get into
the venue, and the rooms were just heaving by the
(03:28):
time we got to start, so it was intimidating. We
had to convert them from the first song, but I
think I think we did a good job.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, well done. And of course, Transmission Vamp back in
the nineties I Want Your Love was? Was he maybe
back in the eighties a song Wendy was and the
philms of blasting that out and that song would have
gone off, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Oh yeah, yeah they I mean that was a clear hit.
But I think a lot of the fans just knew
every song. Like sometimes you couldn't even hear the band
singing because the crowd was singing so loudly. That was
a cool, cool vibe.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah. And so meanwhile back in New Zealand and you
have done some shows around here of the last time,
so I think I saw you on stage at in
christ Church at the town Hall for the go Live
festival last year. Yeah, and you had I'll Make from
Good Shit Rodney Fisher performing with you guys as well.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah, that was a really good show. We haven't played
with Rodney since then, but that was yeah, so much fun.
And we'll be attending go Live again this year. I
hope you'll be agreg. I'll see some Push Push and
Opshop and Pluto.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely in the Boone Docks and Vaults are playing.
This is a really good lineup once again. And you're
part of Vaults too, aren't you.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah yeah, I mean that's going to be such a
good show. And we've played shows with the Boon Docks
as well and they're the coolest guys. So much fun.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah. Great, So that's one thing that's coming up for
you guys August twenty two around the christ Church town Hall.
Is there anything else on the horizon or are you
focusing more on getting more songs for your upcoming album.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
This is our second single from a new album, so
we're kind of in release mode at the moment. I mean,
we have a home studio so we record everything ourselves.
So it's kind of a blessing and a curse because
you know, our album's finished, but we keep adding songs
or cutting songs, or endlessly tweaking high hats EQ and
stuff like that. But it's all good fun. The other
thing we have coming up at the moment is at
(05:15):
the end of the month for New Zealand Music Month,
We'll be playing at dark Room on the thirtieth of
May with another band of ours, Imperial April, for a
coolly thing called Echo Chamber, where christ Church bands play
short sets where half their set has to be covers
of other christ Church artists.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Right. I love that idea. I've heard of other towns
doing that before. It's so good that Christchurch is doing that.
Have you had a chance to think about who you
might be covering.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, we've got our setless still planned out, and we
might even be doing a cheeky we released before the gig,
so we'll be sending something your way, but I'll keep
a secret for.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Now, Okay, So it's not the Exponent song.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Okay, that's not so secret. Yes, I'll give you that one.
We'll be playing that because we got to. We've got
to play Victoria when our front person's name is Victoria.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah, totally nice one. And so this new song, Hollow Hour.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
The very first ideas for the song probably was back
in twenty twenty four, which feels like a lifetime ago,
and like most things, it's just me noodling around on
the guitar. But it was actually probably coming up with
this walking bassline thing to go along with my boring
chords that really made it into something worth pursuing. Once
we got that walking baseline thing down. I think the
(06:26):
other thing that really just kicked it into overdrive was
me taking a little too much inspiration from Say It
ant So by Weezer with a big Unison bend in
the chorus. I think we turned it to something of
our own. But yeah, I love that part.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, great, and a nice nice inspiration too. That's a
good track. I can hear how that fits in with
your guys sound. And then I've heard of happy Hour,
but what's a hollow Hour.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
It's a tune that I came up with to describe
you know, yeah, what do we live in the anthroposcene
right now or something? So it's like a period of
time for humanity that I have deemed the hollow hour
that we live in. And you can make of that
what you will.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Okay, And with your crystal ball, do you foresee us
coming out of this hollow hour and coming into something fuller? Well?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
If I was that smart, I probably wouldn't be playing music.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Well, there's always hope, I guess, isn't he?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
So if anyone wants to delve into that song or
keep tabs on the gigs you have coming up that
one at the dark room or May thirty where you're
doing covers of other Christchurch bands, or the go Live
Music festival, anything else you happen to do. Where's the
best place to find some information?
Speaker 3 (07:39):
The response in zed and if you want to follow
Imperial April, Imperial April Music.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Right, And so that's the response in Zen or Imperial
April Music. Those are beyond Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and then
there's websites as.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Well, Imperialapril dot com and the response in z dot com.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Do you guys do much?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Yeah, I'm a graphic designer by trade, so we got
plenty of T shirts and stuff. If you want to
check them out, they're all on our band camp and website.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Actually, it reminds me when I was at that go
Live music festival in christ last year. I bought a
couple of things and then I was like, oh man,
I got to carry these things around with me. Hell,
you know carry I don't want to carry all this
stuff with me when I'm trying to go to gigs
in there. And then I saw a response bag a
topeck Okay, one of those I put on everything, and
then it's kind of, you know, supporting you guys and
(08:31):
then actually being practical as well. So nice work because
you guys are the only ones that had topext.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Oh man, Yeah, I mean it's Topeag's a kind of
old school now it's like yesterday's match, but yeah, we
still still got to have them.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah, well the Foux fighters do them, so you know,
not everyone's given up on them yet.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Oh yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Andy from the response, thanks for your time on Hodache.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
That's great, Jedd, and thank you Radio hod Aches Off
the Record podcast.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Why not subscribe so they download automatically and don't forget
to rate us five stars.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Thanks mate.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Find out more about this podcast and the people who
make it at hodache dot co dot nz.
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