Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Radio hodarkeis Off the Record podcast with Jeremy
Wells and Manice Stewart.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
So the Take Music Prize announced that the Mint chicks
sophomore album Crazy Yes Dumb No is going to be
awarded the Independent Music New Zealand Classic Record at next
month's event. And we've got Ruben Nielsen from the Mint
Checks with us. Now get a Ruben. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Hey, how're going? How are you good? Thanks?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Good?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
We're getting there. Where in the world are you? Are
you in New Zealand at the moment.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I'm in Portland, Oregon?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Are you now?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
You live there, don't you?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
How long?
Speaker 1 (00:46):
How long You've been over there?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
For about fifteen years? I think?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
What is it about Portland? Seems to be a big
music town, right.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Yeah, it's pretty famous for music. For a small town,
it is. It's pretty like active with like creative stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I understand. Also craft beer breweries. Which of the two
scenes was it that took you over to Portland?
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Well, actually it was more my family because my my
mum's brother lives here and all of his kids who
are now all having kids as well. So there's like
a whole kind of section of my family that lives here,
and so that's sort of what initially brought me over here.
(01:37):
But then I sort of discovered that the place itself
was really interesting, and so I thought it would be cool,
you know, live here for a while. And I just
thought I would come here for like a year or two.
And now it's been fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Wow, fifteen years. When I think Portland, Oregon, I think moody.
I think, I think moist. I don't think. I don't
think even though obviously it's got beautiful outdoors, beautiful forests
and stuff. In Oregon, I I feel like it rains
a lot, so it's probably good to make music, and
(02:13):
it's pretty.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
It's a pretty rainy place here, and so you have
eight months of of pretty rainy weather. It sort of
forces you to do some creative stuff. So I actually enjoy.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
It for that that where Twilight was shot.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
It is yeah, like Oregon, Yeah, Portland around here. It's
also like kind of the Twin Peaks part of America
as well. There's a lot of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Did you did you? Because we went to America lass
your first time I've ever been there, just for a
handful of days. But did you what were the weirdest
parts is the key we moving to America because they
are very different people, aren't they.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, yeah, they're pretty different. A lot of them are
insane and they but I mean, as far as music goes,
I really find it an inspiring place to be because
the culture is pretty appreciative of musicians and there's a
(03:18):
lot of good music here, a lot of the music
that I love us from here, so that that part
of it's quite cool. Politically, it's always been insane, like
into since I've been here, and people are people are
pretty warm, you know, like they're like in person, they're
(03:39):
pretty friendly people. I think, you know, I think Kiwis
are known as being friendly. Like when Americans go to
New Zealand, they said that Kiwis are friendly, So I
suppose New Zealand is a friendly but Americans are kind
of friendly in a different way. They're quite like boisterous
or something, so that they're part of it kind of
(04:00):
pleasant to Portland's a little bit like New Zealand in
some ways as well, like the weather in population here
in Portland, it's not that different from from the vibes
and like Wellington or Auckland. I don't think. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I feel like the further north you go in America,
as you're pushing towards that Canadian border, even into Canada,
the more New Zealandery it gets in terms of the people.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeah, I think so, Yeah, when can.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
We go back to crazy Yes? Dumb No? And and
the single itself crazy y is dumb No. I've listened
to it and I love it, and I've listened to
it a lot, and I've always wondered because the drum
for me, the drums are so important in that song,
(04:46):
and I've always wondered, did you start with the drums?
Where did the what was the genesis of the song?
Do you remember what the first parts of the song were,
how you built it?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Well? I remember the song, the chords and the lyrics
and everything came before that drum part. I just I'm
a bit terrified that I'm going to get the story
wrong because the drums were written somewhere between Paul Roper
who was the drummer, and Cody and I think I
(05:24):
really can't remember exactly how it started with how it started,
but I think it might have been. Yeah, I can't,
I can't actually remember. I think it was. It might
have been Cody played that pattern, or it might have
been Paul, And I feel like I'm really stepping into
controversial territory there. I remember exactly how it happened. It
(05:47):
wasn't me. I didn't I didn't come up with the
drum part. All I remember is being really excited about it.
And yeah, unless I'm completely wrong and all came up
with it, I think it was Cody started playing there,
and I can't remember why he started playing it. I
don't know where the drum part came from, just a
(06:08):
moment of inspiration, I suppose, And it was just like
the song itself is pretty straightforward. It's almost like a
kind of motown love song or something, but with that
weird military drum loupe idea, it becomes super weird.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
You know, plas say military sounds like. But what what
time signature? You guys are all musicians. I'm not a musician,
so I don't understand that is it Is it a
strange time signature or is it a normal time signature?
Speaker 3 (06:40):
It's normal.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
When you were making that album, what did it feel
like when as you guys were making it, did it
feel like I'm sure each song was different, but like
did it all just sort of fall out of your
heads in one short period of time or did you
labor on it a little bit more?
Speaker 3 (07:01):
It took longer because I think the first album we
did really quickly and we recorded it all live together
as a band. And the second album was we just
took longer and did it in a different way, like
laid down things more slowly, and it took a long
time to mex and stuff, and our dad helped us
(07:22):
a lot. Our dad was helping us, I guess, make
it more professional, because it was like the idea behind it,
I think was that we'd done all of these weird
records and we wanted to try and do like a
like a proper record of that make sen It's like
like I was trying to make it like a real
like those albums, like those bands that are trying to
(07:44):
make things for people that they enjoy something like, which
was like weirdly at the time, like we just didn't
think about that that much, Like we didn't really didn't
care what anyone thought of us. So it was like
the first time that we actually started to think about
the enjoyment of the audience or whatever. And yeah, it
(08:06):
took so it took a lot longer than the other
record did because the other record we sort of threw
together very spontaneously, which I think. I'm also really proud
of that record. Yeah, so it was a lot of
we would record something and then my dad would talk about,
you know, making a mix was like that sounded professional,
(08:28):
was like polishing it to make it more presentable, and
it's just like, I guess it was something I just
hadn't thought about that much because we were doing punk music,
and but then all of a sudden, it was like, oh,
we've already kind of done a lot of this DIY
punk style recording, and it's like, maybe we should try
and work on this for a long time and see
(08:49):
what happens. And I think that's all. That's what That's
how I remember it going.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
So you weren't thinking, let's when the iamins it is,
I means classic record recipient in twenty twenty six, when
you were right.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
I don't think we had any like particular goals, but
we were trying to just put like our best effort in,
you know, trying to make a really good album.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
What do you think I mean, I know.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
That sounds weird, but it's just we weren't particularly thinking that.
We were just trying to amuse ourselves before that it
was part.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Of your dad's drive and moving it to be more polished.
Was that to try and bring it to a broader,
bigger audience. Was that part of what he was thinking.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I think I don't know, knowing my dad, it was
probably more a musical thing that he thought, maybe that
there was some potential in like kind of presenting what
we can do to people, you know, Like I don't
really think anybody had any particular idea that money was
(09:55):
a big deal. But I think, you know, he was
older than us, and maybe he was just thinking your
head a little more, just thinking like, why don't you
guys have a shower and put a suit on, see
what happens this kind of thing. Maybe maybe he was
just thinking like an adult and and maybe there was
just that kind of thing. But I think, I mean,
if I was just a guess, I'm putting words in
(10:17):
his mouth. But it's kind of like at the time,
I felt like it was a bit frustrated that we
were so purposefully amateurian and like so and like so,
and we were trolling so yeah, so hard all the time.
That he was just kind of like, you just what
if you just try to make it make a good album,
(10:39):
you know, like that's that's kind of what it felt
like at the time. And actually that did seem like
the biggest troll at the time, which is why I
think we kind of went along with it because we
were like, oh, yeah, imagine if we tried that would
be like the.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Wall that is so easy.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Yeah, you mentioned you're dad, your brother even involved in
this in this album. What was your house like growing up?
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Like?
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Was it just instruments everywhere? It was a very musical
spot on it look was it madness?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Yeah, it was pretty chaotic, pretty gnarly environment. Yeah, a
lot of music going on. My dad would go on
tour a lot and stuff. I didn't really do much
music until I left home, but the family is very musical.
Like Cody was playing drums when we were kids, and
(11:33):
keyboards and making making beats and all this kind of
stuff when we were we were in high school and stuff,
and and dad was always playing music and so we
had access to all of this kind of stuff. Or
I was like, I grew up around it and Dad
was like a pretty big jazz guy. So he would
listen to a lot of Miles Davis and stuff like that.
(11:55):
So we grew up with that kind of music. And
then I suppose partly the punk thing was like a
little bit of a reaction against my family's musical background,
like this a bicyical background and stuff like that. My
dad's just a kind of professional musician, you know, played
(12:16):
as a degree in music and stuff like that, and
I went to university for arts, so I went to
eat them and study paintings. So I didn't have any
musical education. So doing punk was kind of like it's like,
we ended up doing music, but we didn't want to
(12:37):
do it exactly like my dad or my auntie or
my granddad's kind of way, which I suppose is just
like pretty typical. You don't want to just kind of
follow what your parents are doing, but you end up
kind of doing it anyway.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, it's a weird thing that you end up going
down those roads. Now I've got another question for you
around the around how you actually say the album name.
Obviously with the punctuation, you've probably been asked us a
million times, could you say the album name for us
please using the correct or the punctuation which which you
(13:14):
what you wanted it to be taken and if that's
if that makes sense?
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Uh yeah, okay, So I guess it's crazy, yes, dumb, no.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Ah, there we go. Okay, because there's also there's exclamation
marks after years and no. So I wondered whether I
always thought it was crazy. I thought maybe it was yes,
and then.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Oh yeah, I guess yeah, I guess I guess it
could be that as well.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
But I went crazy yep, dumb nahh.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
That's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Reben, Thank you so much for talking to us. Congratulations
on your award, Glad to hear that everything's going well
for you over in Portland, and and best of like
with everything, thanks for chatting to us.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Thank you Radio hold Aches Off the Record podcast.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
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Speaker 3 (14:07):
Thanks mate.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Find out more about this podcast and the people who
make it at hodache dot co dot nz it