Bang Bang Eche: New Zealand Dance Punk

New Zealand’s Bang Bang Eche is a dance punk band that you can’t listen to without wanting to move. I don’t mean move as in shuffle your feet or sway from side to side. I mean crazy ass, wave your hands in the air like you just don’t care, throw yourself around without any thought at all, mindless dancing.

I got the chance to talk to Zach Doney, lead singer for the band, while they were in New Jersey and I was pretty excited. I had watched their videos and listened to their new EP, “Sonic Death Cunttt,” which is set to release in the next few weeks and includes their hot new single, “Fist Full of Dollars.”

Dance punk was a whole new genre for me. This was going to be fun, I thought! Little did I know how right I was and that this would be one of my favorite interviews thanks to Zach’s Willy Wonka-esque answers. Just like Bang Bang Eche’s music, this was going to be a conversation I wouldn’t, or couldn’t, soon forget.
I started by asking Zack about the band’s name. Turned out I was wrong about the pronunciation. It’s Bang Bang Eche (etch) not Bang Bang Eche (esh). Go figure, I’m not from New Zealand. After I worked that out, I asked where they came up with their name. “The name is just something T’Nealle [Worsley, guitar/bass/synth and founder of the band] made up.”  We had to pause for a lot of coughing…he sounded like he wasn’t going to make it. He must have had a really rough night the night before. “There’s this band in Australia called Bang Bang X and we, we stole it.”
 
According to Bang Bang Eche’s MySpace page, “Once there were four kids/they were walking in the park one day/when an old man came up to them and asked/I have three cats, called Agatha, Agnes and Albert/I live all alone with my cats, and everyday I wonder…/do any of you kids like to play around?/And the kids all said ”F*** YEAH!”/and went back to the old man’s house to party…and that’s how bang bang eche was started…” 
I really liked this explanation of how the band got together but I thought I better ask Zach in case there was a different version. The first thing I got was more coughing. In fact, he was really hacking now. I was starting to worry and I hoped he would be able to stop long enough to answer me. 

”The band started as a joke two and a half years ago from a competition thing.” He finally answered. “And then the joke got out of hand and now [we’re] just making some money on the joke and flying around the world, and it’s a joke.” I liked the MySpace version better but I thought Zach did a great job of making something up for me.
With a band like Bang Bang Eche, I wondered about influences. What made these kids play like this, sing like this, perform like this? Zach flailing around seizure-like onstage; drummer James Sullivan mysteriously stripped down to his underwear half way through their sets; guitarist Charlie Ryder switching instruments so fast that if you blinked you missed it; and through it all, T’Nealle calmly surveying her queendom as if everything was right in her world.  Again, I turned to Zach for the answers.

And again, he gave me something I wasn’t expecting. “All of us have different influences,” he said. “I like computers but not the band computers, just computers…T’Nealle likes pillows…”  What???  “Charlie likes Radiohead, but probably some other shit too. He likes blogs, mostly, and James likes dreamy stuff.”

Like what, I asked?  “I don’t know, like the band Moom or Mum?  I’m not sure how to say that band’s name.” (I think it’s Moom) “And Brian Eno, and also just like, blissing out.”
Bang Bang Eche plays the Aquarium Sunday night, November 8, opening for Har Mar Superstar.  I asked Zach how they hooked up with Har Mar? “We just said we’re touring, we’re touring, we’re touring and we’re touring and we just kept saying it and then we had a tour with Har Mar Superstar. Yeah, that’s how we get everything. Like when we did our last tour we just said we were touring until it happened. People just believe you and then suddenly you have a booking agent and you have a tour.”
 
Zach and I finished up our conversation with him giving me a ‘Zach-shot’ of each of the band members.
 
“Charlie, he’s a robot and he has no soul…and he has blonde hair and really blue eyes because the soul’s been sucked out of him.”
“James also has blonde hair and blue eyes but he has a lot of soul and he likes getting naked…”

“And T’Nealle, T’Nealle has a soul but very little feeling and therefore can be blunt, especially with boys.”
“I like to stay in my house and get lost in the Internet. And that’s us, that’s the four of us.”
 
All I can say is I cannot wait to see this band perform. Their music is fantastic and they are amazing to watch, if you can stand still long enough to watch them, that is. It really doesn’t matter how Bang Bang Eche started or who they are; what matters is that these four young people are together now creating a nuclear explosion of music that has to be experienced, either at their live show at the Aquarium Sunday night or by picking up a copy of their new EP, “Sonic Death Cunttt,” which will be out this month.  Or do both!  You won’t be sorry. 

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INFO:

What: Har Har Superstar with Bang Bange Eche and Fup
Where: Aquarium
When: Sun, Nov 8, 10 p.m.
How Much: $7, 21+ID