Dune Rats pack a punch
If the name Dune Rats conjures images of surfers living it up on Australian beaches then you're halfway to getting what this young Brisbane band is all about.
The remaining half is the surf punk on their self-titled debut album, out this week, that organically comes of that. But Dune Rats' sound is one more commonly associated with the beaches of the US, particularly the West Coast and LA. Think Wavves and Best Coast. Not surprisingly, the band has toured extensively there.
"The inspiration behind the music is more us three getting cooked and going 'Let's make a song up', and it just works from there," bassist Brett Jansh laughs from his mum's place in the coastal NSW town of Berrara ahead of the band's latest US jaunt.
"We stayed at the same house in LA for two months but it was more like living out of an RV the whole time, which was
just as fun if not better, because we were going places in America we'd never been.
"We have a booking agent called Panache and they book all my favourite bands like Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees. Panache lined up the tour and we played some shows with my heroes. It was honestly the best tour of America thus far and I guess we have to keep cracking away at it."
The Dunies, as they're known to fans, live by a simple philosophy: no kooks, no gutties.
"A gutty is like, if you're having a gutful," Jansh offers by way of explanation.
"If you've had a gutful of something, I can say 'Are you having a gutty?' It's turned into, now you can level your gutties. If you're a gutty 11, then you're as far gutty as you can possibly be.
"It's something we'd say between us if any of us did have a gutty, something we can rub into one another. Like, 'No kooks, no gutties!'"
Nowhere is the Dunies' irreverently Australian angle on surfie pop-punk culture better realised than the cover to their 2013 EP, Smile. A
picture of a bunk bed with an unimpressed and fully dressed gentleman sitting on the bottom bunk while a menage a trois carries on in full swing above him. It needs to be seen to be believed.
"That's f…ed isn't it!" Jansh laughs.
"It's just hilarious, just disgustingly funny. He's our mate, Matt. It's a real photo, that's all I'm saying."
