It’s today…this afternoon sees the 1st ever Artrocker Awards. We are sponsoring the NEW Blood award and have been profiling the nominees. Today are the last two:

DZ Deathrays

Regular listeners to the Artrocker radio show should already be familiar with noisy Brisbane-ites DZ Deathrays, albeit maybe under the simpler guise of DZ. Having been together as a band for three years, the musical duo of singer / guitarist Shane Parsons and drummer Simon Ridley have recently felt compelled to extend their name: “We felt we had to do it. There is another guy called DZ who is bigger than us, a dubstep DJ. Dubstep is huge now,” explains Simon shortly after they have finished playing a raucous set at SXSW. The primary reason for the name change may have been to stop confusion, but it also signifies that the band are looking to make an impact beyond just their native land; with performances in Austin just under their belt the band is also embarking on a tour that stretches across the land with heavy noise-niks Cerebral Ballzy.

The Neat

We’re looking at doing our own release and getting an EP out with the six new tracks we’ve done at a house three doors down from where I live in Hull.

It’s hard to get an album deal these days. Things went so fast for us and then it leveled out and we’ve gone away and are doing our own thing again, building on from where we started.

We didn’t produce the Chewing Gum releases and we didn’t have a lot of control over them, but these new ones are more like live recordings and we just want people to hear it now. We’ve always got an idea of what we want to sound like and we’re just trying to experiment a bit more. We’ve all got better and have grown up with out playing.

Images and text courtesy of Artrocker Magazine

The first two nominees for the 1st ever Artrocker NEW BLOOD Award, sponsored by yours truly are:

Teeth

Hailing from East London, TEETH’s riotous digi-pop began life in the brilliantly named Dalston Lane Queer Squat. “It was free, it was queer and we got in trouble for eating meat in the house,” laughs So. “Our practice room was full of old keyboards, crappy amps, broken guitars and the walls were lined with 101 Dalmatians carpeting that was supposed to make it soundproof. We had about half an outlet to plug our equipment into and we often got locked in the squat for hours because the people who lived there locked the doors when they went out and forgot we were there.”

Breaking out onto the Hackney DIY scene alongside Male Bonding, Is Tropical and Fair Ohs, TEETH recorded their debut with local producer Oli Dreamtrak in his tiny studio. “It was really cozy and fun,” So explains. “Laid back with no frills and so cramped Simon decided it was best to record one drum/one cymbal part at a time.”

Ringo Deathstarr

“I was just trying to start this band with a certain concept and I met Alex in ‘07, she worked in this store and I used to drink all the free beer that they gave to shoppers – it’s a common thing in Austin; get a haircut and get a free beer. Daniel went to high school with me and he moved to Austin at the right time to be the drummer, so he joined, we went on tour and that’s it” quickly summarises singer Elliott Frazier.
With them hailing from Austin it would be easy to assume that the annual SXSW festival, one that is located in their home city and well known for helping to break emerging bands internationally, would be seen as a golden ticket to quick success. However, bassist Alex confesses that: “It’s not really that different for us (from playing a regular show), living in Austin. It’s a lot easier for bands based there to play it, so it’s not as big a deal to us as those bands who come in from out of town and who have larger showcases.” Or, as Elliott bluntly puts it: “We’re just the hometown heroes, the local yokels.”

Images and text courtesy of Artrocker Magazine