I Heart Hiroshima in New Zealand!

Brisbane pop-rockers I Heart Hiroshima are hitting our shores this week for a Wellington show! We caught up with 'em for a quick trans-tasman chat...

I Heart Hiroshima w Little Pictures + Thought Creature
Friday 18th July at Bar Bodega, Wellington

So you guys don’t have a bassist. Why did you decide to be bass-less? How do you reckon it affects your sound? Are you mega sick of being asked about your bass-less-ness…

It was never a conscious decision to not have a bass player as such, it just sort of happened. We started playing around with two guitars and drums and decided that we were making music that we liked and didn’t need anything extra added to that lineup. I guess lots of people are interested to know about the “basslessness” but I feel like it’s not that unusual these days, right?

Wikipedia has you guys down as being influenced by Sleater Kinney, TV on the Radio, The Raveonettes and The Jesus and Mary Chain amongst others – these seem reasonably accurate. Did you write your wikipedia page yourselves? Out of ten how would you rate the accuracy of your wikipedia page? How do you rate wikipedia generally as an online tool for facts and information? Any references closer to home – maybe bands that you’ve played with etc?

No we didn’t it, I wonder who did? A solid 7.5 outta 10, seems reasonable. I can’t say that I have ever seen our page on Wikipedia which totally invalidates my last answer. So clearly I don’t really use Wikipedia as an information-gaining resource. I can’t believe we are inter-discussing Wikipedia and it’s pros and cons. We have played with lots of rad Brisbane bands: Sekiden, Scul Hazzards, Night Crash, Violent Soho amongst others. Brisbane goodness.

Brisbane’s kinda considered a black hole in terms of culture – tell us about the ever changing face of the city. Have you guys managed to carve a little niche community out over there?

First of all, WHAT?! A black hole? C’mon! the city’s face is always being blessed with wonderful things, such as big giant colourful useless buildings. Now, the other thing that I would like to point out is the city cat. It’s a CAT that likes WATER! It doubles as transport AND an attraction. Beautiful. Not such an infinite vacuum now is it?

Female and male vocalists; who writes the lyrics and how does this double vocal get down?

E’rrbody writes they own lyrics. The double vocal, in my opinion, gets down like superstar singer “James Brown”.

Your sound’s pretty minimalist. I guess this is a natural result of the bassless/three piece aesthetic…but have you guys actively sought this sound? I interviewed My Disco recently and they had really interesting opinions on the possibilities of high intensity, minimalist music…your thoughts?

Well, I don’t think there has been a time (especially in the EPs) where we put too much thought into it at all. The idea was to keep playing until it sounds good and then go no further, so if you want to call that ‘minimalist’ then I say “sweeeeeeeeet dude”.

The artwork on your EP’s is really rad and also really consistent stylistically. Who does it? You guys are obviously happy with the way they portray your sound artistically…

Yep, pretty happy at this stage. Maybe Cameron will try some collages in the future. Oh yeah he’s in the band too.

The video clip for ‘Punks’ is in a really awesome location, where was it and what was the filming of that like. Who shot it for you guys?

It was shot under an old cinema, by a boy called Adam. The long haired man is named Bo. Bo Stahlman. He’s a Swede.

..Actually I’ve just checked out the other video on your Myspace and that’s really rad too…tell me about that!

Two out of three of us were hung over and two out of three of us were drunk during the filming. Try and guess which ones!

Are you guys amped to play New Zealand? Have you played here before? What did you think/what have you heard about New Zealand crowds? NZ v. Aussie crowds? Wellington v. Auckland crowds?

Yes we have played in “The land of the long white cloud” before (see? Not nice having yo’ home picked on eh?!), we played with Ratatat maybe two months ago in Auckland and it was totally sweet-wick-rad-awes-party-fun-times. The crowd was delightful and sugar coated. Aussie crowds generally get too wasted, so it’s nice to see that you dudes have a lid on your alcohol consumption. Haven’t played in Wellington yet, we are looking forward to it though.