What do the press keep saying? Largely the same thing, but I can hardly talk. They make the covers, they make the news, but it's what's being said that is of interest right?

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2009
The Comeback Kids

2007
Fur Patrol to re-ignite for music month

2005
Andrew Bain part 1: A Shy Meatlog?
Andrew Bain part 2: FUN ANDREW FUN!!

2004
From Fur to Three - NZ Musician
Warm fuzzies for fighting-fit Fur Patrol

2003
Collision Course - theage.com.au
Julia Deans interview
Furry Severed Ears - Rip It Up, October/November
Go Hard or Go Home - Real Groove, October
The Patrol are Back - tearaway.co.nz
Fur Patrol Pledge Allegience To NZ - Undercover.com.au Nov
Fur Real - Sunday Star Times August 3
Fur Trading - New Zealand Musician August/September(includes Gear details)
Slow and Steady Winning Race for FP - Southland Times August 25
Fur Patrol return, NZ Herald - August 31

2002
Come and Get Some Fur, Julia in RIU Dec

2001
How Far Will Fur Patrol's Julia Deans Go? - RIU Cover story Oct/Nov
Julia Deans writes home via Rip It Up
Get Yer Kit Off - Simon interview in NZ Musician, January
Salient interview with Andrew, Julia and Simon
Selector interview with the band
Press interview with FP in Christchurch
Fur Patrol return to Wellington

2000
Another Salient interview
Life's A Bitch, And Then You Meet One - Rip It Up cover story Oct
NZPA Article
Groomed for Success, NZ Musician
Pet Sounds - An Evening Post interview
Starter For 10, ten questions for Julia
The Fur Patrol Salute - Rip It UP

1999
Old interview with Julia and Simon from Lungfish

1998
Girls With Boys With Guitars - Rip It Up


2003
Julia and Simon on Space, August 29
Juice TV interview with Steve and Simon - August 27

2002
Julia interview with Strassman and Ted E. Bare - March

2001
Fur Patrol and Squeeze in Melbourne

2000
Julia and Simon on Space, October 5
Squeeze's Fur Patrol special, October 15

1999
Julia Deans on the Squeeze Women Only show



2004
Simon and Julia on Channel Z, January 15

2003
Julia Deans on the ROCK 96.3FM, August 9

2000
Fur Patrol run the morning show, Dec


Fur Patrol: The Comeback Kids - Lydia Jenkin
NZ Musician

Fur Patrol recently turned 12. Measured in human development, they'd be adolescent ratbags, still wide-eyed and naïve, with an extra layer of stroppy attitude. But in band years, a twelfth birthday is an accomplishment well worth celebrating - and what better way to do so than with a new album. Just their third LP, 'Local Kid' has been more than three years in the making, but Fur Patrol have relished having this time away, rediscovering their enjoyment in working and playing together, coming up with a swag of considered new tracks and essentially getting their groove back.

"This is probably the most 'us' that you'll have ever seen or heard," drummer Simon Braxton cracks when I get the trio in for a chat during a whirlwind trip to Auckland for an early album showcase. Braxton and Fur Patrol's guitar-swinging frontwoman Julia Deans live in Melbourne, while bassist Andrew Bain has lately returned to Wellington, so careful co-ordination is essential.

They're an entertaining bunch - droll, frank, frequently finishing each other's sentences - and that dark sense of humour, guileless attitude, and deft understanding of each other's talents also come across on the album. Work on new material started in 2005, after guitarist Steven Wells left the band in late '04. "We took about six months off, just to see where we were," Deans tells me. "We needed to work out a) what we needed to do, and b) make that decision about whether we wanted to continue as a three-piece. We needed to learn how to be a three-piece. It was like starting over."

"We were a bit burnt out from the last few years of touring and financial strain," Braxton admits. Not surprising really, given they'd released their sophomore album 'Collider' in 2003 under a fair bit of pressure. Having blown everyone away with their debut 'Pet', clocking up platinum sales locally, a #1 hit with Lydia and four NZ Music Awards in 2001, expectations for 'Collider' were way high. It didn't have the hoped for impact on either side of the Tasman.

The band had moved to Melbourne, enduring a protracted tussle with a couple of record labels (breaking up with Wishbone and getting out of a licensing agreement with Warner Australia), before signing to Universal Australia. They spent an enormous amount of time touring, and recorded what Braxton still reckons is a great rock album, with some fantastic people (namely UK producer Mark Wallis), only to find that reputation, expectation and all that work didn't guarantee them chart success.

"It was disappointing. Well I felt disappointed," he says. "I think because we'd had so much, from the record company side of things. There was a lot of talk and bluster that went on, that we bought into," Deans explains.

"There were a couple of decisions that we were told about and we went, 'Really, you want to do it that way? It doesn't seem like the best way to do it, but I guess you guys know what you're doing. We're just the band so we'll just go along with it,'" Braxton continues. "And afterwards it didn't work, and you think, 'Righto, you didn't actually know what you were doing did you?' Bugger."

The three admit they should've stuck to their guns a bit more, but having learnt from the experience, this time round they've walked away from Universal in Australia, and opted to work here with Auckland indie label Tardus, who also released their EP 'Long Distance Runner' last year.

"Working with them [Universal Australia] was frustrating. Basically we just worked out that they weren't particularly interested, we weren't a priority for them," says Braxton. "They just let us walk - which was good, 'cos we owed them quite a lot of money from the last record. So we were really lucky to be able to walk away from that one and start again."

They do plan to find another Australian label for 'Local Kid', but are taking it slowly.

"We're gonna finish the whole package and put it together and then start pitching it," says Deans. The band's long time manager Dave Benge is also now MD of Melbourne/Sydney label Speak n Spell and they've considered working with the successful indie label (also home to Cut Off Your Hands, Die!Die!Die! and The Brunettes), but it's not an ideal situation because of the "conflict of interests" it would create.

"Dave's kind'a said that would be a worst case scenario option, you know?" adds Braxton. "If we can't find anyone else we want to work with, and who wants to work with us in Australia, then that's always a fall back."

They shouldn't have trouble finding support. 'Local Kid' is a top shelf album. Like a good whisky, it's likely matured and improved with those few extra months in the cellar.

"We recorded the beds of the album, the main parts, at Atlantis, which is just in Melbourne, and we recorded with Tony Cohen who's done pretty much everything for Nick Cave since he was a young whippersnapper," Deans enthuses. "And then we did some of the guitars and other bits and pieces either at home, or most of the guitars were done at Studios In The City, which is Tom Larkin's (Shihad) little studio in Brunswick, and we did the vocals there as well. We've been lucky to work with some great people on this album, Tony's an absolute treasure."

Fur Patrol worked with Cohen on a seven inch vinyl release back in 2003, recording live "straight up, like back in the bad old days," as Braxton explains. "And we got on really well, and he liked us and we liked him. So as soon as we started casting around for producers for the new album his name popped up. And he was really keen, and free to do it at a budget we could afford."

The main track parts were recorded to tape, giving the album added warmth and embellishing it with those occasional sounds of a physical process, like the tape machine gearing into action. "The drums, the bass, the main guitars, and some piano were done to two inch 9-track, and then we dubbed that onto Pro Tools, then did the overdubs in Pro Tools".

The band also took quite a hands-on approach in the studio Braxton relates.

"Tony was ostensibly the producer on the record, but he's more of a recorder really - we did all the pre-production ourselves. He was just really excited about the mixing side of things, but he was also great in the studio, working really quickly and knowing how he wanted to set the mics up and stuff to get the sounds he was after."

Having taken a substantial break from touring Fur Patrol weren't getting the chance to road test the new material, so instead spent a couple of sessions workshopping songs with Barry Palmer, of Hunters and Collectors fame.

"It was like we'd been locked in a room for three years, just the three of us, beavering away on these tunes. Losing our perspective a little bit," admits Bain.

"There were a couple that we weren't quite sure about how they were sitting together as a song, and he helped us pull them apart and put them back together," Deans explains. "We ended up reworking two of them. The other one, Little Fists, we weren't sure about how it was working, and at the end of the session we went, 'Nah, we preferred it how it was'. But it was great to go through the process, work out what the song could be, and what the story it needed to tell was."

'Local Kid' has a different sound to 'Pet' and 'Collider' - not least because there's now only three of them. "We were conscious of trying to keep it not over-layered, or sort of over-produced - conscious of making sure we could go out on the road and play it as three people," says Braxton. "We're really enjoying the sound. There's a lot more space in the music. It's less cluttered, and there's more room for the vocals to come through."

Despite the evident power there is a sense of the vulnerable, with the production link to Nick Cave apparent in places, and the trio all show off their chops. Deans in particular gets to display her versatility. Her fragile yet powerful voice moves from a soft husky whisper to pure yearning on first up radio single Great Leap Forward, exudes defiant pop attitude on Hidden Agenda, then softens again to the perfect moody balladeer on Silences & Distances... and that's just the first three tracks.

Her guitar playing is equally varied; from subtle, almost folk-like to tense and edgy rock riffs, twisting round Bains' faultless bass lines - which are rolling and warm, except when they turn spiky and snap at your heels. Braxton's drumming drives it all forward, punching exclamation when required, frequently kicking the songs up a gear or reeling them back to moody restraint. He also adds harmonies to round out the vocals on several tracks.

Despite the diversity 'Local Kid' provides a unified set of songs and has been put together with care to reflect the band's different sides - less aggressive than 'Collider', but not as pop-driven as 'Pet'.

"A lot of the songs for 'Collider' were written while we were on tour, and we seemed to be touring and playing with lots of 'rock' bands. Which is actually just one element of the band, we have lots of mellow spots too. It's quite funny to balance our two sides, and figure out how to translate that for the different audiences," Deans offers.

"Sometimes when you're touring with a rock band you can't just do a mellow set 'cos it doesn't translate. So I think we want people to experience both ends of the spectrum and to have them make sense within a set. Which I think we maybe lost sight of a little bit when we were touring in Australia."

Looking for that balance was another reason for the long gap between albums.

"We wanted to make sure we had the right collection of songs" Bain explains. "We would've finished this project years ago if we'd just cared about one or two songs that might make it on radio. There were heaps of tracks that didn't even make it past demo stage, 'cos we realised they were just filler."

They've also been busy living the rest of their lives, working day jobs, and contributing to other musical projects. You may well have noticed Deans' name popping up on all sorts of projects - working with Tiki Taane, HDU, Aspen, singing at the Christchurch Jazz Festival early last year, and touring the country with Sam Flynn Scott and Barry Saunders in September. Bain has been playing with fellow Wellington returnees Cassette, and Braxton says he has been getting some time out perspective.

"I like the fact that I'm not constantly working within the music industry, or on the road, or hanging out with music people. It's good to take a step back too, get a bit of perspective on what you're doing, figure out where you fit in."

But right now they are keen to dive headlong back into Fur Patrol, even if it is a trans-Tasman affair. Their third album may have been a while in coming, but they're fairly certain they've still got fans out there, thanks in part to the wonders of MySpace.

"It's great 'cos we can just put tracks up there and cut through some of that red tape. And it's good because it just kind'a keeps people aware that we're actually doing stuff," says Braxton. The video for Great Leap Forward (filmed by Anna Kelly) is ready to go as soon as radio buys in and they're planning a NZ tour for later in the year. Far from being jaded because they are 12, or diminished now they are three, 'Local Kid' finds Fur Patrol with an adolescent spring back in their step and an engaging live presence.


Collision Course - Michael Dwyer
TheAge.com.au

Fur Patrol had long built up a head of steam for its second album, writes Michael Dwyer.

Funny thing about Abbey Road Studios, the place that made a rock'n'roll icon of the humble pedestrian crossing. Inside, far from the state-of-the-art it helped define, it looks more like a creaky old Dr Who set than the best-known recording studio on the planet.

"Everything looks incredible," says Fur Patrol's singer, Julia Deans. "They've got heaps of old equipment lining the hallways, like they're afraid to throw anything away. You're walking past all these ancient knobs and dials and tape machines.

"We were only there half a day, mastering the album on this funky old machine. It was insane. The guy who did it (Chris Blair, who's mastered tapes for Radiohead, Pink Floyd and the Beatles) has been working there since 1969, so he knows his stuff."

Cool! Leave any graffiti outside?

"No," she says sheepishly. "You're talking to the girl who was right outside the studio, walked across the pedestrian crossing and had to ask somebody where Abbey Road Studios were. She just looked at me and pointed. I felt like a bit of a dick."

Well, it had been a long trip. Fur Patrol enjoyed a promising start with their debut, Pet, in New Zealand in 2000, but their second album has been bubbling beneath the surface ever since. Hence the high-impact title, Collider.

"The album was written at a time when there was a lot of frustration," says Deans, the deceptively compact owner of one of the finest rock voices in the southern hemisphere

"I guess the songs reflect a sense of trying to take control of a situation, which was the culmination of spending at least 18 months trying to get out of an old recording contract in New Zealand.

"By the time we came to recording it was like letting water out of a dam. We'd been sitting there frustrated for ages, and when we got given the go we were on this collision course with whatever was gonna lie in our path."

Hence the alternately seething and explosive quality that Fur Patrol have been endlessly tuning in Australian pubs, most recently as guests of comparatively aimless and lethargic grunge survivors Spiderbait.

"We used different albums for inspiration, for guitar tones and stuff," Deans says. "Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's first album, PJ Harvey's To Bring You My Love, The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails ..." She laughs as she realises the grim, vengeful tone of her primary influences. "And ... um, the Teletubbies' greatest hits."

In more jovial news, Deans, guitarist Steve Wells, bassist Andrew Bain and drummer Simon Braxton managed to secure the services of British producer Mark Wallis to record Collider under their new deal with Universal Music. His resume, including Marvin Gaye, Iggy Pop, U2 and Travis, was a promising sign of respect after years of neglect.

"The aim was basically to try and capture what we've got going on live," she says. "To some degree it felt like our first record. It's been such a long time and we've since played a million more shows, so we feel like a different band. This sounds like us, full on."


From Fur to Three - Melanie Selby
NZ Musician

After playing together for nine years Fur Patrol has experienced a collision of sorts with guitarist Steve Wells announcing his departure from the band in November. Front woman Julia Deans admitted the last few years "have been a crazy and rough ride" and that Steve had been mulling over whether to stay for some time.

"We've all asked ourselves repeatedly just what the hell it is we think we're doing. For me it's been bizarre questioning myself as I've always been so bloody-minded, I've never wanted to do anything else. But doing this means making sacrifices like secure finances, the ability to make plans for your personal time and so on. Steve just decided enough was enough. He has other things he wants to pursue and now was a good time to make the break," explains Julia.

Fans needn't be afraid - Fur Patrol is rocking on as a three piece and as a result are sounding a lot more stripped back and raw. Julia said she can actually hear what she's playing now and so can everyone else which she admits is rather scary.

"It's taking some getting used to, but I'm enjoying the challenge...no more hiding behind Steve's layers. We're really enjoying the energy and vibe between the three of us, and the new found space in the music."

After their first show without Steve, Julia was thrilled with the crowds reaction.

"It was one of the most exciting and nerve-wracking gigs I've done in a looong time. The response was fantastic and we can't wait to do more."

Julia is equally as nervous about playing their first gig in New Zealand but for now the band are continuing to reside in Australia. Universal Australia have been supportive of their decision and according to Julia are as excited as they are.

"We've already recorded a couple of new songs and they've received the ol' 'double thumbs up' and are eagerly awaiting more."

No dates have been set for their first album as a three piece as the band are still writing. Needless to say this is going to be eagerly anticipated album.


Fur Patrol to re-ignite for music month - Stuff.co.nz, April 2007

It's been a long time between New Zealand gigs but Melbourne-based Fur Patrol are thrilled to be leading the charge in opening New Zealand Music Month next week.

Formerly based in Wellington, the band have been off the radar for a long time, but with an EP due out here this month and a full album to follow , they're getting enthusiastic again.

A free concert in Christchurch on Tuesday to officially launch New Zealand Music Month will be their first here for over two years, and the first as a trio since guitarist Steve Wells departed.

His departure leaves Simon Braxton on drums, Andrew Bain on bass and Julia Deans taking up a bit more slack with her guitar and vocals.

"It has required a major reworking of the whole Fur Patrol thing," Deans said from Melbourne.

"I've had to step up, I can't hide behind Steve's abilities any more, so that has been quite intimidating."

Fur Patrol have been together since the late 1990s but there have been only two full length albums since then, including Pet (2000) and Collider (2003).

Some hugely popular singles and a best female vocalist Tui award came from them before it all went a bit quiet.

Deans said for a while things were not going smoothly behind the scenes and it derailed the band's momentum.

But they managed to re-organise and start some new songwriting and there now appears to be renewed enthusiasm.

"I reckon it's a much more efficient machine now, I'm loving the way everything is sounding – the songs and just playing with Simon and Andrew," she said.

"We've been together for a long time now and have some really good chemistry."

As far as the music goes, Deans said the new songs were probably a bit more broody than in the past, but there was also a healthy measure of "raucousness".

Fur Patrol's upcoming EP and album will be released through Auckland label Tardus Music, which Deans said was hugely positive following some ups and downs in terms of band/label relationships.

"We're incredibly excited about working with them. We're all completely on the same wave-length, which I think is about the first time that has ever happened."

She was probably only half joking when she said the band were so committed to recording that they had to pass up a recent opportunity to attend a Pixies concert.

"So you know that means this has to be a really f. . ...g good album."

Things will be briefly put on hold for the New Zealand trip but the decision to accept an invitation to come here wasn't hard.

"We were like `hell yeah"', Deans said. "It's very pleasing, it's been such a long time since we've done anything. We're going to feel like real musicians again."

While next week's New Zealand trip is a one-off, Deans said the band were looking forward to returning relatively soon for a full tour.

She said the band had not secured an Australian release for the new album and would work on that further down the track.


Andrew Bain: A Shy Meatlog? A Ratpony exclusive

Fur Patrol's bassist leaves a recording session to talk exclusively to Ratpony.com about touring with the pink-eyed hip hop scribbler, the sadness of losing the band's guitarist, the miracles of tequila and meatlog.

Walking past Wellington's sprawling Public Library towards Lido, the gale force winds welcome Andrew Bain home - spitting the occasional piece of grit into the eyes.

The cafe is the eye of the storm... quiet, warm and virtually deserted. Drinks are ordered, seats perched upon and the seemingly timid, almost shy musician launches into a conversation explaining what it's like to be recording back in Wellington.

"It's been quite intense. We've got Dino from HDU... he's got a rehearsal space that he's let us use for the whole week. So we've been going in every day from 10 o'clock to 6-7 at night, just trying to be creative..."

But is it all fun and games for our Furry friends letting their artistic fur fly?

"We kinda feel like we have to come out with something at the end of it... and when you have that kind of pressure on you sometimes it makes it a little hard to be expressive."

The band have been recording songs they haven't had the chance to work on since leaving Melbourne for New Zealand. Andrew says that they've been trying to pull the ideas into shape, with the goal of doing a whole lot of new stuff as a 3-piece.

In October 2004, guitarist Steve Wells (whose whining guitar solos were well prominent in the infamous Lydia and lesser known crowd favourite Why?) left the band citing personal reasons. Andrew had spoken to his old school friend earlier that very day.

"He didn't call for any reason, just to say hello. He worked all night last night and he just got up and was sitting on his back porch having a cigarette and called me in New Zealand... isn't that cute?"

Very cute... but why Andrew? WHY!?

"I wish he was here and he could explain it. He was just over it. He was quite interested in being able to plan his life more than two months in advance"... Andrew seems to speculate.

But despite Steve's absence he is still kept in the furry loop having already heard some of the bands' new songs on a demo tape - express delivered to sir, with love, from the group.

"He really liked it. It's all on really good terms - it's cool, we're still mates."

Not only are Steve's lack of contribution to the Furs' sound sure to change the finished product, but now, 1 and 1/2 years on from 2003's Collider, the band is certain to naturally evolve. Andrew says that although Steve's iconic moves during the shows will truly be missed ("we've lost all the solos and the moves, the kind of spastic circle dancing"), the change has dawned a new found freshness and stage safety awareness.

"There's no fear of embarrassment of someone falling off the stage and hurting themselves..."

All joking aside, Steve contributed more than just dangerous stage shennanigans. Andrew says that while the departure has undoubtedly affected the band dynamic, it's something they've been able to get used to very quickly.

"The only strange moment was the first rehearsal without him. It felt like a completely different band. It felt like we were teenagers having our first band practice."

Without one of the founding members, how will the songs survive without Steve and his cigarette-smoke infused kiss of life?

"Since Steve left we've had this goal of just kinda pulling back and trying to do a whole lot of new stuff as a 3-piece. [But] There's been a bunch of gigs coming up that we've agreed to do so most of our time has been spent trying to relearn all of the old songs as a 3-piece and trying to make music without Steve's guitar."

Fur Patrol have recently toured the country alongside Canterbury's main man Scribe for the Summer Hummer tour. The shows took the band from Auckland to Invercargill, with a lot of partying and star-avoidance on the go.

"I didn't hang out with [Scribe] at all. I didn't say hello to him."

This is unlike the always sociable and friendly bassist. Andrew reasons he was being a snob because it all got a bit too much for him.

"There were quite a few people in the backstage area and they were restricting people that went into the tent (backstage).

The screening process backstage began to bug Andrew who felt "a bit silly" and preferred to hang outside with the organisers on the other side of the tent. Julia and Simon meanwhile took the more sociable approach and chilled in the tent with Scribe and his entourage.

"I should have gone and said hello - he was staying in the same hotel as us... but I didn't even see him there. He gave us some of the beer from his rider though..."

Ratpony.com's speculation as to whether the dude who rolls like this rolled a little summin-summin for the group to share and max out on was diplomatically answered as follows by Andrew...

"I cannot confirm that this is true, but I think [insert name of protected innocent here] might have been taken care of that night."

Rockstarish debauchery aside, Andrew talks excitedly about the Hummer shows.

"In Masterton there were 8000 people - crazy eh?"

A younger crowd than Fur Patrol are used to?

"Heaps of families and heaps of young kids and teenagers who never really had the chance to go to a big concert before. At the Masterton one I was standing there (by the backstage area) and this little kid, this little dude comes up and goes "Hey fella, what's your name? Are you in a band?" He just had no idea who was playing or who he was getting to sign his arm."

All this wholesomeness seems to be agitating the rock gods. Alcohol related chit-chat anyone?

Realising all, whether rock stars or not, fall victim to lacklustre and dips in inspiration to do that thing you do, Andrew says he has the answer for downer moments, or in his case those pre-show jitters, - altogether now... TEQUILA!!!

"That tequila will kind of remove any nerves and take away any anxiety. It helps."

Now there aren't too many professions that encourage extreme alcohol consumption on the job and the band undoubtedly for that simple reason, can cherish their jobs... able to avoid ground hog day style desk jobs. But is this likely to turn into an E! True Hollywood story any day? Is Fur Patrol an insatiable party band?

"In Australia we can't really afford to have guitar techs or people packing up... so we spend the first couple of hours after we've finished playing packing our gear up... by the time we're ready to continue drinking everyone is either comotosed or they've gone home. It's kind of strange."

So Fur Patrol are actually in danger of turning into... a NANA BAND?

"Yeah. You need to get used to starting your evening at 4 o'clock in the morning. But over here it's different... Not everything [is paid for] but we tend to more often than not have someone driving us, which means you don't have to worry about who's gonna drive."

It seems we don't need to start knitting shawls just yet, but the direction of this conversation seems to be focusing heavily on the ever so sinful side of the musician life. And Andrew is NOT that sort of boy! Shifting gears slightly, just what sort of boy is he? What music is currently revving his engine?

"I've been listening to Tom Petty's Greatest Hits. I should really go out and buy all his records - it's kinda cheesey just getting a greatest hits compilation, but that's all good cuz every song is great."

Uh huh. No comment.

"Tom Waits' new record is cool. I like how he's this really old guy who could probably be your grandad - playing these really twisted pop songs - he's got the most unusual voice. He's kinda frightening in a way."

Both of those musicians are kinda old school. Does Mr Bain have any comments on the new breed of rock?

"There's quite a few up-and-coming Melbourne bands, but I don't really like any of them. It all sounds like fast rock. You know Jet? They have a lot to answer for."

So what has caught his favourable attention then?

"Signer. This guy called Bevan Smith. He's just released this record under the moniker Signer. It's beautiful. You should go out and find it... . I'm a little out of touch with the Wellington scene. I feel kinda bad about that. I've always really liked Wellington music."

Speaking of Wellington, and NZ music, how about that KiwiFM?

"I've been listening a little bit. There's some pretty terrible music on there... but I reckon it's a really good idea... really ambitious. I reckon that it means they'll have to dig pretty deep to keep the playlist fresh. There's more chance local bands will get more airplay... every time I've listened it's been Auckland hiphop."

But what else does the band miss since going International and leaving New Zealand's art capital? Andrew admits on a more personal note that he misses his best friends and family a lot, most of whom live in Hobbiton.

Interestingly, on entering the cafe pre-interview, Andrew paused in the doorway for a giggle while he read a text message from his father signalling his where-abouts. His father had sent the message: "IM A MEATLOG".

Is this a private joke? A pet name? Could he have been dining out at a U.S. cuisine specialist restaurant for dinner, munching down some Meatloaf? Well, no. It seems "IM A MEATLOG" simply meant "I'm in a meeting" and was in fact accidental code for "my generation is crap at text based communications and MEATLOG was the best I could do."

While back in New Zealand for this brief stint, Miss Deans picked up her guitar and charmed the sweaty throng of university students while playing support for the Shins, the band growing more popular by the second as one of SUBPOP's post "grunge" era bands and Zac Braff's wet dream with a keyboard.

Why did Julia take to the stage alone for the all the fun? With Simon already a Shins fan, did he and Andrew feel a pang of regret for not offering their services?

"Yeah, of course... but because our return flights were already booked... I don't really know. I'm not sure why [we didn't] do it. In a way I'm kinda glad because we don't want to do a proper gig at a venue until we're super confident that we've got our shit together. We want to have a good set of new songs and recordings to back up the gig."

It's been said that since Steve's shock departure, the tone of the band has changed to a more stripped back, raw, leg humping, pulsating beast. Is this because the three remaining hoodlums are banging their pots and pans cathartically to deal with their loss?

"It's going to sound quite different regardless of how our writing style has changed without Steve. There are only three instruments. What Steve used to do was add more colour to the songs. He'd do some tinkley bits here and there and every now and then make a huge noise. Without that, cos Julia can't do what Steve did... it's naturally going to sound different."

But in no way will our precious Furs ever be without colour. Just using a different palette perhaps? Thrash Metal Red?

"Nah, just straight metal. Thrash metal was never our thing."


FUN ANDREW FUN!!!

We took the opportunity to coax some more information out of the very patient Andrew...

What is your ideal line up for a music festival?
Andrew took his reply very seriously and had to think long and hard. He wasted a lot of valuable dictaphone time but didn't want to sell his answer short. As I've said before, he's ever the consumate professional.

(In no particular order)
-Swervedriver
-The Smiths
-Bailterspace
-The Boo Radleys

Would you be a Beatle or a Monkee?
We decided he was a Monkee before he had a chance to answer. However, he also had a Monkee related story so it seemed an organic enough decision.

"The singer, the cute guy... Davey. I met him once in the street. He came over for the Wellington Fringe Festival or something - or he was a street performer. I didn't realise it was him until afterwards. He was just this old guy. This short little old dude."

If you could play bass in any non-Fur band, who would it be?
"Swervedriver. I'd love to play bass for Swervedriver. They're not together anymore. They're from Britain. In the 90s they were cool."

What is your biggest rock related dream?
"I'd always had this dream about playing in a band that supported [Swervedriver] and then within a couple of years they played in Wellington and we did support them. Then I had nothing else to live for. I was thinking... in 10 years time my band will play with their band someday... and suddenly they came to town and I picked them up from the airport. All of a sudden I had the job of driving them around. I met them and it was great... it was pretty embarrassing because one of our friends came backstage at the concert and drank all their beer and we didn't realist it... I think I'm about to pee myself..."

And with that he was gone. He had escaped out of the bathroom window and was last seen tearing down Taranaki Street, arms flailing, screaming... "I'm free! I'm freeeeee!!!!!!" back into the nuturing furry bosom of the rehearsal space.



Warm fuzzies for fighting fit Fur Patrol - by Nick Gormack

New Zealand rock band Fur Patrol may have been based in Australia for four years, but it still regards itself as very much a Kiwi band. Back home for a short tour for New Zealand Music Month, lead singer Julia Deans talks to Nick Gormack.

Remember when Fur Patrol's single Lydia was all over the air-waves, and the group was all over the media?

It wasn't that long ago that the band was very much at the pinnacle of the New Zealand rock music scene; with a top single ( Lydia ), a platinum album ( Pet ), as well as four Tuis at the New Zealand Music Awards in 2001. Later that year Deans, guitarist Steve Wells, drummer Simon Braxton and bass player Andrew Bain followed a well-worn path and shifted to Australia where, as far as home audiences went anyway, they kind of, well, disappeared, before popping up last year with their follow-up album, Collider .

"It was a bit like that," laughs Deans on the line from home-town Christchurch. "A lot of people back here, when we put out Collider , said `I thought you guys had broken up; what have you been doing over there?' We did nearly break up at one stage, after going all those through record company hassles, but we didn't and we're a lot stronger now as a group and as friends".

The "hassles" Deans refers to involved the group in some serious wrangling with industry heavyweights, eventually leaving it signed to Warner in New Zealand and Universal in Australia, and contributed to the lengthy delay in recording the follow-up to Pet .

However, Deans says Fur Patrol bears no grudges now, and has settled into the hard graft of trying to make it in the ultra-competitive Australian music scene.

"It's the old saying of what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger - and we're as tight a group now as you can get." Deans says the most difficult thing about breaking through in Australia, has been simply that "there's a lot of ground to cover".

While the group may be based in Melbourne, Deans says it spends a lot of time on the road. "In our first year over there we did around 150 gigs. It's not quite so intense now, but it's pretty full-on. Mainly we're playing in pubs, but we've just come off doing some stadium support gigs with Pink, of all people, which went really well."

But Deans says while the group has a better chance of making a living in Australia, the music scene is not all it's cracked up to be. "There's a more people to get through to, and there's also loads of bands . . . but in all honesty, the music scene over there is not a patch on New Zealand music."

Back home for a whistle-stop tour to celebrate New Zealand Music Month, a visit which included a gig at Dunedin's Refuel venue last Thursday, Deans says the local music scene seems to be in good heart.

"It always seems to be pretty vibrant when I come back here. There are always lots of new bands popping up and coming up, and some of them also seem to be getting over to Australia now for a visit."

A long-time advocate of having a New Zealand music quota on radio, not surprisingly Deans is a big fan of the annual music month extravaganza. "I can remember when it was New Zealand music week - now we get a whole month. It's a great way to focus on celebrating New Zealand's music culture. I mean in the past, apart from sport, New Zealanders haven't been that good at celebrating our culture, what we do and and what makes us Kiwis I guess, so it's all good. "

Deans says in the long run she would "love" to be able to live in New Zealand and do what she does, but at the moment that's just not a reality.

"Unfortunately, we just wouldn't be able to survive on our music if we were living here, which is pretty much what we're managing to do in Australia now. But you never know what's going to happen."

Deans says possible future plans for the group may include releasing a four-track EP in the United Kingdom featuring tracks from Collider , before perhaps releasing the album, and maybe even venturing into the States. "We've been to the UK a few times, and the response has been good. We recorded our latest video (for the single Precious ) in LA, where we also made some contacts, so I guess it's a matter if seeing which fish bites first."

In the meantime, she says the Fur Patrol is keeping the focus firmly on Australia, where Collider , which came out in New Zealand six months ago, has only just been released.

"So far it's gone down pretty well. We've been getting really good reviews and radio play. Sales are going well, too, I think, although I don't keep a track on those things too much. I have to say, things like sales figures don't interest me much."


Julia Deans interview - Matthew Emery

When Fur Patrol made the initial move to Melbourne was it a matter of getting day-jobs and paying to play gigs?
For the first 12 - 18 months, we were constantly on the road, barely covering our costs and scraping through our rent and food. Fortunately we'd managed to save a (very) little dosh back in NZ which helped things, but we can honestly say we know the bones of our arses quite well. For the last year or more we've all been moonlighting in bars, movie theatres and the occasional post office. It's all about glamour...

Did the success Fur Patrol have in new Zealand with sold-out gigs, #1 singles, etc, count for much in Melbourne?
Ummm... No.

What makes melbourne the destination of choice for so many NZ bands in recent years?
Dunno about other bands, but for us it was the glamous... nah. All along we'd always said "Australia? Nah never! We can just work it from NZ." And then we actually came over for a few shows and a bit of a sniff around. Next thing you know, we're moving over!

How did filming the "Precious" clip with swedish media collective Stylewar go?
Ha! We were in L.A. - the land of movies - making our own wee movie!!! Very surreal but very exciting. Let's say... an eye-opener. We were very fortunate to be working with the Refused TV crew - such an amazing, talented and down to earth bunch of people. We have some really good friends there which helped too.

How was the gig at The Viper Room in LA?
Fun - those tequila shots beforehand definately helped my nerves...

Was it difficult to get unsigned from Warners Australia?
We were only obligated to Warners Australia for the one album distributions... it was settling our contract with NZ indie label Wishbone that really sapped us.

How has the recording experience been with the new album in comparison to your first album?
How can we compare? We've been incredibly priviledged to work with two amazing producers (David Long - Pet; Mark Wallis - Collider), both of whom have drawn out different aspects of ourselves and our music. The main difference has been that between recording Pet and starting work on Collider, we've played about a million (ok I exaggerate a little) more gigs!

Can Fur-fans expect any dramatic changes to the Fur-Sound for the new Fur-album?
Bigger, bonkier, more repreoductive.

Will there ever be a symphonic Fur Patrol album? Like ENZSO? MMMMMMMMAAAAAYYYBEEEEEEE... MMMMMMMMAAAAAYYYBEEEEEEE NOT. However, I (Julia) am doing a show in CHCH with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra in September (18th!)... may I add I'm very excited!!!

Whats the best part of touring?
Leaving, playing shows, hanging out and then coming home. Yay home.

Will there be any inter-band jammery on the upcoming Pacifier/Fur Patrol/TLBT NZ tour?
Now that would be telling...

Can we expect a headlining Fur Patrol NZ tour with the new album release?
I can't believe you felt it necessary to ask. Of course!

Do you have any advice for NZ bands considering the move over the ditch?
Buy a van with comfortable seats.


The Patrol are Back - Matthew Davis
Tearaway

After getting stuck with a slack record label, Fur Patrol were forced to work all manner of crap jobs just to make ends meet - but now they’re back with their awesome second album, Collider.

Originally from Wellington, the now Melbourne-based Fur Patrol released their debut album Pet in late 2000. By the time Pet had gone platinum and the single Lydia had reached number one, the group had New Zealand’s music scene by the throat.
Julia Deans (lead vocals, guitar), Steve Wells (lead guitar), Andrew Bain (drums) and Simon Braxton (bass) went on to sweep the 2001 New Zealand music awards, including ‘Single of the Year’ and ‘Best Songwriter’.

After a mammoth tour of New Zealand with Shihad (Pacifier) and Weta, Fur Patrol then made the big move to Melbourne and disappeared from New Zealand’s musical radar.

Steve was born in Zambia and moved to Wellington when he was 10. He was playing in a band called Svete when he joined Fur Patrol. With the release of Pet, his whole life changed - but not to the idyllic life of a rockstar.

“I had less money and was sleeping on couches. Platinum in New Zealand is only 15,000, which is not big by world standards,” he says.
Tougher times lay ahead in Australia. Fur Patrol signed with a record label that, Steve says, “was just not interested in promoting us.” As a result they spent hours travelling by van to play numerous poorly attended gigs “and eventually lost touch with New Zealand.”

The band members had to get menial jobs just to make ends meet. Andrew drove for Australia Post while Steve cleaned glasses at a bar that “played crappy house music.”

With things so tough for the band, no one would begrudge them packing their bags and heading straight home. Instead they stayed with it and played shows with the Dandy Warhols who were “really, really cool” and The Strokes, whom Steve can’t even remember. They’ve even been to the US and played at Johnny Depp’s infamous club, the Viper Room.

Just recently though things have really started to pick up with the release of their new album, Collider.

Fur Patrol spent six months rehearsing and working on the album, which was produced by UK producer Mark Wallace, who’s worked with the likes of U2 and Travis. The band also spent a week in L.A. recording the video for the first single off the album, Precious.

The move to Australia changed many things and this is apparent in the new album. “There are a lot more big dirty guitar riffs,” Steve says. “It’s also a little harder and darker...”

They also refuse to play Lydia anymore. “The band has moved on and developed.”

Steve continues to write some of his own music, and is heavily influenced by Swervedriver, Straitjacket Fits and - “surprisingly” - electronica. While the Queens of the Stoneage and Placebo are currently on his stereo, he still enjoys listening to Fur Patrol’s songs. “You get so involved in recording, you lose sight of the big picture.”

So is some of his own material on the album? Nah. The new album has been written collaboratively and includes some of the group’s older songs.

“It was written by all four of us and seems more cohesive than Pet, which was a collection of songs.”

Understandably Fur Patrol were bursting to get back home and it turns out that Steve’s last visit was over a year ago. Along with friends and family, he also misses “the good beer and coffee. You can’t get good coffee over here.” Then in a bashful tone he add, “I’ve even been forced to go to Starbucks.”

Nevertheless, the hard work is set to continue. After touring in Australia, Fur Patrol returned home to the delight of fans and themselves, where they were joined by their good mates Pacifier (Steve: “They’re kicking arse at the moment”), and the raw, turgid rockers Two Lane Black Top for a massive tour of New Zealand.

Now in the UK, it seems there is no rest for this wickedly great rock band.


Fur Patrol Pledge Allegience to NZ - Tim Cashmere
Undercover

Fur Patrol still call New Zealand home but Australia is where they now lay their hat.

"Basically New Zealand has nearly four million people and it's probably a twenty four hour drive from tip to tip of the country" Julia Deans tells Undercover News. "You can cover all the major cities and a few in between and play to everybody in two weeks. Now there are three and a half million people in Melbourne."
Fur Patrol thank the New Zealand Government for making it possible for them to grow. "The government is very supportive" adds guitarist Steve Wells, "but it's more about getting bands on their feet, but it's not about supporting their entire careers."
Back home they have released their new album 'Collider'. Australia can expect it early next year. "Yeah, it's just come out in old Kiwi-land! We're released through Warner's in New Zealand through the magic of contractual obligations and working relationships and stuff like that, but they were really keen to get it out in New Zealand." Deans clarifies, "We'll let it bubble away in its own little pot and Universal here are sitting on it until they've got a couple more singles out."
As far as who were they supporting in the Rugby, Deans summed it up. "New Zealand's going to kick Australia's arse." This interview was before the opposite happened. Nonetheless, you can catch Fur Patrol's performance at the Rugby World Cup final celebrations this Saturday (November 22nd) at Melbourne's Federation Square.

'Furries Fly Home' - Ash Harmer (Salient)

The last time we talked to them they promised they wouldn't do it. Well just to be difficult they did it anyway. Wellington's own Fur Patrol have made the big move over to Melbourne, but were back in town for two awesome gigs at the Bodega and Valve. I managed to catch up with them before their Bodega gig just to make sure they were behaving themselves.

>Right then, welcome back guys. How do you feel about being back in Welly?
Julia: It's awesome.
Simon: There's a real feeling of displacement though because I used to live here and now I don't.
Andrew: It's only been three months so it doesn't really feel like we've moved yet.

>You've just finished a hectic tour with Aussie band 'Motorace'. Do you feel as though Aussie is adapting to your sound?
S: They are proving to be surprisingly adept at picking up the Fur Patrol sound, which is nice.
A: We are going straight back over for a tour with Killing Heidi.
J: Yeah, we're doing a week with Killing Heidi and then around September we should be going away with a band from Perth called Eskimo Joe.

>So what new Aussie bands should I keep an eye out for?
S: I heard of this really cool Aussie band called Shihad the other day...

>Speaking of that I read a magazine article the other day praising this new Melbourne band called Fur Patrol....
A: It doesn't take long does it?

>So you haven't gone all Aussie on us, have you?
J: Hell no!
A: WE are planning on making regular trips back to New Zealand, we may be bringing back Motorace with us. Some good guitar pop.

>Is there much of a difference between your Kiwi fan base and your upcoming Aussie one?
A: Yeah, the Aussie one doesn't exist.
S: When we first moved over we did a gig in this bar called the Evelyn and about fifty people were there and I'm sure that most of them were kiwis. Then just before we left we played at the same place and about 300 people turned up, and they were mostly Aussies. We played a gig in Sydney that was a lot like the scene in Bodega, the same sort of history.


Busy Little Furries - Rip It Up

The lovely Julia Deans, on behalf of all the Fur Patrollers, writes home from Australia.

Okay, so we lied. If you had asked us a year ago "would you ever consider moving to Australia?" we would have sworn black and blue that there was absolutely NO NEED. We could just as effectively conquer the land of Oz whilst residing in NZ. Oz was a mere detour on our journey to global domination... HA HA HA HA HA!
So here we are on the first leg of our first tour of fair Australia, our new home-away-from-home.
We are currently on the road with hot-new-things MOTORACE and KLINGER. So far we've played two weeks of shows around Melbourne and we're now in Adelaide. Same designer, they tell us.
NOW is being played on Triple J and Triple R (we're still trying to work out the fixation with three's) and our ugly mugs are being aired across the country on music programme RAGE and on CHANNEL V, Oz's answer to MTV. We've closed the deal with Warners Australia so Pet is on the shelves and flying out like, well, cd's. All we have to do now is work our furry li'l butts off playing countless numbers of gigs across this vast and seemingly endless continent......So, it's off through Adelaide, Albury, Canberra, "Seednee", "Breesbane", Goldcoast and back to Melbourne. We'll be hooking up with the Lovely Mr Neil Finn for a few shows (which we're most excited about), and tours with the Cruel Sea and You Am I are in the pipeline too. Busy? You bet(chadupa) Happy? Damn straight.
We're all in good spirits and enjoying playing to all these new ears, we're showing the Ockers the way of the Fur and "fully" (we're peecking up the lingo) looking forward to coming home to "go seeck" with youse fellas again!
Well, that's about it for our first letter home. We miss you guys, but our big brothers have been looking after us - giving us couches to sleep on and keeping our accents in check.
We'll keep you informed of our adventures and hi-jinx along the yellow brick road, and point you in the direction of any fine Aussie sounds we encounter.
Big ups to yer momma.
xxxJu, Andy, Si and "Scuba" Steve...


Got A Band? Go To Melbourne! - Stephen Adams (Selector Magazine)

That's what Shihad did, and now Fur Patrol and Cassette have done the same. What's the attraction? Selector Editor Stephen Adams went there and found out....
"They'd make vicious weapons." Julia Deans is telling me about the music awards Fur Patrol picked up just before she left for Melbourne. "But they're useless bottle openers." We're sitting in The Vineyard Cafe in St Kilda, the seaside suburb famous for being home to Melbourne's Luna Park. The Vineyard is a eclectic lounge/cafe/garden bar at one end of the main strip, where thousands of locals and visitors are eating, drinking and hanging out in the Easter Saturday sunshine. Homicidal or domestic applications aside, winning the New Zealand Music Awards for top female vocalist and songwriter of the year (Fur Patrol also won best single, and Pet producer Dave Long won best producer) comes in handy when you're planning on taking your band to a new city. Doors open, calls are returned... the music business loves awards, which is why they give out so many of them....
"It definitely got us some handy media coverage, and probably helped us sell a few more albums" says Deans. "And it came to the attention of our record company here too, which helped."...It sure did.
After working with Warner Music in New Zealand through their career here, the company's Australian office have snapped Fur Patrol up for distribution in that country. On top of that great news, Fur Patrol have scored a support slot with hot Aussie band Motorace, a tour that will see them play close to thirty gigs around Melbourne and up the East Coast all the way to Brisbane. Then the band have to drive the twenty hour journey back to Melbourne in a van....
"All that driving in New Zealand has set us up for life" says Braxton, apologising for being late (something to do with trams). "But Brisbane - Melbourne? We're not not really looking forward to that one.'...
Things couldn't be going better for a band trying to make it in Australia. They win some awards and their album goes platinum in New Zealand, then they have a record deal, single release and a national tour organised before the rest of the band has even arrived in Australia. 'Nice timing' doesn't get much nicer than that. Has this whole thing been meticulously planned?...
"Aaah, I wish I could say yes, but no, it hasn't" says Deans. "Basically we had been planning to come to Melbourne anyway for some time. It's great for us to have something new to focus on. We've done okay in New Zealand, now we want to do it again in a bigger market. We've got a lot more focused in the last 12 months, and I guess we need to start taking things a bit more seriously... not too much though!"
So why Melbourne? Why not Sydney, or Brisbane?..."The nightlife here is the one" says Braxton. "People come out and see bands most nights of the week. It's quite like Wellington, just 100 times bigger. We can do a gig in one part of town and then two nights later do another one just around the corner, so bands can play four or five times a couple of weeks and not overexpose themselves. The Motorace tour we're doing is four nights a week in Melbourne for two weeks."...
"It is a lot like Wellington" says Deans. "It's the Wellington of Australia."...
"It's good" says Braxton, taking in the view. "Actually, it's a really fucking cool place. Especially on a day like this."...Julia Deans lives a couple of stops from St Kilda, in a Jewish neighbourhood. It's a big old villa, and the latest addition to the household is a three week old Pug, a born entertainer who is not surprisingly named Pugsley. ...
"The thing is" says Braxton, "that being in a working band in Melbourne is actually seen as a legitimate way to make a living, which is quite a refreshing feeling. There's an industry here. People are working in it. It's set up, there's money in it, jobs are created... it's a bit different than home."


Fur Patrol reconnoitres Tasman music scene
18 OCTOBER 2000

The vibrant Wellington rock scene has turned up another gem. Fur Patrol's long-awaited debut album out now and they are a band going places fast.
Wellington band Fur Patrol are going places ... quite literally. Three hours after this interview, lead singer Julia Deans and her band mates will be stepping on a plane bound for Sydney.

Once across the Tasman the four-piece will be showcasing their wares at the Pacific Circle Music Conference and playing a couple of shows with fellow New Zealand tourists Salmonella Dub.

After that, Fur Patrol fly to Melbourne for the highlight of this short tour, three sold-out shows supporting United States band the Dandy Warhols.

The whirl of activity doesn't end there, with Fur Patrol hitching up with fellow Wellingtonians Weta and Shihad for an extensive New Zealand tour next month.

"We'd definitely like to think we'll make our own mark (on the tour), but it's great to be touring with Shihad. We've always wanted to tour with them because they're such nice guys, and because they'll always pull a good crowd so we'll have lots of people to play to."

While Fur Patrol may be a new name for the wider music audience, audiences in their hometown have been confidently tipping the four-piece led by the small woman with the big voice for quite some time.

Deans first made her mark as a vocalist with the Celtic-tinged rock band Banshee Reel. She wasn't the lead singer, but when she strode to centre stage her rich voice commanded the audience's attention. Soon it was time to stretch her wings.

"It was a matter of having faith in my own music, as opposed to my own ability to earn a buck," she says.

"I was feeling confident with my own songs, and wanted to take them further. It was a good education for me to see some of the workings of the music industry, and for gigging and stagecraft. I wasn't into doing someone else's project any more. I'd grown up a bit by then, and figured I'd learnt enough to go out and do it by myself."

With a bunch of songs she wanted to try out, Deans set out to find some musicians she could record some demos with. That was four years ago, and such things as debut albums and trips to Australia were not even the stuff of wildest dreams. "I wasn't really looking for anything other than good musicians, and I guess finding people I could relate to was a secondary consideration at that stage," Deans recalls.

"Curiously enough I found them straight away, Steve (Wells, guitar), Simon (Braxton, drums) and Andrew (Bain, bass), which was an amazing piece of good luck: we haven't changed our line-up since we started.

"There have definitely been tense moments and we do fight like brothers and sisters, but it's all good and healthy."

Somehow, without even intending to, Fur Patrol became a band, and those demos evolved into Fur Patrol's first release, the 1998 Starlifter EP. An independent release on the Wishbone label, its impressive appearance in the national top 20 attracted the attention of the major labels.

Fur Patrol was quite keen to talk to major labels too, but first the band wanted as impressive a debut album as they could record to take in as a bargaining chip.

"Starlifter we didn't record with the intention of actually releasing it. It wasn't until we'd done them we decided we should really put them out," Deans says.

"It was never something we put our heart and soul into, like we did the album. To get the feedback we did for Starlifter was very encouraging to say the least. That meant for the album we were totally focused on that and planned from beginning to end how we were going to do it. It was a much more thought out and passionate thing."

Fur Patrol finished Pet in September 1999. A pleasing blend of edgy guitars and carefully crafted songs polished into shape by the production skills of former Muttonbirds guitarist David Long, it gave Fur Patrol a perfect launch pad to approach labels for a distribution deal, with Warners winning the race.

However, while the timing of the release was being sorted out it also meant Fur Patrol were rather left cooling their heels.

"It has been long, slow and frustrating," Deans admits.

"It seems to go in fits and starts. There'll be a patch of doing something, and then there'll be a long patch of waiting for all the behind the scenes things to get sorted out.

"But in terms of getting us out into the public eye and getting the record into all stores and just having the weight of their contacts and experience in marketing and promotions is invaluable."

It's already given Fur Patrol a high profile here, and a showcase gig on this Australian jaunt is aimed at giving the band an even higher profile over there. The band has been confirmed for the Big Day Out in Auckland, and Fur Patrol are hoping to make the bill for some of the Australian shows.

However, unlike the bands they are about to tour New Zealand with - who have both moved from Wellington to Melbourne - Fur Patrol have no plans to cross the Tasman. Their sights are set further afield, Deans says.

"I think I'd rather relocate further if we do at all. We will eventually, is the aim, but we'll just have to wait and see what happens."

* Pet is out now. Fur Patrol tour New Zealand with Shihad and Weta during November. - NZPA


The Press (Christchurch)

Drummer Simon Braxton says it was great to win the awards, although he's the first to admit that "the whole awards thing is kind of a strange concept"."I mean it's nice to be recognised - totally - and we did enjoy it, but it's not to be taken too seriously this whole rock'n'roll lark."
However the band is taking itself more seriously these days, and who can blame them on the back of the success of Pet and the single Lydia - a No. 1 New Zealand hit last year - hence the move to Australia, which Braxton says is a "logical step"."It's all about trying to increase our audience and increase the touring circuit. We'll be there for the near future but we'll be coming back over here to do stuff - it's not like we'll move to Australia and forget about New Zealand."We've always wanted to go overseas and play overseas. It's really a case of pushing it and seeing how far we could go, but it's taken on a more definite, serious attitude over the last couple of years".The band's label Wishbone is currently negotiating to release Pet in Australia and Braxton says that's obviously another reason for the move.
"We want to use Australia as a stepping stone for the rest of the world in a lot of ways. If we can get a good secure touring circuit going in New Zealand and Australia, then that will financially allow us to launch into other territories."
The band is following a well-worn path to Melbourne: their good friend's bands Shihad and Weta are both based there, and plenty of other kiwi bands have gone there over the years
Braxton says the appeal of Melbourne is its undeniably vibrant music scene, although he admits there's plenty of competition
"It'll give us a good kick up the bum. We'll have to really get into it and make sure we're a rung above. It's healthy, but it's also a bit daunting. We're excited, but we're nervous."
Braxton says early feedback from Australia indicates there is a lot of interest in the album over there, and he believes it could do well once the group has got a higher profile - in some ways similar to what's happened in New Zealand."I always thought it would be a slow-burner and wouldn't blast into the charts, but people would gradually pick up on it and get into it."
"We had a lot of freedom when we recorded it, we weren't on a major label, and we didn't want it to be highly polished - it's quite rough and ready by commercial standards - but I'd like to think it's quite timeless, the production is not of a certain age, and they are all good strong songs."


Groomed For Success - Shaun Chait (NZ Musician)

Fur Patrol are the most buoyant I've ever seen them. Certainly there have been lots of reasons for celebration over the past few years - signing to an indie label, a successful EP and scores of big gigs. But the aura surrounding Fur Patrol tonight is different, it is the sort of glow reserved only for a debut album.
As drummer Simon Braxton and bassist Andrew Bain are joined by guitarist Steve Wells for our chat, talk quickly turns to music. And by the time singer/guitarist Julia Deans arrives, we are into a fully fledged discussion about 'Pet', the band's soon to be released album with Warner Music. As we look over the artwork for new single Holy, I can't help glowing myself, satisfied that after years of watching Fur Patrol fight the good fight, they are finally about to be rewarded.
From their inception in 1996, Fur Patrol have always had that all important edge. Their gigs have always been bigger, their songs better - and they've always impressed the right people. By the time Wellington musician Allan Clark had the idea of setting up an independent record label, Fur Patrol songs had already been all over local radio, Man In A Box even sifting through to influential Australian station Triple J. By 1998, Fur Patrol had won Best Original Band at the Wellington Music Awards for two years running and had even been profiled in NZM!
The engaging success of the band left Clark in no doubt that this was the act with which to launch his label, Wishbone Music. Braxton tells the story: "I had a meeting with Allan one afternoon, and he said 'I've got this great idea. I'm gonna start a label and you guys can be on it. It's going to help get Wellington bands up to a national level. Don't sign anything yet, I'll get back to you in a couple of weeks'. He did that, and we signed to Wishbone."
Clark was friends with Deans through their time together in Irish rock combo Banshee Reel, but his attraction to her band was based more on smart business sense. Fur Patrol were among the cream of a very auspicious Wellington crop, and they were demanding attention as one of the most ambitious and commercially viable bands around.
Now he had the talent, Clark sought financial support for Wishbone, and found it with Marmalade Studios, where he was working as the music studio manager. Marmalade was founded in 1977, and was the country's first 24-track studio. Although Marmalade set up its own label, Toast Records, in the early '80s, it had subsequently become focussed on advertising and commercial work.
Fur Patrol had gone into Marmalade, which includes two music studios and three audio post studios, to record a batch of demos in early 1998, impressing Marmalade management, and subsequently Clark had a willing ally for his project.
By the end of '98, Wishbone was ready to release its first EP. 'Starlifter' was a victory for the power of a good song - or in this case, six of them. With Wishbone handling the marketing, Jayrem the distribution, and the band playing up a storm all over the country, 'Starlifter' debuted on the national singles chart at number 17, staying in the Top 50 for six weeks. This almost unheard of success for an indie label was rich reward for Wishbone and Marmalade and, most importantly for Fur Patrol, it was a huge thumbs up from the public. 'Starlifter' has now sold roughly 3,000 units, its longevity providing a sound springboard for 'Pet'.
With Wishbone's first release a success and the concept working, Clark left the label to take up new projects in the South Island. Marmalade co-founder and Marmalade Group chairman Rocky DouchŽ became Wishbone's new label manager. "Marmalade is the funding behind Wishbone", explains Deans.
With Wishbone networking, and providing Fur Patrol with a base, major label interest followed. In February this year, Wishbone signed a contract with Warner Music NZ for 'Pet' to be licensed to the major.
Fur Patrol describe the Wishbone/Warners balance as "pretty 50/50". The band are still signed to Wishbone, like Shihad remains signed to Wildside. Warners role is the marketing, promotion, and distribution of the album.
Some would see the success of Fur Patrol as being due to a well executed masterplan. Certainly they've left no stone unturned, with captivating videos, Indie and Kiwi Hit Disc slots, and a brain-trust of Wishbone/Marmalade, Warner Music, manager David Benge, and the band themselves. However the band laugh off any suggestions of being marketing or promotion geniuses.
"We've been lucky in that we've attracted good people," Braxton begins, "but primarily all that has happened because people like the music, they're excited about what we do, and they find something which they think they can take further."
"A lot has to do with our live shows," says Deans to much agreement. "We've gained a good reputation as a live band. That comes from the fact that, above anything, we just love playing music. We try to make our shows special. That's given us a solid fan base."
The role of Wishbone cannot be downplayed though.
"They made it attractive for the majors to look our way and think that they could do something with us," says Braxton. "They helped give us a financially viable product, and they got us to stage one with the release of 'Starlifter'. That gave fans and radio something to play."
Having a label that is part of a recording studio has some pretty healthy advantages, especially come album time. Like 'Starlifter' before it, 'Pet' was recorded and mixed at Marmalade. The exception to the rule was first single Now, mixed at Roundhead Studios in Auckland. With former Mutton Bird Dave Long calling the shots, Sam Gibson handling the mixing, and Welly's man of the moment Mike Gibson also involved, there's some pretty big wheels turning 'Pet's sound. (I'll resist the temptation.)
The 13 tracks engage the listener, with beautiful melodies, plenty of backbone, and immense listenability. Although the band haven't made a conscious effort to crossover into commercial territory, there are songs on 'Pet' (the stunning Lydia for example) that have the potential to go through the roof. The band agree that this is a possibility, but they haven't forgotten who they are.
"We're a pop band who loves to rock out when we play," states Braxton.
"We thought we were at the lighter end of the rock spectrum," adds Deans, "but when we talked to Eddie Hribar (ZM Wellington) we realised it gets a lot lighter - and we were much relieved."
'Pet' was recorded over three weeks in August last year, on 24-track reel to reel using mag 2" tape. The recording was done in analogue, with Wells saying that "little bits were done on Pro Tools afterwards."
The band were impressed with Long, and are obviously happy with the results.
"Dave was really amazing at helping us get exactly the right sound in each song," enthuses Braxton. "We worked hard on the sounds and making sure all the textures were right, down to things like moving the drums around different rooms."
Deans concurs: "We experimented with sound. It ate up a lot of time, but it's really good to be able to play around like that and try new things."
Texture and atmosphere were clearly key elements on 'Pet'. When asked what the album sounds like, Wells says "beautiful, warm". 'Pet' has captured every facet of Fur Patrol, from gorgeous pop ballads to more intense, rockier stuff (although the band say they could've got a lot nastier).
"It's a mixed bag," says Deans. "There's no standard sound."
Braxton expands on this: "All the songs sound different but together there's a nice diversity between colour and shade."
The songs on 'Pet' were written during a four year period, and the band have a tale to tell about each, showing genuine excitement when talking about them.
Short Way To Fall is "the most perfect song on the album" says Deans. "I did the vocal in one take and it sounds exactly how it's meant to." Loaded features "a cool guitar sound. I plugged my guitar into the Hotcake and Andrew's bass rig, and turned everything up really loud. We were standing around in the studio talking and I started playing then suddenly all the talking went away and our mouths were moving but there were no sounds. We used that take."
Bonus track Bottles and Jars (a spinechilling masterpiece that didn't suit the rest of the record) features looped guitar feedback and samples done at Long's house using "a PC based recording program thingy." There's even a story about old favourite Man In a Box, which the band were sick of but Warners were very keen on: "We had to go back into the studio a couple of months later to record it. It's been reworked, and it sounds awesome."
'Pet' is due out early October and Fur Patrol are looking forward to the tour to follow, saying they've got plenty of new songs to take with them.
In an industry where everyone's a slave to fashion, Fur Patrol are strikingly themselves. DouchŽ thinks it is this which will bring them success: "There's a uniqueness. - they're not a carbon copy of overseas bands. That's an important ingredient. Uniqueness triggers interest."

Weird things Fur Patrol Have Done for the Sake of a Good Video!
Dominoes We spent a considerable number of freezing hours standing around in a swimming pool before being 'drowned'.
Beautiful Firstly, we strapped Julia to the front of a truck before speeding her around the Petone foreshore and then Simon, Steve and Andrew had a chaffing time (ouch) being suspended in parachute harnesses in the back of the truck.
Now We jumped around in a big blue room, to later find ourselves paper thin, doubled, etc, and in a strange new computer world.
Holy We took great pleasure in throwing Julia through a wall. Enough said!


Varsity.co.nz

Get ready to see fur fly when the ex-Wellington based band Fur Patrol returns to play at Orientation week. They could be considered old campaigners of New Zealand University's orientations, playing various gigs for the last five years. The band say however, they are looking forward to returning to their old stomping ground and enjoy playing to the orientation crowds.
This return for the band is slightly different however, as they are coming home to Wellington after warming the notorious hard to please audiences of Australia for the past few months. Unfortunately for us, like other fellow Wellingtonain musicians (Shihad-sorry their new name and Weta) the foursome had to move to Melbourne in order to advance their career.
The move to Aussie has paid off though. They have been in starting line ups at the Australian version of The Big Day Out and rocked a music festival called Yarrawanga Rockalonga where they performed with acts like Jebediah, Alex Llyod, Killing Heidi and they recently toured with Aussie band Regurgerator.
This has meant a lot of much valuable exposure for the band, who will always be popular with their home crowd and now it seems with their new Aussie compatriots. Even farther a field Fur Patrol is a favourite on the playlist of Canadian campus radio stations.
Fur Patrol started when Deans enlisted the help of three friend and started the band we today know. Band members Julia Deans, (vocals, guitars), Steve Wells (guitar), Andrew Bain (bass) and Simon Braxton (drums) started the band in 1996. For band member Wells, it won't be just a return to Massey for another orientation gig, he will also be returning to where he studied a foundation course in Jazz at Wellington Polytechnic Music Department, (which changed to Massey school of Music when the big Uni took over).He however, credits a lot of his musical talent to be self taught.
They released their first album Starlifter in 1998 and their critically acclaimed second album Pet in 2000. Pet went Platinum within four weeks of release, at last pushing them in to the spotlight and confirming they had arrived.
The single from (the album) "Lydia", became the theme for every jealous, jilted lover as it hit number one on the New Zealand charts. There is something haunting about the sound of Deans vocals mixed with the cutting lyrics. It almost conjures up a visual picture of what it would be like to watch your ex-loved one with their new bit. Asked many times if the song is based on a real life experience, Fur Patrol joke that it was a ex-girlfriend of Wells who left the a rather vile message on his answer phone."We just tidied up a little bit", they said.
"Andrew", was the next released single which had a quirky title (had nothing to do with the song, Bain named it after himself) and video (have you seen the band dance in it?) again proved popular in the New Zealand charts.
This will probably be the last we will see of Fur Patrol for a while, as they head of into the studio to record their next album. If you haven't seen them live it is worth checking out the Massey Bar on Wednesday 27th of Feb for their concert here in Wellington.


PET SOUNDS - Steve Rendle (The Evening Post)


It's taken a whle but Wellington's Fur Patrol are finally releasing their debut album. Lead singer Julia Deans talks to Steve Rendle about the fear of being left on the shelf.

It's Fur Patrol's turn this time.
After waiing nearly a year for their debut album PET to go from "finished" to "on sale", life is changing fast for the Wellington four-piece.
As of last Friday, the day jobs are out the window and the flats abandoned.
Later this month they head to Australia to dip their toes in the international market, returningnext month with big brothers Shihad for a national tour.
The release of the album ends a difficult time for the band, says lead singer Julia Deans.
"We finished recording it at the end of August then we mixed it, and it's been sitting completed on the shelf for 10 months," she says.
"It was frustrating, but we feel right now that after the wait everything has solidiied and it's ready to go. Like it's really ready, it's chomping at the bit to get out there.
"We were getting to the point where if the album wasn't going to be released this year, we were going "we dont know if we can take this anymore". But it hasn't turned out that wat...so we wont dwell on that."
During the wait, the band has completed a deal with major label Warner, and now predictably "everyone is positively buzzing", Deans says.
Major label committments have meant a change of lifestyle.
"We've all moved out of our flats, and left our jobs" Deans says.
"we are now floating around in the great unknown. This is the first time in four years that this is the only thing we have to work on
"we all completely focussd on it. This is what we do-basically, this is what we are"
Of the album, Deans says; "It's pretty much encapsulated the essense of Fur Patrol.
"we went in with the intention of trying to capture what we do live, which is pretty energetic, but it was more just getting good performances of each song"
Even having it arrive in the world asa 10-month-old hasn't caused the band too much in the way of labour pains.
"I haven't been listening to it a lot but every so often I listen to it and go "it's cool! I like it". I've tried not to listen to it, or think about it too much, so when I do listen to it again, it's like "I really am happy with it, we've done good".
"Thats a comforting feelings, knowing we recorded it a year ago and we still feel the same way about it."
Now that it's out and about, Deans is confident PET has a broad appeal.
"We're not going for any specific demographic...it shouldn't matter if you're 18, or 13, or 25 or 28, or 85. My grandparents like it!"


Starter for 10 - Real Groove

Wellington quartet FUR PATROL. Their album PET is out now through major label , Warner Music. Leader singer and songwriter Julia Deans sits in the hotseat.

1. WHY SHOULD PEOPLE BUY YOUR ALBUM?

Cause it's good. It's 12 plus one songs that are all different, no two songs sound the same. It's good music, it's enjoyable, it's fun. There's something on it for everyone-it's got rock songs; it's got pop songs, it's got ballady-type things....I hate these kind of questions.

2. WHATS YOUR MOTIVATION FOR MAKING MUSIC?

Just a love of playing music: writing, performing, recording. Fun and enjoyment-that's the primary motivation. If it's not fun dont do it.

3. MUSICALLY, ARE YOU DOING SOMETHING UNIQUE?

I dont sit down and try to write to a certain style...sometimes I'll be mucking around and I'll come up with something that I'll later realise sounds a lot like something else, and then I'll try and change it. But I dont agonise about sounding completely original.

4. DOES YOUR SOUNDS FIT A FORMULA?

It's formulaic in that I write pop songs, so they all have the verse/chorus structure, there's that motif that recurs throughout the music. We haven't planned what we've done to get it on any radio station in particular-we went and recorded the album independently from any major label so we could do what we wanted to do, and in the end Warners took it. they're now trying to get us on more mainstream radio stations like ZM, so we've had to go back and adjust levels on mixes so they sound more commercially viable. It's not changing the song, it's just adjusting the frequencies.

5. WHAT DO YOU DO THAT OTHER BANDS DONT?

I dont know....they haven't got me, they haven't got Simon and they haven't got Andrew and they haven't got Steve and they haven't got my songs-that's what we're doing differently.

6 HOW DOES YOUR MUSIC CHALLENGE YOU?

Oh God...I think having a point of reference is a challenge, finding what makes us different from other bands. Trying to write consistently good songs is a challenge. We aim to be professional in everything we do, we want to feel that we give a good performance, both in the studio and live. So it can be a challenge trying to achieve that all the time.

7. LYRICALLY, DO YOU HAVE A WORLD VIEW OR ARE YOU INTROSPECTIVE?

[laughter] More introspective I think. Sometimes i write about me, sometimes i write about people around me, but it's always quite personal. I'm not a politically minded person-i have my political opinions but i dont want go around forcing them on other people, I think people will believe what they want to believe. I dont set out to write about anyt particular thing, it just happens. Words always come out of sounds that i make while i'm singing, as opposed to the apporaching of writing words and then putting them to music. Often with my songs, I'm just talking to myself, I find myself telling myself off in the songs-"you're such a dumbass, what did you do that for". that kind of thing. Really, the whole idea is not something I think about, it's instinct as apposed to pre-meditated behaviour.

8. WHAT WOULDNT YOU DO TO PROMOTE YOUR RECORD?

Stick my face on a Pepsi can...a variety of differently things. If someone asks me to do something, I'll think for awhile about how I feel about it, if i agree with it I'll do it. We were asked to put our faces on a Pepsi can, Warners were quite pissed off that we wouldn't do it. It was a big promotion that was happening-they did it in Australia with Killing Heidi and they wanted us to do it here, but no. First of all, I hate Pepsi, but also I didn't want us to be the band on the Pepsi can, i'd rather that we were known for our music.

9. WOULD YOU ENDORSE A PRODUCT?

I suppose so, maybe a clothing label or something similiar that would give us a return. Or something that we believe in...it's a weird question, i dont think you're really thinking about it until an offer actually comes your way. If somebody asked me to endorse a deodorant or something, I dont think I could do that either because you instantly becomes associated with that product-I'd rather be associated with the music.

10. AT WHAT LEVEL DO YOU PEG YOUR AMBITIONS FOR YOUR RECORD?

We really want to take it overseas. We think we've got a good product and we think that the rest of the world would enjoy it. We'd like as many people as possible to hear it and enjoy it, but if they're not interested we're not going to force it on them. The whole going overseas thing is a personal interest for us as individuals, the four of us want to travel and this is a really good vehicle to do it with.


Slow and Steady Winning Race for Fur Patrol - Mike Houlahan

Fur Patrol's shift to Australia almost broke the band, but now they're back and stronger than ever.
Moving to Australia hasn't exactly been following the road to riches for Wellingtonians Fur Patrol.
However, after the hardest year of the band's existence their perseverance is starting to pay off, drummer Simon Braxton says.
When the band moved to Melbourne it was on the back of a New Zealand No 1 single and platinum-selling album. They arrived knowing they had an Australian record deal, and were supremely confident of the future.
Then things started to go wrong. The record deal turned sour and money started to run low. Fur Patrol - who were hoping that working at day jobs was at an end - were forced to search for would-be rock-friendly jobs that allowed time off for touring and gigging.
"It's easy to get a little complacent when you're riding on a high. It's easy to start believing your own hype," Braxton says.
"It's been really, really hard. We've done a lot of gigging, a lot of driving around and a lot of clamouring for attention basically. There's been times we've just wanted to pack it in, but there's also been some fantastic moments.
"I think it's definitely made us a stronger band and closer friends, which is good because it could easily have gone the other way. When you're stuck in a van for days with the same four stinky bastards it can get a bit much at times."
Braxton, lead singer Julia Deans, guitarist Steven Wells and bass player Andrew Bain are delighted Fur Patrol stuck to their guns.
Playing fourth on the bill to next to no one and thinking "We're better than them" was a powerful motivational factor, and Fur Patrol played their guts out to try to prove themselves.
Just when things were starting to pick up, Fur Patrol were dealt the cruel blow of being dropped by their Australian record company. Braxton has no hesitation in describing the surrounding few weeks as the darkest in the band's history, and says it almost pushed the quartet to breaking point.
"We pretty much reached the bottom of the trough, and I think were all thinking `Do we really want to carry on with this?' It was a horrible nightmare, but in a strange sort of way it's worked out well.
"It strengthened our resolve. Either we were going to break up or we were going to go out and kick some arse, and we opted for the latter."
Finding themselves a new deal with Universal Music Australia, they were handed a budget and told to go away and make the record they'd always dreamed of. Braxton says Fur Patrol were given their own way in decisions about what songs to record and what the sound of the new album, Collider, would be like.
When Fur Patrol last toured New Zealand they noticed a trend - people beguiled by the lilting and lovely hit single Lydia, looking like stunned mullets as they discovered Fur Patrol were actually a rock band - and quite a loud one at that.
"We would hit them over the head with Not Your Girl and we'd almost be laughing at some of the expressions on people's faces, which were priceless," Braxton, still laughing at the memory, says.
"Not Your Girl is pretty much the antithesis of Lydia really. There's no Lydia per se on the new record."
Braxton says Collider - soon to be released in this country and in Australia in November - will sound much more like the live band.
"It's certainly rocking a hell of a lot more than Pet was. I'm really stoked with it. It's definitely a step up for us, and we're very proud of it," Braxton says.
"It's typical Fur Patrol stuff - lots of beautiful melody and Julia's fantastic voice and all that sort of thing - but the guitars are a lot beefier. We've learned a thing or two about getting the guitars really cranking since we've been in Aussie because it's very much a rock zone."
First single Precious is a fine taster for what is to come - three minutes of slamming cynicism neatly capped with a typically sardonic Julia Deans vocal line.
Braxton describes it as the "snottiest" song on the album he describes as sonically dynamic - "the rock moments are rocker and the beautiful moments are quieter and more delicate. It's broader than Pet, and darker in some ways. The light and shade have been accentuated."


Get Yer Kit Off - NZ Musician, January 2001

Drummer for Auckland four-piece Fang, Andrea Holmes, talks to Fur Patrol's Simon Braxton

Simon Braxton has cut off all his hair and doesn't wear high heels - they interfere with his double-kick pedal technique. This is relevant because he drums very hard for chart-topping Wellington rock outfit, Fur Patrol - and isn't a bitch. In fact, as far as I could tell over a 30 minute cup of coffee, it's true, like everyone says - he's a nice guy. Fur Patrol were in Auckland for the Big Day Out and some industrious promotional work for their album 'Pet', as well as re-mixing a forthcoming new single. Fellow band members describe Simon as "pig-headed", "determined", "hungry" and "bald". I caught up with Simon, just minutes before he was shuttled off to perform at the BDO, and this is what I found out.

When did you first know you wanted to play the drums?
My parents were very musical. Mum played cello and Dad played double bass. They used to listen to a lot of classical music, so I've always been interested in music and I found myself drawn to the pots and pans in the kitchen. I was around 12 or 13 when my parents bought me a snare drum initially, to make sure I wasn't just going through a fad, before buying a full drum kit. I started off learning in my bedroom - my poor parents! - playing along to my walkman. I've never had any lessons, which is why I keep breaking sticks! I break two or three per gig actually.

What kind of music did you play along to?
This was the eighties, it was pretty tragic really, but I liked Duran Duran, The Cars, and The Police - I thought Stewart Copeland was an interesting drummer to listen to. I also played along with Hendrix, Cream and Led Zepplin and I really liked the original drummer from The Mockers.

So, once you left your bedroom, how did you wind up in Fur Patrol?
I started jamming with other people and playing in a few school bands. We used to do a lot of Cream covers at school. It was quite abysmal, me pretending to be Ginger Baker. Ethel The Frog was the first band I was in, doing covers at parties. My first original band was The Little Kings of Everything and we had a residency in Wellington doing up to three sets a night of originals and covers. I also played drums in an Irish band Shanagee, which was my first touring band, playing three or four nights a week. We played gigs with Banshee Reel when they came back from Canada, and that's how I met Julia and Steve.

What was your first drum kit?
I don't know what it was exactly - a mongrel $200 drum kit from the Trade & Exchange kind of deal. It was blue.

Your current kit?
It's a Premier APK. A run-of-the-mill production line job. I bought it about three years ago when my trusty silver Tama began breaking up under pressure. I chose it because I was impressed with both the sound of the kit and the sturdy hardware. I got them to make an 18" floor tom for it, to get a bit more rock, something a bit more Bonham, ya know?

What's your choice of skins and sticks?
It took a wee bit of experimentation before I settled on using the coated (Remo) Emperor heads for their warmer sound - the double-ply Emperors last a bit longer because I play quite hard. They don't get pitted so quickly and are easier to tweak back into life after a few gigs. My second snare has an Ambassador coated head and I've removed the snare completely to get an almost timbale-like sound. I tune this one to maximise the harmonic tones and I only use it on a couple of songs. I find the Ambassador head has a nice sustain and gives a really pure note. I use Vic Firth 2BN sticks. They're a good length and weight for me and the tips don't fall off, which I've found to be a problem with some brands. They also seem to be pretty straight as well which is good.

How do you tune?
Tuning is a process that constantly stumps me! There don't seem to be any absolutes with it. Drums behave in different ways seemingly at will - in short, they're bastards. I try and find a pitch that the drum seems to like and then tune the top and bottom heads to that pitch as evenly around the rim as possible. When we recorded 'Pet' we used different variations of kits for every song and tuned them as closely as possible to the key of each song. It took bloody ages, and nearly made us all crazy, but it does help the drums sit into the end result. I think the best way to find a method of tuning that suits you is to ask absolutely every drummer you can and try out different methods until you find one that works.

What music are you currently listening to?
PJ Harvey's new album rocks. It's really classic sounding and she's reinstated her original drummer, Rob Ellis. Letterbox Lambs' debut album is fantastic. It really captures their live performance and energy - Oscar Wuts is a wicked drummer. King Kapisi's new album and some friends from Hawkes Bay called The Users - crazy surf stuff. Oh, and Radiohead's 'Kid A'.

What other favourite drummers do you have?
Dave Deakins from Salmonella Dub. He's playing full on all the way through the set, high hats, rim shots, kick drum - going for it. Tom Larkin from Shihad has definitely influenced me in terms of getting more consistent in my playing. He starts a song with intensity and keeps it up right to the end and I've thought that I could do more of that.

Do you practice by yourself?
No. I haven't practised by myself for years and years, which is shocking! I'd love to, but it seems lately that when I go to pick up an instrument it's the guitar. It would be good to have a practice space nearer to where I live or ideally be able to practice where I live. Fur Patrol haven't practised much on a regular basis lately, mainly because we've been touring and playing pretty constantly since the Shihad tour last year.

Sometimes playing live is the best practice ...
Well, yeah it is, but you don't get a chance to work on new stuff.

What role do you play in the creation of new material?
Generally Julia comes up with the bulk of the song, and once she's got it in a rough form she's happy with, she'll bring it to us and we put our own spin on it with arrangement.

How do you determine what treatment you'll give each song? There's quite a range of dynamic styles on 'Pet' - Not Your Girl compared to Short Way To Fall for example.
Well, something like Not Your Girl seemed quite obvious to me - it is like a bit of a steamroller. That song has an inexorable kind of forward motion. It was one of the easier ones for me. Short Way To Fall, I guess I try to be sympathetic to the way a song's going. Songs like that and Hauling You Around are both delicate, beautiful songs that just require something where the drums are an accompaniment, and need to sit underneath and support the song or melody. Just colour it rather than be a big feature. I try and fit in with what the song's doing, considering the vibe and colour of it.

How do you approach recording?
With 'Pet' we did some songs with drums, bass and guitar live, but it depended on the song. I did some overdubs, like on Short Way To Fall I used a really low, big old marching drum through a big plate reverb. Dave Long (producer) brought in a whole lot of odd percussion instruments from Plan 9 (studio) in Wellington.


We did on three songs, just to get a solid, regimented sound on one song and for Hauling You Around to help prevent us from slowing down. Live that's not a problem - it's all part of the dynamic, but we wanted to keep it nice and even for the album. In pre-production we used a click to find the tempos we thought the songs sounded best at and during recording used it for the first few bars and then turned it off, just so we would start at the right pace. Playing with a click is not something I like to do. I'd hope to think I can keep a reasonable tempo ... I mean that's what a drummer is there primarily to do.

What about live when you play to a loop?
I hate playing with headphones because I can't hear the drums enough. I just have it through the foldback, which is kind of sketchy because of the inconsistent foldback set-ups at different places.

What's your favourite fill and time signature?
The 'Rachmaninov Fill', which was Julia's way of describing rap-dup-pa-dooum (rolling stroke on the snare followed by toms) . It goes with the syllables in Rachmaninov. My favourite time signature would have to be good old 4/4.

What advice would you give to new drummers? Listen to other musicians. Play with as many different people as you can. Try and play as much as you can. Practice more than I do and learn different instruments so that you can understand what's going on with the other people you're playing music with.


Furry Severed Ears - Rip It Up #295 by Scott Kara

Fur Patrol step away from the looming presence of Lydia. "Rock is the new black," croaks Julia Deans.
Jon Toogood is in doggy style position - bum crack peering out from his tight black jeans - in the middle of the Hamilton venue where Pacifier and Fur Patrol will play tonight. He's re-enacting the moment when he walked in on Fur Patrol guitarist Steve Wells doing the business in bed.
Toogood high-tailed it out of the room thinking Wells was "doing himself", when, an actual fact, his girlfriend was in bed with him. But oh no, A.D.D.-boy Toogood didn't think of that.
They cleared up the misunderstanding, but now the whole sound crew, car staff and hangers-on at the venue before the gig know about Wells' sexual exploits. Tonight is one of the last in a line of gigs Fur Patrol, Pacifier and their up-and-coming support band Two Lane Blacktop will play on a nationwide tour that started in Invercargill.
"It was amazing to hear that cheer in Invercargill... fuck, we're home," laughs Fur Patrol drummer, Simon Braxton.
The three bands playing together make a good contrast. Two Lane Blacktop are playing to get themselves known; Pacifier play old and new songs; and but for one song, Fur Patrol play entirely new material from their new album, Collider.

Earlier in the day, at a pink motel on the main drag out of Hamilton, talk turns to how Fur Patrol has come full-cycle in New Zealand. When they released their debut EP Starlifter in 1998 it was the independent bNet radio stations who played Fur Patrol first. Then, with their number one hit Lydia - it spent seven weeks at number one - mainstream success was theirs. With the release of Precious, their first single off Collider, the bNet are playing Fur Patrol again. Even Auckland's Bfm - who were the most reluctant to play Fur Patrol when they gained a wider popularity - is playing them.
"How the bloody hell did that happen?" snaps Wells sarcastically. Having the song pressed on vinyl - both 7-inch and 12-inch - helped. "We sent out these 12 inch singles with a couple of songs to all the bnet stations..." there's a long pause as Deans finishes her txt message. "Sorry, if I don't finish it, it will go away...."
Braxton: "It was just to say we're totally grateful because they really helped us at the beginning. Without the Bnet stations we would have been completely fucked."
"It's a little known fact that we were played on the Bnet stations..." smiles Bain. "...prior to our superstardom," jokes Wells.
Even though he's taking the piss, Wells isn't far wrong. Fur Patrol was a household name thanks to Lydia, and the Pet album went on to sell more than 30,000 copies (double platinum).
Is there a Lydia somewhere on the new album? "In terms of something that sounds like Lydia, do you mean?" asks Deans.
"There's nothing that sounds anything like Lydia, but then again there was nothing that sounded anything like it on the first record," says Wells.
"There are a couple on the album," interrupts Deans. "You've heard All These Things," she inquires, "which is Thom Watson (from Cassette) on backing vocals."
Braxton: "Lydia took us totally by surprise anyway, Lydia was a totally, "What the fucks going on, has everyone gone mad." So, that's a kind of a hard one to answer. I don't understand how radio stations work, how the charts work. You'd probably have to ask the record company guys."
"The money cock," whispers Wells evilly.
"That's what [Pacifier's] Tom Larkin calls it when you're schmoozing with the record companies, sucking the money cock," explains Braxton.
Songs like Precious - with the opening line "You can crawl all you want" and the video where Deans collects victims ears - shows a heightened attitude compared to the coyness of Lydia.
"It's kind of the antidote to Lydia that song," says Braxton. "It's a cure for Lydia, it's a cure for it," he repeats.
As expected there's a swift reply from Deans.
"It's not a cure for it," she says disapprovingly.
"No, you're right, there is no cure for Lydia," says Braxton.
Deans reasons that when the band recorded Pet they hadn't played anywhere near as many gigs as they have now. "But we've always done that raunchy, raucous, loud rock'n'roll type of thing. Pet was when we were... refining our assault," she laughs, "But it's nothing like it is now."
"I think we've kind of come to a point where we've been through a lot of shit and allowed that attitude to come forward," says Braxton.
"Rock is the new black," whispers Deans through a sore throat that is currently being soothed by cups of tea.

Fur Patrol are hovering over a laptop. Dave Benge - their long time manager - has just sent them the final version of the album artwork via email.
Benge might be over in Australia "sorting out all this shit" but the band thank him for keeping them together through tought times while living, working and gigging in Melbourne.
It was Benge - a tall, wiry individual who looks more rock'n'roll than any member of a rock band - who "hauled round and asid, "get your fucking shit together," says Deans. "There was a six month period where we completely lost focus on the band... we couldn't do anything and got disheartened by the whole thing." remembers Deans. "... which was largely a result of record company wrangling," finished Braxton.
"... and it was survival time," recounts Wells.
But this all has ahappy ending. After eventually escaping from their record contract wrangle that Braxton refers to, Fur Patrol signed a deal with Universal Music in Australia. Warner Music will continue to look after the band in New Zealand.
Why did Fur Patrol survive? "Because we can't do anything else," laughs Deans.
"It made us realise we really love making music with each other," says Braxton honestly. "We really valued what we've been building up over the years. It throws it into quite a stark reality, and it's like you realise why we were [making music] in the first place."


Go Hard or Go Home - Real Groove, October 2003
(by Marty Duda)

"You know what I fucking hate about Australia? The flies are so stupid! They fly right at you and you bush them off and they still fly at you again." Maybe Julia Dean's relocation to OZ still has some bugs to iron out, but the many tribulations she and her band Fur Patrol have gone through over the past couple of years seem to be coming to and end. After the group conquered the New Zealand scene with relative ease- Pet went gold and the "Lydia" single nailed the no. 1 spot in 2000- they set their sights across the Tasman. With the impending release of the Collider album, much has already been written about the bands two-year residency in Melbourne. Part time jobs, sparsely attended gigs and general indifference became the order of the day. Now they're back with a new, harder edge to their sound, the result of innumerable gigs played in front of punters who were in no mood for the lilting melodies and seductive crooning of Fur Patrol mach 1. As Deans stands on a Sydney sidewalk swatting flies, she admits it's been tough going, but they have no regrets.

"No, not at all. I hope we haven't been sounding like a bunch of moaners. But people are asking why our sound has changed and basically it's because we've gone through a bit of shit and now we've bonded together and toughened up so to speak. I guess that's reflected in the sound of the new album."

Collider does sacrifice some of the subtlety and textures of Pet for a more straightforward, in your face guitar barrage. It's a move that can be seen either as the natural progression for a band forced to spend so much time together away from home, or more cynically, a calculated attempt to woo the hard-rocking aussie audience. That kind of attitude gets right up Dean's nose. " In which case we'll just go `well if that's what you choose to believe, then that's your tough luck! We're kiwis through and through and there's no reason why kiwi's can't play rock music. That's a stupid attitude! That goes hand in hand with that whole `you've abandoned us, you've gone overseas, you don't love us anymore' attitude. Yeah, get over it! "Since our inception it's always been a case of `lets see what happens' and that's how [Collider] worked out as well. We really wanted to be true to ourselves. We believe that if you change your sound to make other people happy then you're not going to make yourselves happy. You're not going to feel proud of what you've achieved."

And besides, says Deans, there's more to Collider than guitars. "There are softer moments on the album. We write songs as opposed to riffs. I grew up listening to 50's and 60's pop; I liked the Supremes, the real pop stuff." One key ingredient to Collider's sound was the input of British producer, Mark Wallis (Travis, the go-betweens). He immediately took to the band's stripped down approach while adding his own suggestions. "He was really sympathetic to everything we'd done on our demos." Explains Deans. "He said , `I can see where you're going but why don't you just take everything that you've done o far and stretch it and make the really quiet bits quieter and the noisy bits noisier and really let the different colours come through'. And he took that approach to everyone, whether it was drums bass, guitars or the vocals. It was pretty much what we've always aimed at anyway, but he had this really good way of drawing us out of ourselves."

Often a lot can be told about a band by the producers they reject and that's certainly the case with Fur Patrol. "There was another guy we spoke to whose idea of production was basically drenching everything in reverb and throwing a whole lot of string arrangements on it" says Deans, "that was not us, we wanted to sound like us. We didn't want to sound like someone had come in and glossied us up." But it was Wallis' phone manner that got him the gig, reveals Deans. "We just got a better vibe off him. It was kind of weird when you're talking to people over the other side of the world and you're going to be working intensely with them over a couple of months and you don't know them, and they're going to be hacking your songs to bits. It was scary but out of everyone that we spoke to he had the more raw sound and we liked what he said on the phone. He said all the right things."

Courtesy of Wallis' international connections, Fur Patrol mixed Collider at Abbey Road Studios in London, prior to heading to Los Angles for a show at the Viper room. But it's not the glamorous life, says Deans. "It's never limousines and red carpet or anything like that, it's sleeping on people's floors and travelling around in a clungy old van, or by tube. So it's like `yep, we're just doing this.' And then you sort of sit back and think about the things you actually have achieved and it's like "all right, we've done that!" I think it's more in hindsight when the reality of it sinks in. Even when you hear about the things you've done, like when I heard we were going to be going to LA and doing that, we said "oh yeah, we'll believe it when it's actually happening'. We've had an amazing year and all the stuff we've done has been fantastic." While in LA, Fur Patrol made the video for Collider's first single, `Precious'. Remarkably, the clip has received some unexpected attention here in New Zealand. "Apparently its been given an adults only rating in New Zealand, which is ridiculous," exclaims Deans. "Has anyone watched the news lately? It's like `what are you talking about?' I don't know what the story is with that. The video involves a bit of ear slicing, but trust me, there's no gore.

Musically, both `Precious' and `Get Along' feature big crunching guitar riffs in the grand tradition of such 60's legends as the Kinks and the Yardbirds, while `Enemy' takes a more restrained approach. Lyrically, the latter tune seems to be aimed at someone, or something specific. "It is and it isn't," says Deans. "I kinda write ambiguously. Sometimes I'm writing about someone and sometimes I'm talking to myself, and sometimes both. I often write with a lot of things in mind as opposed to nailing just one thing. That could be relationships. That could be just one relationship we had with our old record company. It could be just me saying `me, I'm my own worst enemy', which is also true."

Ah, yes, the old record company. According to Deans, the band's former label is the primary reason why three years have passed between albums. The Wellington based imprint, Wishbone, didn't have the resources to give the band a fair go at the international market. And there were other issues. "It was a really dodgy contract that we had. There was a lot of pulling against each other in that regard. Eventually we reached a compromise… eventually. It took a long time. We couldn't do anything while we were in contract with them because they didn't have the money to help us record something, to be able to fund us a recording or actually do any promo with it. We were not going to stay with them because it just wasn't a happy marriage."

All of that water is under the bridge now. The band are back to full strength with a new record, a new producer and new label. Collider is due out in New Zealand this month and in November they'll offer the locals a chance to hear the new, leaner and meaner Fur Patrol when they undertake a nationwide tour. So, apart for the flies, Australia has been ultimately good for the band, even though there were downsides to gigging in Oz. "we don't get the same kind of wonderful panoramic views that you get travelling around New Zealand." And one other thing, "they talk funny."


Space interview with Simon and Julia - August 29, 2003

Phil: They've been plying their trade in Melbourne and around the world, and they're here supporting Pacifier on their Everything tour. Hey guys. Thanks for coming in, Julia and Simon. How's it going?
Julia: Not too foul actually.
P: You guys have been quite quiet recently.
Simon: No actually we've been really noisy.
J: I've been really quiet lately because i lost my voice. I spent my birthday in my hotel room all by myself. I didn't talk to anyone. Loooooser.
P: I mean the last couple of years. I don't mean exactly recenelty. you've been quite noisy recently.
S: It's been a lot of behind the scenes stuff going on. This whole year, well the beginning of this year we signed a new record contract and recorded a new album...
J: WHOO HOOO
S: ..and we made lots of videos and have kinda did lots of crazy stuff that no one knows about yet. You're only just starting to find out about that.
P: It's just seeping through. Tell me about what it was like being in Australia when you first went over there..
J: Mostly we were inside our big white van, rest in peace. She died just the other week before we left to come back here.
P: Did she die by driving over a cliff?
J: No she died 20 minutes out of Sydney on our way to Melbourne which is a 10 hour drive.
S: There were no cliffs involved but we were tempted to push her over a cliff. We were a little disgruntled.
J: To say the least. So yeah we spent the first 18 months in Australia basically on the road, tooing and froing, clocking up tens of thousands of miles... or whatever you call those things.
P: Did you have day jobs though?
J: Yeah we did. Ahh well eventually. We spent 18 months on the road permanently. then that kinda fell apart. We didn't have anything new to promote so we needed to kind of press on. And so we stopped touring and took up day jobs which included a postie, toilet cleaner, beer spiller and choc topper!
P: And so it's a whole lot more glamourous now that things are starting to happen.
S: Yeah now it's even more glamourous. The glamour is just top notch.
P: Tell me about what you've done recently. You went to LA. Tell me about it. Why you went to lA
J: We went to LA to film a film clip for precious which is our new single. And we shot it with a company called Refused TV who have on their books the Stylewars people who have done all the Hives kinda clips and also Refused TV have done all the clips for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and have have done some stuff for moby.
S: It's an excellent clip isn't it?
J: Well we quite like it.
P: I like it I really do. I was a bit disturbed but that was the idea right?
S: We also throught you were a a little bit disturbed.
P: Really? i was disturbed by the clip.
S: So you're even more disturbed now than you were before you'd seen it...
J: It's been quite good watching peoples reactions who haven't seen it before. And theres a certain part of it and everyone has the same reaction and that's OHHHHHHHH [Screws up face in disgust]
P: We want your ears and we want them now.
J: Friends, Romans, Countrymen! We're taking your ears!
P: So how's it feel to be back in New Zealand?
J: Good. Really good.
S: It's been too long.
J: It's been a bit of a shock walking on stage. In Australia you walk on stage and theres people just standing there looking at you.
S: Aww yeah wonder who these guys are?
J: And then walking on stage here first night in Invercargill everyone just goes RAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!... Has Jon Toogood just walked on stage?
P: Has it been fun playing with TLBT and Pacifier?
J: Yeah it's been really good. It's like being on the road with a bunch of mates.
S: It's almost like a holiday really.
J: Just like old times. I wouldn't call it a holiday.
S: Well it's fun work. It's good. Everyone really mellow and we all get on really well.
P: So to finish it off. When can we expect Collider, the new album?
J: Mid October is the speculative date
S: We'll let you know though. I'm sure it's around then. And then we'll be back hopefully doing a tour and see the whole country again.


Juice TV interview with Steve and Simon - August 27, 2003

On the band's move to Melbourne...
Steve Wells: It's opened some doors and we're a much better band for it I think.
Simon Braxton: We've done heaps and heaps of gigging, and it's possible to play more in Australia. You can go on the road and stay on the road for ages whereas if you did that in NZ you'd start going back to the same towns in very shorts spaces of time. So we've been able to do heaps more shows and mature... mature as a band.
SW: Not as individuals though...

The overall theme of Collider...
SB: I think theres definately a lot of emotion vented on Collider... [Steve growls... ] Its probably a bit more aggressive than Pet was.. We've been through some pretty extreme highs and lows since we moved to Aussie. I think it has a certain amount of venting of spleen. Spleen. What does venting of spleen mean? I heard the term I thought I'd used it. I thought it sounded pretty flash.

Why is Precious the first single?...
SB: It's a pretty good example of the attitude of the rest of the album I think. Considering that the last thing that most people probably remember from us is Lydia, we kinda want to start off with somethings that not like a Lydia 2, you know what I mean? To really show where we're at at the moment. And also Precious was the last song we wrote before we went into the studio so it's quite nice to have the last thing that we wrote be the first thing that people get to hear off the album.

Concept of the Precious video...
SB: I guess the idea is that we're like a band touring around and every night Julia selects somebody from the crowd and seduces them and takes them home to the hotel and then does unspeakable things to them. [Steve claps in delight in response to Julia clapping in delight] To various body parts.
SW: She's over there and she's clapping... [Julia smiles evilly]
SB: And we're her accomplices.
SW: Her lackeys
SB: Her slaves.
SW: Her henchmen.
SB: And that's kinda the idea and she's getting a collection of.. ahh.. bits..

Experimentation on the album...
SB: It's not inaccessible music. It's sorta pop-rock with an indie kinda thing to it. But we've basically come down to really strong melodies through there. We're not trying to be the new Sonic Youth. But there's definately a lot of weird noisy shit going on in there and experimentation and weird sounds. Mark was really good at bringing out the weird sounds and coming up with some bizarre ideas. It was a lot of fun.

Mastering Collider at Abbey Road Studio...
SB: It's kinda surreal. You never expect you'll get to get into a place like that but you can just walk in off the street. You just get out at the tube station and walk around the corner and theres this kinda non-descript white building with "Abbey Road Studios" on the front. Yeah it was cool, it was great. And the guy, Chris Blair, who mastered it, has been there since 1969, he's a classic, very much a classic old school kind of guy. Really quick, really awesome, the only thing missing was the white coat...

Old or new songs on the tour?...
SB: Mostly new. It's only a short set.
SW: There's one older song... off Pet...
SB: It's only a short set, so we're concentrating on just getting people familiar with the new stuff. We'll be back before the end of the year to promote the album properly and do like our own tour and play maybe some of the old stuff. For now it's just... here it is, this is the new stuff guys, whatdya reckon? We're getting really good responses... it's cool. Everyone's really enjoying it. A lot of smiley happy faces going .. "yeah... choice". So yeah we're stoked. It's great fun. Great fun touring and Pacifier and Two Lane are great guys to hang out with. We're all having a good laugh. A good laugh.

Julia Deans' special date in Christchurch...
SW: For those of you who live in Christchurch Julia is playing with the Christchurch symphony orchestra on the 18th of September...


Fur Patrol returns - August 31, 2003 by Rebecca Barry

If Fur Patrol lived together they would have ripped each others' throats out by now, jokes drummer Simon Braxton. Today it doesn't seem an overstatement. Frontwoman Julia Deans has lost her voice and is relying on a barely-there whisper and animated gestures to communicate.
According to the band, I'm lucky to be talking to them at all. "For a while we were just flailing around in the doldrums feeling depressed," says Braxton of the past two-and-a-half years they've spent in Melbourne.
"Eventually we just went, 'Okay, this is stupid. Either we break up or start working towards something because we've got to make this happen ourselves, it's not just going to fall into our laps. Do we want to carry on?' "
A five-track sampler of their second album Collider confirms the answer with a vengeance. They're now based in Melbourne but left New Zealand at the height of their popularity. First EP Starlifter stayed in the New Zealand charts for six weeks and debut album Pet sold double platinum (30,000 copies).
Bittersweet single Lydia can take a lot of the credit - it spent seven weeks in the top five and earned Deans two New Zealand Music Awards for Single of the Year and Best Songwriter. She also won Best Female Vocalist.
But after four years together, the band were ready to move on. They had toured Australia before and found Melbourne had the best live scene.
"The size of New Zealand means you can't actually tour that much or you end up over-promoting yourselves," says Braxton. "In Australia you can tour and tour and keep doing it, which is kind of scary."
They soon discovered just how scary it could be. For one, they were bound by a claustrophobic record deal with independent Wellington label Wishbone Records, whose lack of funds prohibited the band from recording an album in Australia. A licensing deal with Warner Music Australia proved no more helpful, falling well short of their expectations. The band lay a good deal of the blame on Bardot, the manufactured girl-band who were the label's priority at the time.
It meant that aside from a few support slots, Fur Patrol were basically cold-calling the Australian audience with virtually no promotion other than word of mouth generated from their live shows. They now see those 212 gigs, touring in a beat-up Econovan, as a blessing in disguise.
"It tightened us up as a live band," says Braxton. "And Aussies love their rock. It encouraged us to go with our natural rock tendencies and actually turn the guitars up and be a little bit more in-your-face."
But with little financial input from the label and no new material to tour, the band were forced to take a six-month hiatus - and day jobs.
"It was terrible," says bass player Andrew Bain. "We actually didn't have much of a purpose there as a band. It was pretty bleak."
Braxton worked part-time at a cinema making ice-creams, guitarist Steve Wells worked at a bar "cleaning up glasses and vomit", Bain took on a short-lived stint at Australia Post and Deans worked as a barmaid - getting a prominent part in the musical tag-team in Telecom NZ's television campaign for jetstream only paid so much.
"We began to see very little of each other," she whispers. Bain adds: "It wasn't just that we didn't have an album planned, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. There wasn't even an option of recording an album."
Braxton: "But it's that whole thing - if it doesn't kill you it'll make you stronger. Our manager Dave [Benge] is largely the reason we're still together. Every time things got really, really bad and we'd be just so depressed and freaking out, he would always have something positive to say: 'Come on guys, we'll get through it.' It totally saved our ass.
"We all decided we're all still really into the band and we really like each other as individuals and the only way through this is to just keep going. And things started changing. Once we'd changed our attitude, everything started falling into place."
Some good lawyers helped them shed their contracts and they scored a new record deal with Universal Australia (Warner Music New Zealand will continue to distribute their albums in New Zealand.)
They employed British producer Mark Wallis, and Deans and Braxton flew to London where the album was mastered at the legendary Abbey Road studio.
"It just looked like in all those pictures you see," says Braxton. "It's a very classic-looking studio. The only thing missing was the white couch. It's bizarre, you get out of the tube station, walk round the corner and there's this white nondescript-looking building, white picket fence with graffiti all over it with messages to John Lennon. The guy who mastered it had been working there since ... when was it?"
Deans spells out "1969" with her hands.
The next step was to record a video for Precious, which they did at a gig at LA's ultra-cool Viper Room, playing mostly to friends and crew and a handful of music industry folk.
The experiences encouraged them to rock out even more, with Wallis helping them to develop their dynamics to create a more dramatic sound. Gone is the pretty pop nous of Lydia and Spinning A Line - in their place are brazen, churning guitars, a more provocative vocal style and a macabre new video in which they slice groupies' ears off.
"You can tell we've played a lot more shows, I think. We have a lot more punch," says Braxton. "This album's more aggressive than Pet."
But considering it's that sweet melodic style that won them so many fans in the first place, isn't that a dangerous move?
"Lydia has just gone out for a walk," quips Braxton. "She'll be back. I think we might be lynched if we didn't play it. We don't play it in Aussie because no one has heard it, they're definitely into the more rocky stuff. Except very occasionally when diehard Kiwi fans turn up screaming out for it. [Collider] is still pop songs, just with more gusto."
Influential radio network Triple J have already put Precious on high rotate - the band heard it before they jumped on the plane to New Zealand, where they're on tour with Pacifier. Deans gets the last, raspy word. "We've been working our asses off so that we can come back here and play. So they'd better [expletive] come."


Simon and Julia, Channel Z, Jan 15 with James Coleman

James Coleman: It's a very warm welcome to Simon and Julia from Fur Patrol. Gday laaaaadies and lads.
Simon: Gday mate, how are ya?
JC: Really well thanks. That [Fade Away] was from your new album...
Julia: Ablum.
JC: Beg your pardon? Ablum. And it's got a hammer on the front. And I'd like to start if I could, a fair punch straight in the face. Is that hammer a thinly veiled reference to you guy's scag habit? Cuz apparently -on the hammer- apparently means...
S: Really? Where did you hear that? Where do you get this stuff James?
J: It's actually a thinly veiled reference to our SLAG habits.
JC: Slag habits? I seeeee where you're coming from.
S: Cuz we're a bunch of slags basically.
JC: You enjoy a slag from time to time.
S: A good slag-fest.
J: A good slag in the face.
Tim: Are they high quality slags? Or extremely low rent?
J: Is there any other kind?
JC: High quality slags, there are a couple of them around the place.
S: Are we allowed to name names?
JC: Yeah sure.
S: Well who are these high quality slags?
JC: I thought YOU had a selection... You name names. You said you would.
S: I'm not a name namer.
JC: That picture on the front there of the hammer, who did that artwork? Cuz that's very cool.
J: There's an artist called Siv, where's she from?
S: I think she's from Norway or Scandinavia or whatever.
J: She was living in NZ for quite a while and these are her sculptures, the headphones, the hammer..
JC: It sorta looks like, you know the pictures, like a pot scourer.
J: She knits them out of fuse wire.
S: I believe she crochets them.
J: They're pretty fucking incre... oh sorry. They're pretty quite incredible.
JC: That's alright. You can speak how you would speak on the street around here.
J: Ohh! Yo down wit dat.
JC: As opposed to America. We were talking about it this morning, seven words you can't say in America on the radio. We were trying to work out what they were.
J: Shit-fuck-Satan-death-sex-drugs-rape!
JC: I think you missed out one...
J: Aww... C....
S: Pacifier. You're not allowed to say that.
JC: Or Shihad.
S: Yeah. That's the one.
JC: Julia. You had an orphans Xmas apparently in Melbourne? How was it?
J: It was choice! We got very merry indeed. We had like a good kg of prawns mate! 5kg snapper just slap it on the barbie! And it was twister and I am the champion! That's why Xmas day was so fucking great because I won twister.
JC: Who else got to play?
J: Uhh.. Australians? Girls against boys.
T: Conventional twister? Or was it naked twister with lubricant?
J: I'll let you run that one.
JC: No. You tell us.
S: But it might ruin it for you. What if it's the one you didn't want to hear?
T: There could have been high quality slags. I'm just trying to tie it back in.
JC: Nothing but the highest quality slags.
J: No. I was there.
JC: Lets have a look at that tshirt there Simon. Biketoberfest. That's a cool tshirt. Is it actually an original?
S: I don't actually know. It looks like an original. It's pretty old and kinda scummy.
JC: That's a very cool shirt, did you get that in Melbourne?
S: Uh. This sounds really wanky, but I got it in LA.
JC: You WANKER.
S: Actually I didn't even get it. Our stylist got it.
[Julia cackles]
My headphones have gone. This is terrible.
J: Your headphones just didn't wanna listen.
JC: Stylist was far too much. We were talking about the 7 words you can't say in America. "Stylist" is the word you can't say here. So you've got a stylist?
J: It was when we were shooting the Precious video, slicing off peoples ears.
S: So we had to hire a 6 foot tall leggy blonde stylist. Because it's LA.
J: You can't go anywhere without your stylist...
T: Was it Carson from Queer Eye?
JC: No... it wasn't obviously. This Saturday in Whangarei, with Pan Am, which should be a great gig really. I'd imagine there'd be people that have experienced the BDO and they'll make a weekend of it. Pop to Whangarei.
S: Well that's the idea. That's what we're gonna do. We're just gonna keep going.
JC: What a great existance you have. Beach tours.
S: It's all rock n roll and beaches...
JC: Aside from a couple of early mornings on breakfast radio stations.
J: It's only because you're here.
JC: Thanks for that love. Aren't you great? I'll keep that in mind and the twister on Xmas day in my head forever. Here's a new song. It's not your new single, but it's one that you've requested from the new album. And I'm gonna play it goddamn it all to heck. It's called Softer Landing. Have a great day tomorrow. Thank you very much for coming up Fur Patrol... is it going to start?
J: Ohh it sorta fades in, does a little sneaky.. oooh mystical.. here comes Galadrial...
JC: Talk us through.
S: It's a sort of magicy sounds.
J: Frodo's sorta hanging out in the background and I think the orcs are about to march in a minute.
JC: And Gandalf's just playing with himself...
J: BYE!


Fur Patrol run the Channel Z morning show, December 2000

News

Julia: Calls to liberalise our abortions laws have sparked the usual debate. The usual. The abortion supervi... super-visory-committee... wants changes that would wipe the need for a second doctor to give approval for an abortion, counselling will be optional and the process will be decriminalised. Of course Family Planning is welcoming the proposals, but the Society of the Protection of the Unborn Child is DEAD against them.
Simon: Dead against them?
J: DEAD against them. AND FINALLY, police are investigating reports of a NAKED MAN dancing on top of his car on Auckland's southern motorway! WHOO HOO! Now get this... Inspector Barry SMALLIE.. muahahahha...
S: Must've been a bit cold...
J: MUAHAHAH.. says they received a call from a concerned MEMBER... hahaha... of the public who was driving to work. The naked man was apparently near the Greenlane exit. Inspector Smallie.... says Police arrived at the scene to find no sign of the man. Anyone who saw the naked man is being asked to call the police.
CZ: What a great story. Men Arrive To Find No Naked Man. That's brilliant.

Weather

Andrew: It's um... fine. I don't understand how that thing works... Oh I see, in the 09, 23, cloudy, per.. sea breezes. CZ: Periods, periods.
A: Oh... cloudly periods..
CZ: I don't like to write periods... so I just write per.
A: In the 04 it's fine, temperature 22, nnn-thlies.
CZ: That'd be northerlies.
A: Oh yeah. And in the 03, fine, 23, morn cloud, nnneee winds.
CZ: NE winds. North Easterly Winds. I tell you what though, it's a beautiful fine day to go out and buy yourself an album. Why don't you get yourself Fur Patrol's Pet.
S: Get yourselves an album. Get yourselves a pet. Get yourselves Pet. The album.
CZ: It's like a Kinder Surprise. It's two in one. A pet and an album.
S: And it's chocolate.. as well.
CZ: If you don't believe us go buy the CD.
J: Oh great. Now there's going to be all these people going into music stores licking our album covers.
CZ: They already do that. I've seen them.
S: Pet, often licked, never beaten.

Big Day Out 2001

Steve: 1 o'clock on the main stage.
CZ: Congratulations on the main stage. That's really good.
S: It's our first one too, we've never done a BDO and we've gone straight for the main stage.
J: WHOOO!
S: The stage with the carpet apparently.
CZ: That makes you an overnight success doesn't it?
S: It is. It's an overnight success!
CZ: Gone are the days where the kiwi bands play on that shitty soundstage round the back of the stadium right next door to another one.
S: Right next door to the tent.
J: But ahh... D-Super will be playing there.
S: D-Super of course.
CZ: They're a great band. What time is D-Super playing?
J: At the same time as Fur Patrol
Steve: Come to Fur Patrol...
S: Ohh... we're gonna miss out on D-Super.
CZ: Why dont' you go and leave a little tape recorder down by D-Super and you can have your own personal bootleg.
J: Or vice versa.
S: Cept we're going to be playing so loud you won't be able to HEAR D-Super over Fur Patrol.
J: On the news tip... that little story about veteran protester Sue Bradford, Dave just informed us that he has been formally arrested with her before for protesting, so Dave is also a veteran protester.
[applause]
CZ: What was she like when she got arrested? Was she a bucky sort of type of one? Or...
S: Did they drag her away kicking and screaming?
Dave Benge: She kicked and screamed a lot but she's cool.
CZ: What was her main word she was saying? Was it "Shame!"?
D: It was one of those words you can't say on the radio more than 3 times. That's what I did on the James Coleman show and got into trouble.
CZ: Really? She was speaking a bit blue.
D: Yeah. Trespassing on parliament grounds. Evil! Evil!
CZ: What was the issue at stake?
D: It was the code of social responsibility at the time that Jenny Shipley was trying to...
S: He's deep.
CZ: I can't think of anyone more socially responsible than you.
J: See this is our mum. How are we expected to grow up safely, mum, with behaviour like that as an example?
D: Well she's now an MP.
CZ: See, now you're the mum all getting arrested. These beautiful kids here are going to turn into Eminem!
S: Didn't she go over to Melbourne and get trampled by horses with Nandor?
CZ: See, he got in trouble for not wearing a cycle helmet, however a police baton bounced off his dreads and nothing happened... you can't tell me that the road...
J: They're going to have to make mega sized cycle helmets and motorcycle helmets just so they can fit over dreadlocks.
CZ: A 40 gallon drum. COME ON NEW ZEALAND! Make Nandor a big helmet!