Four albums in, and Dune Rats aren’t slowing down. If anything, they’re speeding up. For their latest outing, the Aussie trio are hitting breakneck speeds. Careening around corners a la Whacky Races, dust clouds in their wake, on ‘Real Rare Whale’ it’s a no holds barred frenzy.
Decamping to Eden in New South Wales, just the three of them – Danny Beus (vocals, guitars), BC Michaels (drums), Brett Jansch (bass) – they ended up leaving the session with “about sixty songs”, according to Danny. Whittling it down to the final 10 that make-up ‘Real Rare Whale’ was a case of “whatever got us going,” Brett mentions.
“Not to say that the other ones were totally crap,” he adds. “But these ones seemed to all buddy up to each other as songs, and fill out the colour wheel for the album [which] should be an array of different colours that emote different things.”
A raucous reaction to the negativity of the pandemic, it’s Dune Rats doing what they do best – having a good time. Those emotive colours range from nights out (‘What A Memorable Night’) to getting sucked into the telly (‘Dumb TV’), recalling childhood Hollywood crushes (‘Pamela Aniston’), and even a Dunies love song (‘Melted Into Two’). ‘Real Rare Whale’ is a rarity from a time that’s found most artists cradling their inner selves amidst droopy, droning sounds.
“I think there’s like one swear word on the whole album. There’s one drinking song, really, and the other songs are more like posi experiences that we have,” Danny chuckles. “Just having a good time. We had a couple of songs that didn’t make the album as it felt like we were just going to be sliding back into that narrative of another ‘Scott Green’ or another ‘6 Pack’.”
There’s even a spot of choreography in the video for the poptastic ‘Up’ – a song that almost didn’t make the cut. “At first, we were like, ‘Fuck, I don’t know if this song’s going to make it on the record’,” Brett says. “And then by the time it came out, we were like, ‘Fuck, dude, this is a pop song that rips!'”
To be blunt, ‘Real Rare Whale’ is chockfull of pop songs that do indeed rip. It’s where it differs from their previous efforts, which were more rampaging yet lackadaisical, often threatening to fall apart. Fortunately, this time around, there’s even more raucous, fun-in-the-sun energy with a bite – and even a sneaky hint of ska on ‘Skate Or Don’t.
This new ground for the band is, in fact, a slight reach back to their early days when it was just the three of them doing it for a laugh. But even a laugh needs a little hard work. In particular, the aforementioned video for ‘Up’, where the trio dress up as baby-blue posties while spinning out enough moves to make even the most hardened pop star nod in respect. Packing in the time for dance rehearsal in-between a run of shows in Brisbane meant they had to forgo trips to the pub, but the results are more than worth it. It’s also proof that while the three-piece are always more focused on the bright side of life, they can also get stuck into the responsibility of being a band.
They’ve even done their fair share of collaborative writing over the years, each bearing its own particular fruits with no real negative connotations. But the bigwigs over in America weren’t ready for the Dunies tornado, including one experience with a seasoned producer where they ate what they assumed to be expired acid jelly babies. “Turns out that it takes years for them to go off!” Danny exclaims, the pair bursting into laughter. “And so we’d ate these little things and then to come down, we just needed to smoke a bong, and we were like ‘Can we smoke a bong in your bathroom?!'”
Now that they’re a few albums deep, it’s fair to say theirs is a career going well. So how do they balance ambition and expectation while pounding some bevvies and having fun with your mates?
“When you start your career smoking as many bongs as you can on fucking YouTube, people will have a certain expectation,” Danny cracks up. “But we have a pretty strong drive to keep doing this for the rest of our lives because we started the band after working years in jobs we fucking hated. So the ambition probably isn’t to get a million awards and number one records in Australia.”
They’ve not done badly, considering they’ve bagged themselves two consecutive number one albums over in Australia (2017’s ‘The Kids Will Know It’s Bullshit’ and 2020’s ‘Hurry Up And Wait’), which Danny acknowledges with a cheeky wink. It would seem the key to success is to actually just have fun with it.
Similarly, chatting to both Brett and Danny is a lot like talking to two mates you’ve known your entire life. It’s this personality they carry with them wherever they go. It could be down to their Aussie upbringing, or just that they’re a bunch of guys indeed having the time of their lives, fully aware there are a lot of other options out there, but this is by far the best one.
Recalling tours over in the States, often while Dunies are drinking beers at soundcheck, “having a good time”, everyone else takes things a bit more seriously. “Quite rightly so,” Danny adds. “They’re putting out their art, taking it seriously, and that’s what they want to do. But for us, we’re stoked!”
“We’ve been on tour with bands where people will come backstage and be like, ‘Man, I can’t believe you fucked up that song’ or something like that,” he recalls. “And for us, that’s kind of super awkward. It’s like when a couple’s fighting in front of you. With us, touring has never really been about fucking nailing songs and making sure we’re the best band, but fuck, we’ll try and be the funnest band.”
Which leaves one burning question: what is ‘fun’ for Dune Rats?
“Man, stick me on the road for a million-date tour,” Brett smiles. “Maybe I’ll not say that after the 30th day, but like, I love the idea of just playing songs and travelling and playing shows, but it’s all the other bullshit in between that I reckon is just fucking classic,” his face erupting into a full-on beam. “We don’t let sitting in a van get boring, ‘ey! We fart around in there, like that shit is just pure fun because at the end, something rad’s just happened, and you go and do something that else that’s rad.”
“If you asked our partners, all of them say that we’re married to each other first and then it’s them,” Danny adds, as the pair burst out laughing again. “We just travel from city to city becoming fucking absolute fuck-wits,” he continues. “And then just move on to the next city, and we don’t have to face anything until we come back home. All of us just fucking get a big kick out of doing that, and we can’t wait to do that again.”
Their last show before the lockdowns began was a 4000 capacity date on their home turf. While it’s all up and running again, leading into this period – the one that caused the reaction of ‘Real Rare Whale’ – their headspace was far from long-term. “We thought we’ll just wait two months, then this whole fucking spicy cough thing will blow over,” Danny shrugs. But The Dunies being kept at bay means now they’re charging out of the gate, and good luck to any who stand in their way.
“We were writing these songs to go and fucking smash out live shows again, so we didn’t want to release it and just have to sit in our bedrooms and play live over the internet and shit like that,” he ends. “So being in this cycle again and getting ready to do this album live… it’s going to be fucking epic!”
Taken from the July issue of Upset. Dune Rats’ album ‘Real Rare Whale’ is out 29th July.
