We Did This Records Presents: The Dumpies from Austin, Texas!

The Dumpies, from Austin, Texas, blend energetic Ramones style punk rock with splashes of hardcore and garage rock. Since the start of 2017 they have released four impressive records named after athletes. The latest being named after the South African runner Zola Budd. Between February 25th and March 11th 2020 (My mind can't properly process the year...) The Dumpies will be hitting up shows around South Africa. Get amped!

We will post the show dates soon! The following is a short interview with the band!

The latest album is named Zola Budd, after a South African Olympic runner. What's the story behind the name?

Dumpies: To us Dumpies, the real test of life, the rubric we measure ourselves by, is our failures. It's about fucking up, making mistakes, hurting people you love, especially when it involves your heroes. You take responsibility, you accept, you learn. The figure of Zola Budd represents how messy and tragic and complicated shit can be, and how it's important to make mistakes and keep moving. Plus she ran barefoot, which is pretty badass.

What are some of your hopes regarding touring South African, end of Feb / early March, next year?

Dumpies: Touring has always been an opportunity to interact and share artistically culturally and socially with people we would otherwise have never met. After traveling and playing music in Chile, Argentina, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia we wanted to push that to another culture and continent. South Africa in particular seems like such a deeply complex and layered place - the intense mix of so many cultures and environments and histories all interacting with each other. We mostly want to come and learn and soak things up and meet new friends and lift each other up and party together. Like Youth Bridge sang in ’Sink With Kalifornia’…..“I don’t care if you’re from North, South, East or West, I live for humanity, forget the rest.”

How is the scene in Austin, Texas?

Dumpies: The scene in Austin has issues, but is ultimately solid. The best shows still happen under bridges and in illegal spaces. There is a lot of bullshit music in Austin, because of things like SXSW. But there is still a super tightknit community of folks around—bands like Army, Mujeres Podridas, Body Pressue, and labels like ihateiskate really help keep things alive in this city. Our singer and guitarist live in Austin and our Bassist and Drummer live in Oregon, so we don't get to play locally much as we want to.

What draws you to playing in a punk band?

Dumpies: We’ve all been doing it for so long it’s basically second nature to us at this point, like blinking our eyes or taking a shit. I’m not sure any of us would know what to do if we weren’t doing this. Punk is a collage. It can be anything. It’s not how you dress or the bands you listen to or your job or lack of or anything. It’s an attitude of embracing and releasing at the same time. Be open to embrace other cultures scenes and people. Be able to release your energy and artistic output without judgement or inhibition. It’s a mindset, a thread that runs through all fabric of your life and what you do.

I get a strong Recess Records feel from the band. What do you all think of bands like Fleshies and Toys That Kill (F.Y.P)?

Dumpies: Hovercraft Records (home of the Dumpies and run by Mark and Tim) was started in the spirit of Recess Records. Todd Congelliere has been putting out loud energetic snarky music of his own and his friends unchanging to any trends and doing it really well year after year. FYP is one of our favorite bands - from the old albums like Dance My Dunce to the latest album from Toys That Kill all that stuff is inspirational and just delivers (Sacia said that the Dumpies song ‘Witch Love’ sounds like Tim ripped the bass line off of ‘Toss My Cookies’ but he disagrees) Fleshies too! That scrappy Oakland early 00’s sound that Jello put out on Alternative Tentacles and then picked up on Recess Records fits grooves and inspires us too. We were never cool enough to see The Fleshies live but the videos look like we definitely missed a spectacle, though I think Joel could give John a run for inspired lyrical gymnastics. And at a Underground Railroad to Candyland show 8 years ago in Portland, a drunken Tim ran up to Todd C. —  took off his shirt to show him his FYP tattoo on his chest — and yelled some rambling acclamations —  only to have Todd look at the ground and shirk off into a corner to avoid the maniac.

Questions by: Shaun

The Deadly Bites EP & Interview.

Johannesburg's psychedelic garage rock outfit The Deadly Bites have a new 6 track EP out that was recorded at Atomic Garden Studios and released this October. It is a follow up from a two track release early last year. We will attach / link both releases below, but first we have a short interview with vocalist and guitarist Dean Hibbert. [ cue applause ]

What sort of music does The Deadly Bites seek to create and release?

Dean: We set out to do a garage, surf, psychedelic sort of thing, but ultimately we will do whatever we want to do. It's kind of cool not trying to be a genre band and just freely associating influences. If we decide that opera is our thing I suppose we will go in that direction, but it's always gonna be groovy and badass.

What was the motivation behind starting the band?

Dean: Elio and Valentino had started up The Deadly Bites before I joined. They saw me playing guitar drunk at a party and thought that I would make a great singer. Luckily at my audition there was only a shitty sing star microphone to hide my shitty voice and I got the part. We stuck together because we share a common music taste and love for writing music together.

Best shows to date?

Dean: Best shows to date have definitely been the Psyche Night shows. The ones in Joburg, Stellenbosch (Psychedelic Jukebox) and at Endless Daze Festival. It's just great when gigs are well organized and promoted. I mean all of gigs are memorable for different reasons... Sometimes we totally tank, strings break or we have a few too many to drink, but you always gotta give it your all whether you are playing to three people or a whole crowd.

How was recording your latest release?

Dean: For this particular EP we really wanted it to have a raw, energetic, live sound to it and I knew Conley at Atomic Garden Studios would be just the right person for the job. There was still a fair amount of experimental post work done to it, but we got the sort of sound we were going for. Recording is sort of like archiving the work that you have done so that you can move on with writing new stuff. The next stop is trying to write and record a full album. There is some serious work to be done but we are all up for the challenge.

Dean with TBN you did some European and Asian tours. Do The Deadly Bites have plans for an overseas tour?

Dean: Now that we have our new EP finished and out of the way, the question of where and how to tour is at the top of our minds. Europe, America, or Australia would be insane and definitely something we are trying to figure out for the future. In the near future I think we have to do Durban and hopefully Réunion Islands. I think the band is about to undergo some changes that I can't talk about just yet, but I think we will be up and running as a gigging band by March next year.

Questions by: Shaun Richards