Raphaella sits down with all four members of Doons to chat about their transformation as a band, what excites them most about music, and a very important place called the Penthole.
What’s your process for writing songs? Is it a movie montage like I imagine?
Elliott: Yeah, totally. It’s like me in the background playing guitar -
~ Ben: And I’m doing push ups.
Elliott: It varies to be honest, typically it would be me coming up with some kind of idea and then we work on it together.
Ben: It always comes from Elliott, which is nice because that unifies the sound generally. In the early days, Elliott would pretty much come up with the full song and we’d adapt around it. Nowadays, it’s very much, Elliott comes with a couple chords he’s been playing around with and always gets super deep on the lyrics. Then it becomes much more of a collaborative process.
On that note, how do you get an idea?
Elliott: It depends honestly, it’s still something that for me changes quite a bit…sometimes you kind of just manifest a song.
Ben: I think [Elliott’s] song writing process is a lot more pointed than mine… for my solo stuff (I’m Doonsy) there’s like fifteen different versions of a voice memo on my phone and slowly it just becomes one of them.
Image taken by Raphaella Holder-Monk
What excites you most about making music?
Tom: It’s previously been the live stuff, but lately I’ve been really enjoying (sorry, hard not to sound pretentious) but thinking about the artistry behind it. It’s the only thing, personally, that I’m creatively involved in, where you’ve got freedoms to do whatever you want.
Ben: So, the things that I’ve been trying to bring to the band setting, but also to my own stuff, is like – what makes a pretty melody! It can be so simple and yet the three same notes can just be nothing, or they can be the most beautiful or exciting, or they can make you angry! Especially in the band setting, a lot of my creative input is writing counter melodies that aren’t trying to be the main thing, but run under the chorus and also have their own weight. It might just move in the opposite way as the vocals or it might be uplifting, or balancing. That’s just what’s exciting at the moment I guess.
Pierce: I just like the process we’re getting into more now. So, we’ve got like four songs and one space left open [on the EP] and I like that we’re thinking about the whole image of the project, how one more really slow song might affect the whole album. Also like the live setting, I just think we’re more focused on our image. I think we’re doing something good.
Elliott: Kind of everything really. For me, song writing, and music is one of the only contexts where I feel seen. And that is, kind of an addiction.
Wow thank you for all giving genuinely thought through answers! I love it.
Elliott: We have been asked some fucking horrific questions in past interviews. It felt like being on What Now.
[this ensued a band meeting where I learnt about weird interview experiences they had from *redacted*]
Image Taken by Elena Beets
How would you describe the aesthetic of Doons if it were a house?
Elliott: A long time ago I would have said the Penthole.
Ben: I feel like the Penthole works to an extent.
Pierce: It’s better than that now though.
Elliott: Me, Ben and Tom (and a few other boys) used to live in this rooftop apartment on the corner of Dixon and Victoria Street. That’s where we used to practice. It’s ah – a shithole.
Series of Images taken by Oli Cheyne
Sidebar, would you consider yourself a boyband?
[After some discussion they arrived at the term *post-boyband*]
What do you wish people asked you more about your music? See what I did there, it’s like my cheat-question.
Pierce: The rhythm section.
Tom: Pierce’s genius.
Elliott: Pierce wants us to ask him about his bass run in the bridge of ‘What You Come Through’. [Also] I think, in New Zealand, we have an aversion to taking ourselves seriously. It’s not necessarily something I want to be asked about personally. I just wish there was a representation of that in music journalism, or in the culture in general.
Ok so going from the first two singles you released, through the Ep, till now, how do you think the Doons sound has changed?
Tom: Heaps... There's kind of a new process, lately it’s been way more about trying to define a way more specific sound and something more representative maybe of what we’re into. Trying to craft something a bit more artistic.
Elliott: The first two singles were released by me and a couple other mates. When we wanted to start playing shows under the Doons name, that’s when it actually became a live thing, before that it was more of a bedroom project.
Ben: To follow on from that, sonically the first two songs sound quite different to the High Beam EP, which sounds quite different to Shallows, which we just released. I think a big part of that is what Tom’s saying, we’ve been talking about it a lot more and sort of unifying things to a degree.
And when are you guys planning to release the new EP? So that I can plug you in this interview!
[This question ensued another band meeting where they debated when to release the EP. They reckon August(ish)]
Cover Image by Tanya Putthapipat
How Doons Went from Penthole-Rock to Post-Boyband by Raphaella Holder-Monk
