BANG! BANG! ECHE!
The SiS Interview by Jose Fritz

Eche is an archaic spelling of “each.” It meant “every” or “all” in that era. The modern spelling appeared in the late 1500s. Its Ur-root is unknown, having similar calques in many languages; indicating an origin older than both Latin and Greek. The onomatopoeia “bang” is echoic, and possibly older than even written language. So whether it is intended or not, Bang! Bang! Eche! in this proto English would mean to hit/hammer everything, bludgeon, hammer, strike, pound, hit everything. Everything is very loud. Everything is struck and destroyed. This spasticity came though in my recent round-the-world chat with guitar/synth player Charlie Ryder.

JF: Why does your spelling of Bang! Bang! Eche! include exclamation points?

CR: Because we’re excited and young. We don’t really care if it does or not. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. We don’t have an official spelling yet. It’s not really a big deal.

JF: James has suggested that E.C.H.E. is an acronym for the Estonian Coalition for Haitian Emigration.

CR: I haven’t heard that one before. There are a lot of things he’s said about that; there’s no truth behind it at all. It doesn’t mean anything.

JF: Your bio claims that you were booking your first shows before you had a solid line-up. Did you make that part up?

CR: At the time we weren’t sure if we would become a real band. We had four members and had no idea how we’d play live. We were actually a four piece once, then a six piece. We settled on a five piece about a year ago.

JF: What happened to number six?

CR: We had two singers; we had a female singer as well as Zach. She just decided she couldn’t really be bothered with being in a band. She’s not really a musician. She was just a girl we got to shout.

JF: Was she hot?

CR: I wouldn’t say so. James would say so.

I’d prepped my interview somewhat on the assumption that I’d be interviewing the drunken manic drummer James Sullivan. Instead I got a call from the rather timorous guitarist Charlie Ryder. He couldn’t be baited into lying, bullshitting, or bragging throughout the process. Is it wrong to try to get band members to slag on each other? I say no. Anything that entertaining has to be right.

JF: Have you even been to the U.S. before this tour?

CR: Yup, I have. I went for a wee bit when I was fifteen or so 3 or 4 years ago. Some assortment of our band has, but not everyone.

JF: So these are your first U.S. shows?

CR: Oh yes. These are our first overseas shows In fact.

JF: Is it intimidating?

CR: I guess it should be intimidating but because we’ve got [Underground Management] they’ve made it all very easy for us. They’re lovely people. We know they’ll help us out when we need help. We get to New York on the 18th of October and we play at the New Zealand showcase at CMJ on the 21st. We’re really looking forward to it.

It’s hard to say how much if anything we know of Bang! Bang! Eche! is true. We know their name is Bang! Bang! Eche! and that much we know is sacrosanct. Truth is mutual consensus. After that lays a mishmash of conjecture, uncertainty, confusion, and their own brand of drunken interview propaganda

JF: The Wikipedia entry on Bang! Bang! Eche! seems facetious. Was that your own fabrication or someone else?

CR: It was our friend Josh as you can probably tell, because it says that he records, produces, and writes every song on all our records.

JF: Josh sounds kind of like James.

CR: Yeah. He’s his flat mate.

JF: Are they a gay couple?

CR: They live in a flat with like five other people. They’re not roommates.

JF: Kinky. Is that why is Josh Burgess doing the U.S. Tour dates in lieu of Perry Mahoney?

CR: Perry couldn’t afford to come. Perry works at a café. He had the option of getting a loan but it wasn’t really worth it for him with all the interest he’d have to pay back.

JF: Josh wrote that before he was in the band?

CR: Yeah. At that point he wasn’t in the band. Now he just looks like a very egotistical band member.

JF: What’s the most entertaining lie you’ve made up?

CR: I think our drummer went on national radio and he was really drunk and he said we got signed to a major label like Universal or something and we were going on a world year-long tour. It was pretty cool.

JF: He just gets drunk and just starts making stuff up?

CR: Yeah, but that time it was just after the end of show and these people asked to do an interview and he jumped up and fucked around a bit. It was funny. I think James was taking the piss.

“Take the piss” is a New Zealandic (Editor’s Note: the phrase is prevalent throughout England and all of Her Majesty’s former colonies) idiom meaning to ridicule or mock. During the transcription of the interview I was surprised how many times I was stumped by slight differences in pronunciation and slang. It’s not just the liters, kilometers and the queen on the money, it’s the drunks being fagged out, the wharnie the sarnie and the pukeroo.

JF: How did you get involved in A Low Hum tour?

CR: Blink [Ian Jorgensen] kind of asked us to play a show when he heard our song.

JF: Song, singular? You had only one song?

CR: Yeah, we still didn’t have a line-up either. But we recorded it and sent it to him and he loved it. So he asked us to play a show with Oh So Modern and Cut off Your Hands. We played another show beforehand.

JF: Which song was it?

CR: It was “Nikee,” it was a really old version of “Nikee.” We sent it to everyone really. We were so excited.

JF: Has Nike sued you yet?

CR: No no no. We’re waiting. Either that or they’ll put it in an ad but I don’t expect that with all the swearing in the song.

All their songs seem to be about partying, like Andrew W.K. without the cock-rock pandering, the nosebleeds and the piggy-back rides. But that’s the substance, the elementary particles that compromise raw exuberance. They are young, indestructible, and still capable of experiencing the world and reacting without thinking.

JF: Do you have any songs that aren’t about partying?

CR: No, I guess you’re right. They’re mostly about partying. The new songs branch out a bit more. “Cough Cough” has some pretty deep lyrics.

JF: I watched the Red Bull Studio Sessions and I saw that you had some songs not included on the EP: “Cough Cough,” “Rape Corps,” and “Dirt in the Water.” Are we going to see that material released later?

CR: I don’t know. The CD was released in February of this year so we’re written a few new songs, probably enough for another EP.

JF: How did you get set up with those taped sessions?

CR: They do the videos in accordance with an awesome radio station called “B-FM.” B is the college network, and the Auckland radio station. We were number one there at the time. They just invited us to do these recordings sessions.

The band is very young in every sense of the word. It’s early in their career, and their lives. A year ago none of this existed. There were no songs, no recordings, and no band. Where the idea of the band comes from we cannot know. That part of the making of a band, any band is ineffable. Knowing the series of events does not reveal the truth of where intangible ideas come from.

JF: Are you even allowed to buy alcohol here?

CR: The law there is twenty-one years old, right? We have one 20-year-old, three 18-year-olds and one 19-year-old. None of us can to buy alcohol.

JF: None of you are 21? How are you to get drunk then?

CR: I don’t know. We’ll have to buy lots of vanilla extract.

JF: Are you drunk right now?

CR: I can be if you want. It might make the interview more lively.