Luger Boa – New Hot Nights Interview

Luger Boa Interview 18/08/11

Before Luger Boa took to the stage at The Royal on 19 August 2011, Terry sat down and had a chat with Jimmy.

Hi ya Jimmy. The latest album ‘New Hot Nights’ is a bit of a concept album could you please explain that for some of the people out there?

Well I guess the album musically and lyrically constitutes a long night out on K Road. Loosely or a re-imagined I guess, a semi observational piece about staying out all night and all the creatures that do that sort of thing. There’s one over there (Jimmy points over at a fellow band member).

What would you say were some of the differences between recording this album and ‘Mutate Or Die’?

The big difference was that album was very much a band recording whereas this album was recorded by a really tight unit the guys have been together for a little while and we played lots of shows and so the music was recorded in track live as a unit and then the arrangements were fixed up and the lyrics and vocals and stuff were done after that, where as essentially the first album cause the first album was a project that was worked on in bits and pieces  and assembled with the help of some good friends this was sort of a more breathing beast at the time and we spent ten days out where we worked it all out and then we went and we recorded it at a place in Waiuku and we stayed out there for ten days and we lived and breathed, played music and drank wine and yeah we had a good time. Had a really good time when it comes to it.

Musically what were some of the influences for the album because it’s quite diverse with a lot of genres coming through like there are different kinds of punk and even some funkier stuff with the likes of Downtown?

Yeah and even in Bank Robber there’s  a funkier kind of bass I guess we just threw the net a little wider and were pulling in influences that we like. It’s still really got a strong glam base sort of stuff obviously were all really big punk rock fans. I think with like Fuck the Kids particularly the punky number we were getting to the point where we were making kind of we didn’t want to make a rock record we wanted it to be a rock n roll record and we wanted to sort of throw some surprises in there in there that you know if you’re listening to it for the first time I don’t think that you would expect fuck the kids out of the back of Asteroids and Satellites you know like it’s so we tried to be quite majestic in places and twisted and punky in others and rock n roll so it’s still got that whole Bowie T-rex thing going on obviously a lot glam it’s got a great rhythm glam and were all great fans of that particular time. Glam fans. Yeah and we tried to get a bit of the same things in Bank Robber particularly have some funkier bass lines which give things space to groove particularly hanging out with Sam lockley as I have been for years there’s been a big injection of funk and soul. He does a good line in funk and soul. He has an amazing record collection.

Are you going to release New Hot Nights on vinyl?

Yeah I would like to release it on vinyl. It’s working out how to make it properly because one of the big parts of it is was the artwork all done in big gatefold glory with insert booklet type thing but the cost go through the fuckin roof with that sort of carry on so I’m just kind of weighing up how to do it you know there are vinyl fans here but I don’t know and that just keeps things fresh and everything exciting and just need some uncharted territory. How many people are gonna want to buy it on vinyl so I got to work out how to do it.

It’s been over a year now since you recorded New Hot Nights what’s in the near future for Luger Boa?

Well we would like to take it off shore. We will do this tour then we will be pushing it overseas. We have been talking about that for quite a while but it’s got to happen for us because I can’t control Joe any longer. This band hasn’t been overseas yet so were yet to experience it as a unit. The big thing about going overseas is that your capability of reaching your audience is larger and there’s lots more places to play here you just reach a point and we need to spread it wider.