The band are on the road, speaking from their car as they take a break from driving on their way to Queenstown to support Logan Edwards on his tour. Ammonita are about to release their debut EP, Spore, which encapsulates four of the band’s road-tested tracks.
The band met by chance, in the halls and around Otago University, where several of the members are currently studying science. “We started off doing music literally just because it was fun. We all met in the halls and around university, so doing education, but none of us were studying music at the time. it was kind of a weird moment where we all kind of happened to meet each other, and happened to play different instruments, and happened to have kind of a similar vision for the band. We always make this joke, there’s this band called Panchiko and they released an EP or an album like 30 years ago, then they broke up and 30 years later, someone who really liked the band tried to find them, and they got back together because of that. The hard thing is being a university band, we’re all in kind of an in-between stage, you know, everyone’s come to University but we’re all from different places… the band itself, whcih has been one of the hardest things for all of us, is that it might not last forever. But, if we got ‘Panchiko’d’, which is what we call it, then we might reunite one day, so who knows?” muses Zoe, as the conversation delves into the band’s potential future.
Planning the EP and making those selections was the cause of much discussion within the band, as the order in which the tracks appear and are intended to be listened to is deliberated. The four tracks lean into both the political and emotional realms, with the tracks eventually paired together, leading with the political before delving into the emotional. The EP was the next logical step in the band’s journey, with Zoe describing it as “it really kind of followed our evolution as a band. We started off writing songs like this one called Ruse that’s on the EP, and was one of the first songs we ever really wrote properly as a band, that we actually ended up liking. All the other songs came over time, afterwards, so it’s kind of like an evolution of the band.”
Despite the EP only being four tracks, the song Righteous Socialite almost didn’t make the cut. The track switches up the vocals, with drummer Zoe switching places with vocalist Paige for the song. “To be honest, we kind of knew that we wanted the four songs we had, but that one was definitely like ‘ooh, is that going to be too out of left field’, to have three songs with one vocalist and then one song that’s kind of, you know, rap metal and with a different vocalist. But I think we felt that it’s still all of us as band members, it’s still Ammonita. Then it kind of is a bit of something for everyone, I guess, in the EP as well, which we really liked. Righteous Socialite is a bit of a crowd favourite in a lot of ways as well, so it’s really cool to hear it recorded.”
Karl adds “I think also the main thing is becuase we always do our changes around on stage and stuff, we did want to capture that in the EP as well. It’s like, kind of a schtick, the thing we do. Kind of like just ‘hey, we’ve got more than one singer, sometimes I come up and sing as well. And we’re going to get one of our guitarists to come up and sing some stuff, because we can all play a range of instruments and when somebody isn’t capable of doing something, we help cover for each other to get the sound we want in the end.”
Perhaps the most political track on the EP, Righteous Socialite delves into the idea that in order to create real change, you can’t just sit on the sidelines. Zoe goes on to say “I guess it’s kind of one of those hard things that I feel, as someone, you know, we’re all very yound in the band as well, and you generally don’t have a lot of political power. It’s kind of hard, but generally a lot of people our age are very political at the same time. It’s kind of a thing, like you want to make political change, and get your opinions out there, but how do you do that without being the kind of people in those seats? It’s kind of impossible. But, I guess one of my opinions is that to make meaningful political change, you kind of do have to get into those seats, you do have to make your way there.”
The track is quite a jump from Walnut, the first single from the band, which was the first impression many of those outside Dunedin would have had of the band. But was it an accurate one?
“I would say, to a certain degree, yes, and no, at the same time. We definitely like to play around with a lot of emotional elements, and sadness and politics. Paige, our singer, has such a beautiful voice so there’s always this element of softer beauty, even to the heavier songs. So as much as Walnut was kind of, you know, a bit out of the way, it felt like it was a really nice sort of way to get people to step into our music. You can definitely hear some of the heavier elements coming in, but it’s not too crazy, but it’s not too soft either,” says Karl. “We thought it was just a really good in-between song to really just go ‘this is what we’ve got so far, we hope you want more’.”
For a band that describes themselves as a “live performance band”, recording in a professional studio for the EP was quite a different experience, with everyone’s parts being recorded individually. Perhaps one of the biggest learnings in Karl’s opinion was how “I feel like it taught us all a bit of a lesson in restraint as well, because when we go on stage, we’ve got so much energy. We’re so excited, so the song ends up going faster. We’re really in to it. We’re less thinking about ‘are we playing perfectly’ and more like ‘oh, what are we doing on stage’… I think it kind of taught us to balance our energy a bit more.”
The lead single from the EP, Jane’s Masquerade, explores a breakup from an outside perspective, looking at how those involved have interacted with one another, and trying to understand how someone can treat their partner in that way. “How do you process that, and process the idea that someone is just like that? And they don’t care about the fact that they’re like that? As Paige said, it’s a song about an evil woman, which we channelled into our music video that we’ll have coming out soon, so we’re super excited about that too,” Karl explains.
While the study of science may seem to be quite different from songwriting and the emotional exploration which the music facilitates, it’s the imagery which the environmental world offers which features prominently on the band’s artwork and imagery. “Our name Ammonita is inspired after the ammonita mushroom, and the ammonite fossil, and our EP has got pictures of sporous mushrooms and an ammonite shell on the back,” says Karl.
With the debut EP out today, the band never imagined that this would actually happen. “We always pictured ourselves as a live performance band, and recording songs was the dream. The biggest thing was winning Bring the Noise last year, that’s just been the catalyst,” says Zoe. “We would have tried to, I think, save up the money to record eventually, but having this boost has helped so much, and especially having the experience going to Sublime (recording studios) and just making so many connections, has done so much for us as a band. We’re just so grateful that we’ve had the opportunities that we’ve had, and that we’ve gotten to play these shows that we’re playing and meeting people that we know like our songs, that’s all we want out of it. It’s just so fun, you know? … We’re just so excited for the EP to come out, because I think that’s the awesome thing about this kind of stuff, even if the band doesn’t last forever, that will last. That will always be around.”
One thing the band are looking forward to is having their album available on CDs, which they plan to sell at their upcoming live shows. Zoe shares “We really value physical media, stuff that lasts a lifetime, you know? That is the stuff I think we live for as musicians, I think that’s what everyone wants, you know, just being able to have something to look back on, and go, ‘yeah, I did that, that was cool.”
The debut EP from Ammonita, Spore, is available on streaming platforms from Monday 13th July, with the upcoming music video for Jane’s Masquerade due for release the following week, on July 20th. The band celebrate the release on July 24th at Pearl Diver, Dunedin – get your tickets now from UndertheRadar.
