Part of the vibrant Pōneke scene, Debt Club has slowly been amassing a following through their multi-layered arrangements. Starting off as what River describes as “the traditional two guitars, bass, and drums”, the band soon expanded to include keyboards and saxophone, creating a unique sound despite having roots in heartland rock.
“I’m a big fan of Bruce Springsteen,” River continues, “and Alex who plays saxopohone, he’s from jazz school, so he’s got a jazz background, but he’s kind of versatile, he can play anything. We’ve got a new album coming out in August, and we tried to pull all the stops on it. We’ve got a bunch of friends in Pōneke playing various instruments, so there’s banjo on it, and lap steel, euphonia and cello.”
Originally starting as a group of friends jamming and experimenting together, the band has slowly grown and taken shape into the lineup we see today, with various musicians coming in and out throughout the journey, evolving into a serious band, but still just a group of friends jamming at its heart.
With the various instruments in the mix, the songwriting process is highly collaborative. “The way I write songs usually is on acoustic guitar, starting off with the bones of it, and then I don’t write the parts for everyone else. Everyone writes their own parts, we kind of bring it to the group and everyone will put their two cents in,” River describes. “It’s a lot of workshopping,” adds Elina. “You bring the song, and then you with with people one-on-one to get parts together, or sometimes we work as a big group to try and get the song together.”
The band’s current release, the ‘Taste for Stout’ EP, has been described as somewhat of a snapshot for a band figuring out its identity. River describes it as “definitely is a bit of a, like, it features sort of every part of what we do, I think. The new album is similar, but its definitely more thematically focused. That first EP was very much like just try and showcase all the different sides of our songwriting. Just in general, we put so much more thought in to the album, into the songwriting, what tracks went, the order, it was just so much more intentional. The recording process of the EP was very, we did one song here, another song there, and then like shift them all together, whereas this album was much more brought out, in terms of re-recording the songs; these two songs here, then these two songs.”
The album was finished up at Auckland’s Big Fan studios, which Elina credits as being instrumental to the completion of the album. “We were lucky enough to get a spot at Big Fan to finish off the album, which really helped. Just being able to smash out a bunch in one place, and really lock in and focus on it.”
Debt Club have a reputation for their sense of storytelling within their music, so we asked which other kiwi artists do they admire for their storytelling? “Oh, one of the first influences on my songwriting was Shane Carter of Straitjacket Fits, and then sort of all those bands that are associated with the Dunedin sound. And then Andrew Brough, who was also in Straitjacket, and his project called Bike. The album Take In The Sun was a huge thing for me,” says River. “It’s a very, like, New Zealand thing to not necessarily want to open up about your emotions or anything. And so, that kind of like, philosophy of songwriting is very much like look at the world, and look at other people, and kind of tell their stories. That’s definitely the sort of thing that I follow, I just find it hard to find extremely interesting things in my own life to write about. So it’s easy to, you know, wear the shoes of someone else and try to write about how they might feel in certain situations and things.”
As a songwriter, River feels drawn to writing about grief, loss, and dealing with everyday struggles. “Grief and losing people you love is a thing that I write a lot about. Our upcoming album, Foothold, its working title was Loser, which may be a bit on the nose. Lost of songs are just kind of like, about people who struggle in social situations, battling addiction to things and push people away, damage their own relationships.”
One thing which River loves about being based in Wellington is the variety of music which the city has to offer. “There’s so much variety happening in wellington, which is really cool in some ways becuase you find yourself always playing on bills with bands that, you work with them, but everyone brings something different. I think the lineup for this show is perfect because we all fit into the same category, but each band is unique.”
‘This show’ refers Live Nation’s “Ones to Watch”, a showcase for emerging talent which last hit Wellington back in 2024. “It’s a really exciting opportunity. I was looking at some of the bands who have played on it before as well, pretty amazing company. It’s just great to perform in front of a group of people who could be interested in your music, and can help you realise things, which is pretty awesome.” Thursday’s performance will be the last for a couple of months, as the band focus on their upcoming album release.
As any performing artist will know, things don’t always go according to plan, as was the case with a show the band played in Takaka. Elina tells us “it was a tiny stage, and we were all crammed on the stage. Towards the end of our very last song, Maxime lost a drumstick, and then he lost another drumstick. I was playing at the time with one arm, because I had a broken arm, and then his cymbals fell on me. He finished the set by just hitting the cymbals with his hands. It was the very last bit of the very last song, and the whole drum kit just fell apart,” an experience which may go down as perhaps one of the most ‘Debt Club’ things to happen at a live show.
The band’s first full-length album, Foothold, is coming out in a couple of month’s time, on August 12th. Elina laughs that people can expect “a wild ride”, with River going on to say that the band “went above and beyond on the instrumentation, the layering and the harmonies. Every song’s got crazy 3 or 4 part harmonies on it, and it’s just like, music in bright flashing lights, if you know what I mean? There’s not really any part of it that’s understated, you know? It’s quite an experience.”
Celebrating the launch of the album, the band are planning a yet to be announced tour, aiming to hit four of the country’s main centres, and coincidentally, the Wellington show features the same lineup as this Thursday’s show. Stay tuned to the band’s social media for the official announcement, yet to come.
Foothold is available for pre-order now, as both a digital album or limited edition vinyl, through Bandcamp.
