Predicting a Clap Clap Riot

New Zealand band Clap Clap Riot talk about their new album.

It's been a long time between drinks for Clap Clap Riot.  

Since forming in Christchurch in 2008, the four-piece has moved to Auckland, played the Big Day Out, Splore, Rhythm and Vines (twice) and toured New Zealand and Australia. They released an EP in 2009 and last year were nominated for a Silver Scroll Award. One thing they haven't done though is release an album.

Until now, that is. The bands' debut release, Counting Spins, is out this week and it seems it was the age-old issue of money that kept them so long.

"We've been busting our arse the whole time...with the exception of one of the singles on the album, it's been entirely self-funded... so it has taken a fair bit of time to get it all together," says guitarist Dave Rowland.

"There were two ways we could have gone with recording; we could have gone for a garage, home recording or do it in a professional studio. And we wanted to make sure the release was tolerable in a commercial realm, so it ended up meaning we had to put all that money into it."

Singer Stephen Heard says it was important for the band to retain a sense of independent ownership of the record, and doing it on their own terms meant having the freedom that comes with that.

"It was cool having the time to spend on getting sounds right and gelling and getting everything to sound like we wanted it to sound like. Rather than just going into a room and jamming out and getting that stuff later - we had time to fiddle with amps and play different guitars."

Recorded between Auckland's York Street Studios and Studio 203, Counting Spins features the Silver Scroll nominated track Everyone's Asleep, as well as handful of already radio-familiar singles.  

And these guys - Rowland, Heard, bassist Tristan Colenso and drummer Strachan Rivers - don't seem to be afraid of making radio-friendly music.

Asking someone to put a label on their art is often a painful exercise, but Clap Clap Riot are full of adjectives - "raw", "rock and roll" and "dirty" seem to be the popular ones, along with the naughty "p" word.

"It's a dirty pop record," says Rowland.

"One of the things people have said, is that we are this dirty, rock band, but we can't really steer clear of poppy melodies over the top, and so our songs have a really dirty feel to them, but over the top of that the vocals are quite poppy and the guitar melodies."

And while it might have taken a while to get here, these dirty pop and rollers are not stopping any time soon.

"We want to get our touring legs here in New Zealand," says Heard.

"Then by the end of the year we will work on number two, so the follow up is a lot faster... it's going to be bang, bang, bang for the rest of the year," says Rowland.

Counting Spins is out on Friday. Clap Clap Riot's album release party is at 4:20, K Rd in Auckland on Friday.  Tickets $10 from Under The Radar

- © Fairfax NZ News