Recently we were lucky, or unlucky enough, depending on how you look at it, to have a chat with BC Michaels and Brett Jansch from Dune Rats.
Between frequent off-topic rants they told us a bit about their recent overseas tour, how Scott Green came to be and dished out a wealth of life wisdom to boot.
Who’s Scott Green? We delve into the mysterious, clouded minds of stoner rock trio the Dune Rats to find out.
HAPPY: How was the tour?
BC: Fucking awesome fun.
BRETT: (very sarcastically) It had its ups and it had its downs, but more often than not it was something we could let our hair down to and sink our teeth into. And Canada you can set your watch to.
HAPPY: I have no idea what that means.
BRETT: You can just set your watch to it. It’s a good joint.
HAPPY: Favourite part?
(at this stage Brett begins explaining something with hand movements, and completely derails my question…as expected)
BRETT: I one time got this sticker from Bali, you know how you get stupid stickers from there? This one said ‘suck the parts out of my ass’.
HAPPY: Did you put it on your car?
BRETT: I put it on my guitar case, which is pretty much my car. I take it round everywhere.
HAPPY: Do you guys ever get sick of each other?
BRETT: All the time. After the tour we didn’t speak for a week, I was stoked about it.
HAPPY: I feel like you guys are always together though, do you actually ever get any time apart from each other?
BC: I wish we had more time apart.
BRETT: When we do I’m just cheering.
BC: I’m going on holidays with Brett’s mum soon and we’re not inviting Brett.
BRETT: We actually tried to call a family holiday once, and we (including BC) got stuck in Sydney and missed the holiday. We arrived at the airport and everyone had already left.
HAPPY: So does that mean you’re like the leftover of your family?
BRETT: Leftovers. BC is also a loser, it’s not just me.
HAPPY: Tell me about Scott Green, where did that come from? It actually took me ages to figure out that it meant ‘Who’s got green?’
BRETT: Well you know it doesn’t actually work if you say ‘I Scott Green’. I’d rather people just say I’ve got some weed. Maybe ‘I Scott Green’ would work?
BC: We did it in Joshua Tree in the States.
BRETT: We were driving around the streets asking dudes for weed, I thought someone would have weed because it was California. Everyone was heaps more like “nah I don’t have weed I only do ice and meth”. Seriously. Then we went to this vape shop to try and ask the dude working there if he had any medicinal weed, and I had to suck on his vape and it got hell awkward. I didn’t want to smoke a tobacco thing or anything, so I just had to awkwardly have a vape with him. So then we asked this dude at the grocery store, he had cancer and went on this big spiel and he ended up getting the weed for us. And he beat cancer! I guess that’s a nice ending then.
BC: Yeah, and he had this massive pool full of old bikes and shit at his house.
HAPPY: So you actually went to his house?
BRETT: Yeah, he was like “oh sorry dudes it’s going to be a 30 minute drive”, so we were thinking yeah bullshit it’s going to be more like an hour and a half, but it was five minutes away. So who says it’s going to be longer than it is?
BC: Maybe he meant it was going to be a 30 minute walk.
BRETT: You know what, that checks out. Because he fully didn’t have a car as well.
HAPPY: How’s the reception for it been?
BC: It’s ok. Not going to toot our own horn.
BRETT: Hey there’s a guy over there in a suit with a gun.
BRETT: (To fellow Happy writer/photographer Brooke Tunbridge) Hey what’s on the front of your hat?
BROOKE: Red Boy. They’re from Newcastle.
BRETT: Is it a band?
BROOKE: Nah, it’s a brand, they make hats.
BRETT: Sick, that’s cool! Give us a hat cunt!
HAPPY: Do you find it hard on your personal life when you’re touring so much?
BC: I don’t really have a personal life.
BRETT: Yeah I don’t really have one.
HAPPY: That’s a bit sad.
HAPPY: What happened with the tour bus getting stuck on the road when you were overseas?
BRETT: Well the driver just went down a heaps steep hill and it got stuck half on the flat road and half on the hill. We didn’t mind though, it wasn’t our problem. Everytime he crashed the bus we just sat in the back like “ah well, not our fault, not our problem.”
HAPPY: How many times did he crash it?
BC: Undisclosed.
BRETT: This is the nicest weather I’ve been in for ages. Have you been to Fiji?
HAPPY: Yeah, I went for schoolies.
BRETT: Is there much there? Like those swim up bars? We need to find like a poor man’s paradise, like sort of like Bali but not Bali.
BC: I want to go to Sri Lanka. It sounds sick there.
HAPPY: You’ve never been there before?
BRETT: Nup, I’ve never done any of Indonesia. I’d like to just take a backpack and no luggage, because otherwise you can’t just jump on a train and do whatever. Like I want to go on one of those trains with all the people hanging out the side.
BC: Did he just say if you have luggage you can’t go on the train? What the fuck does that mean? Oh yeah the good thing about not having luggage is that you can go on the train.
HAPPY: Brett is just full of wisdom today.
BC: Yeah, life wisdom, don’t take luggage so you can get on a train.
HAPPY: When’s new music coming out?
BC: Fucking hell we just released a song.
HAPPY: Yeah well you’ve had a bit of a break so you’ve got to do something else.
BRETT: If it’s anything like our history, fucking ages. We might just coast along a little bit more.
BC: Yeah we don’t even release music, we just play a shit load of shows.
HAPPY: Yeah I’ve noticed that.
BC: Hey you’re not meant to say that, you’re meant to be nice and tell us we’re doing well.
BRETT: We’ll see how we go today; we’ve got to play for an hour.
BC: Do we really, are you serious? Who the fuck wants to see us for an hour?
BRETT: We’ll just fill in the time with a couple of shoeys, have a bit of a chat. She’ll be right.
The Dunies’ new album The Kids Will Know It’s Bullshit is out on February 3rd. They’re also on tour in March. Find out everything you need to know right here.
