INTERVIEW: The Drab Doo-Riffs

Supergroove vocalist turned academic Karl Steven won’t tell me the story behind his new band, the Drab Doo-Riffs’, name. However, he is willing to give me a hint, a hint I will now share with you. “What do Dune, Lord of the Rings II - whatever that's called - Star Trek: Voyager, Deadwood and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest have in common?” he asks cryptically. Go figure. Make what you want of it. Formed a while ago, but definitely not a long time ago (although Steven might like you to think that), in a galaxy far, far away, Auckland quintet the Drab Doo-Riffs write unrepentantly fun surf rock/punk with a particularly tribal rhythmic emphasis. “We're humans, human life is rhythmical…walking, heartbeats, lungs, day/night, working, sex, death, music,” says Stevens. Add to that some neat classic sci-fi/horror movie sound effects, as well as plenty of those classic surf guitar motifs we all know and love.

Formed through a series of musically grounded connections, the Drab Doo-Riffs and their song ideas all originally stem from Stevens, who more than comfortably describes his songwriting process with statements like, “Sometimes I just blow my nose on a tissue and bring that, and we end up with a song.” And then there is his multifarious vocal co-conspirator/professional coffee drinker (and op-shopper), Caoimhe Macfehin, who describes her vocal influences as, “Doo wop, Mariah Carey's Christmas album...the usual stuff." Let’s not even get started on the rest of the band. They’ve released an EP, Bury Me In Drab, plan to release another one soon (Postcards From Uranus), and have, in Stevens words, “played fun shows on primary school stages, on the back of flatbed trucks surrounded by Hot Rods, at a town hall behind a burlesque dancer, and at a roller derby mini-match,” and this is only the beginning. As Stevens concludes, “I take fun very seriously…the [ultimate] goal [for the Drab Doo-Riffs] is to make good shit and have good times doing it…pretty logical if you have a wide definition of logic and allow for a few suppressed premises.”

The Drab Doo-Riffs Myspace

This interview and many more like it appear in the June/July issues of Rip It Up magazine.