The Dunes are band whose sound, like their line-up, has expanded exponentially with time.
2014's 'Badlands' EP established them and stands up solidly alongside their international pysch-rock contemporaries.
The band are set to play a show in their native Adelaide ahead of the release of some new material. “I'm one of the organisers of it as well so I've been fairly busy getting it all lined up and planned as well as getting this new single for The Dunes ready to come out,” says bassist and event organiser Adam Vanderwerf, of the band's upcoming show at Wintersteady, which is part of the Umbrella: Winter City Sounds programme.
“Our last show in Adelaide was back in February; we played a bit of a psych-rock show/ festival for the Fringe. From there we decided to take a break and basically focus on writing new material for an upcoming full-length album.”
The band's new single 'Mountain' is a true journey for new listeners, but is a strangely familiar trip for diehard fans. “We're still in the writing process of the album itself, but 'Mountain' we'd recorded a little while back and we've been sitting on the track deciding what to do with it.
“Our synth player is working in Sydney at the moment and he was back a couple of weeks ago so we decided to finish off the track, get it ready, and push it out. The direction of the track is definitely what the album will follow. Whether 'Mountain' will find it's way onto the album, we're not sure yet. We're pretty happy with the song; it's been in our live set for about four months.”
It's always obvious when you listen to a band who really know what they want from their music; The Dunes are a prime example of this, taking great care and passion with both the creation and production of their sound. “All of our previous stuff has been recorded with a guy around town, Matt Hills,” Adam says.
“Basically we'll sit there with him and have a lot of the input in production. We're fairly strong-minded and we're pretty passionate about the sound that we want and it's great having someone like Matt to sit there and listen to our ideas and help us put it down into our music.
“What sort of inspires us is trying to write something that's our own, but kind of taking inspiration from those old bands of the '60s. A lot of us listen to those old '60s nuggets compilations as well.
“It's not necessarily the song structure that we get from those guys, but a lot of the tones. They've got the old really nasty, gnarly fuzz-tones and the driving drum beats and those '60s-sounding keys. We're really into that and that's definitely reflecting on a lot of the stuff that we're writing at the moment.”
When it comes to jamming, like throwing a party, it's a lot easier when you have your own place. “Most of the songs that we write and record are written as a band; there's not one person that comes in with a finished song. We've got a jam space here in the city that's ours so we can just rock up whenever we want and write and demo as long as we want.
“A lot of what we do is just sit down in the room and play and record everything and sit back and listen to it and see what we can turn into a song. It keeps things fresh as well when everyone has an input.”
The Dunes play Wintersteady, as part of Umbrella: Winter City Sounds, at the Crown & Anchor Hotel (Adelaide) 23 July.
