Missing Minuit.

Missing Minuit?

Ruth Carr and Paul Dodge tell Giga Girl what the internet has done for the band.

How did you end up playing together?
Ruth: It was an act of God.
Paul: Y'know, one of those things that you can't insure against.

When did you move to Sydney and what made you decide to move there?
Ruth: We came here for summer. I don't know about you, but I needed some heat and I needed some sun and I needed it NOW!

Is there a big market for your style of music in New Zealand? What about overseas?
Ruth: There ain't no big market for our kind of music in New Zealand, but that suits us fine. Minuit isn't a mainstream music type of thing. Overseas there is a bigger market of course, but that is because in New Zealand you will have 5,000 people into a scene. In somewhere like Germany you will have 5 million 'cos there are more of them than us.
Paul: We've been lucky to get some videos on TV and stick at the band and eventually a few people have found out about us and the best comments we get are from hardcore Sepultura t-shirt-wearing metallers who say: 'not usually into that type of music but I like you guys.' I still don't understand that! No one does. But yeah, definitely in Europe there's a lot more opportunity 'cos there are more people. But that doesn't mean their music is streets ahead. I think there's really interesting music coming out of New Zealand, a lot of style, and when you take that overseas it's quite evident. The guys from Crystal Method saw Minuit play at the Big Day Out in Auckland and they were blown away; going on about how energetic and fresh it was. We were pretty chuffed.

How do you feel about people downloading music? Is it a good thing or a bad thing?
Ruth: It's good when I do it, but bad when everyone else does it.
Paul: Well it's sharing really. Someone says, 'Hey I've got this band here, wanna listen?' I listen to heaps more music now that it's easier to track down.

Who looks after your website and MySpace page?
Ruth: Paul.

How much time do you spend on your MySpace page?
Ruth: He spends a million hours a day. It pisses me off.
Paul: I wish there were a million hours in the day.

Do you find the website beneficial in enlarging your fan base?
Ruth: Actually, yes definitely, because them folks in other countries can find out and listen to music and buy stuff from a little band in New Zealand they will have never seen, and would never have been played on their radio stations or their MTV.
Paul: It's kinda like what they always promised us, 'the internet - bringing people together'. I love how everyone has the same amount of power. A 15-year-old in Wainuiomata can make just as good a page as the label that runs Bloc Party. And that 15-year-old can say, 'Nah, I don't wanna be one of your friends or read your emails, y'know?' Or, 'yes I do'. It's up to them. But it's brilliant for bands. 'Cos there's a form to it. If I send someone a request, a band or a promoter or a random person who seems to be into our kinda music in Bulgaria, they know what to expect when they check out your page. And they can tell pretty quick whether it's something they'd be into, then they can hear a track and see some pics and voil� - they've got a pretty good idea what Minuit is about. So it's not just a random faceless email. It's actually an email with, er, a face. But also being able to find labels and venues and people, it's just so much easier than going to the 'contacts' page on a website, cos you're all on the same website! We've had some pretty cool hookups come out of MySpace but also lots of people have hooked up with us. It's definitely worth doing if you've got a project that's on the go.

How much of a role does technology play in your music? Are you all techy or does one of you take the lead?
Ruth: In all our recordings you can here the hum of my laptop because I have my lyrics on the screen when singing, and it's weird that it makes a sound. It is like it's trying to get on the album too, little skank.

Paul: I find the funniest thing about technology is that it's the biggest waste of time. I get broadband to make internet quicker. And now I spend more time on the internet than ever. And I have a cellphone so I can contact anyone anytime I like. And I do exactly that, all the time! I don't know how many hours I've spent sifting through new 'sounds' that I've downloaded. Hundreds of them. And they're all fantastic. They really are. And they're all such pretty colours. But there's so many, it's hard to choose just one sound. So I don't. And . well, nothing gets done. I think about those old blokes who made music years ago. They just did it, sometimes with just a voice or a set of drums. And it moves you, or makes you dance. And now we have these immensely powerful and interactive tools to make the most beautiful music in the world, but we get lost in the process. It really is quite tragic. Grip that arrogant beast known as 'the home computer' by the throat and actually produce something, will ya!

Are you all involved in producing your albums?
Ruth: Uhmm, I'm probably not. Except for saying stuff like 'I like that', 'I don't like that', 'can we make this song faster?', 'can we make the drums crazy?', 'can we change the time signature?', 'can you make my voice sound better?', 'can I leave the studio now?', 'can I not sing that again, I wanna go?' etc etc etc ad nauseam.
Paul: Yeah, all the tracks are written on computers. Ryan has a studio and he engineers all our tracks, which is basically mixing them and making them sound hot! Both he and I come up with ideas. The last couple of years we've actually been hooked up by Steinberg so we both run Cubase on PCs at home legitimately, which is pretty cool! And Ruth takes those ideas away and makes up lyrics and tunes and hands us back the elements of a song. Then we jumble those around and structure it into a track. And suddenly you've got a song. It's quite incredible how technology has changed the music market. Bands don't need major labels to bankroll them. They can record themselves, license it off to an indie label to promote and distribute digitally and actually make some money back from it. This really is beautiful time for musicians!! That's the theory, but it's like I said before, technology is just the tool. And it's easy to forget that the product, or what you do with it, is the important part.

Do you have a favourite gadget or piece of technology?
Ruth: Technology is always disappointing me. Stuff never does what I think it should, it's never as great as it should be, and it never is as simple to use as it could be.
Paul: Ha! That's true. I got an iPod when they first came out and I still feel like it's new, but it's actually archaic, 'cos the new ones go to the shop and get the milk for ya.

Where did you go to school?
Ruth: Prison.
Paul: Nelson Boys (kinda felt the same).

When you were at school did you want to be in a band?
Ruth: No. But I was in an all-girl band for a bit, just because all the bands we knew were all boys and it pissed us off.
Paul: Yep, I was. So was Ryan, we were all guitar kids back then.

Did you go to university/tech and if so, what did you study and where?
Ruth: Victoria University, and tech in Nelson and Wellington.
Paul: Not really. I learnt to do graphic design on the job at a publishing company and, er, that's about it.

What's the best thing about being in a band?
Ruth: You get to make music.
Paul: You get to make music.

Links

www.minuit.co.nz
www.myspace.com/minuittheband

Photo credit: 2007 Roger Grauwmeijer / RokPx.com

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