New Zealand’s freely improvising rock trio The Dead C are always electric, always jacked in. So, issuing a four-disc set of festival engagement recordings from between 2002 and 2013 doesn’t seem like the most outlandish move for an act that’s almost 30 years old and doesn’t often play the same song twice—if ever.
The group, comprised of guitarists Bruce Russell and Michael Morley and drummer Robbie Yeats, has often been seen as an adjunct to the Dunedin Sound, which was a largely pop-oriented movement down there during the early 1980s. But The Dead C, despite counting Yeats, who was initially a member of the relatively traditional Verlaines, as its backbeat, cut a noisy swath through the avant-garde, becoming something like New Zealand’s Sonic Youth, minus the occasional boring pop song and divorce.
Russell, who had a hand in both Flying Nun Records and the Xpressway imprint, which were responsible for bringing the rest of the world acts like The Clean and Peter Jefferies, has cultivated a solo performance practice, while culling academia for ways to investigate his notions of improvisation and sound. The Dead C might just be a part-time ordeal at this late date, but its pending release serves to remind listeners of its undeniable strength and the limitless possibility of performing for three decades and not really knowing how to properly play an instrument.
Paste: Is everyone scattered around New Zealand at this point?
Bruce Russell: Not exactly, but there are two main cities in the south island: Christchurch and Dunedin. And for the last 20 years, I’ve lived near Christchurch and the other two have lived near Dunedin—about five hours’ drive apart.
Paste: Has that influenced the way you guys practice—or however you would refer to playing together?
Russell: Yeah, don’t say “practice.” I think it’s really helped us, because by the time I moved here, we’d already established a very improvisational method. At that point [1994], we’d already had seven years of playing together and some of that time was living in the same house…As a matter of fact, I think it’s helped us maintain our longevity. We don’t live in each other’s pockets that much.
Paste: In addition to dispensing with “practice,” I’ve heard you refer to yourself as a novice guitar player. Does that create limits for the Dead C?
Russell: I’ve gone out of my way to not learn how to play properly. That’s absolutely true, but I’ve never found that to be the case. There are two parts to it. I always want to keep having surprises happen for myself by—if you like—not mastering my instrument and periodically, just starting to use different instruments. I’ve spent quite a lot of time with keyboards and various things.
I don’t not just practice with the band, I don’t practice. I very, very seldom pick up an instrument when I’m not just about to perform or record something. That means that it’s often two or three months since I’ve touched a guitar. I’ve tried to keep it like that because I want to keep it fresh and interesting for me, and that seems to have worked. I haven’t reached the limit of unorthodox things that I can do with a guitar. The limit of my orthodox guitar playing happens after about 30 seconds.
Paste: Is there a language you use when you play? It’s different than a Chuck Berry solo, but there’s at least phrasing.
Russell: The distinction is that, all improvisation is based more on listening than playing. A group like AMM, they might be listening to other players, but my musical practice is based around listening to my amp. I’m not listening to the other two. What I’m doing is going into the sound of some very particular electronic equipment that malfunctions…I’m just endlessly fascinated by the sound that circuitry makes when it’s being abused.
Paste: The Twelfth Spectacle [issued in cooperation with Ba Da Bing and Grapefruit Record Club] is a pretty significant release and put together interestingly. Is it the first time you’ve compiled an album this way?
Russell: I guess it would be the first time we’ve done anything on that scale, but it’s worth noting that the difference between a live and studio album in our work is slightly an academic question at times. Albums that appear to be studio are at times recorded in a live setting…The difference here is the span of time; this is the 21st century surveyed in a purely live-performance setting.
One of the mainstays of our career now, is the festival engagement. And [2002] was the first time we’d done one of those. Previously, we’d played outside of New Zealand, but we’d organized tours. But this is when someone says, “We’ve got this chunk of money,” and there’s this big-ass thing going on. That model has given us the opportunity to go and play in remote-to-us areas. So, we just amassed a bunch of recordings from a bunch of these events, where naturally, the sound is generally pretty pristine…It’s always different if you’re in a shitty little club with 30 people. Those are often the best gigs, but not the best-sounding gigs.
Paste: Since all of the recordings—live or otherwise—are of the moment, what do you think the success rate is?
Russell: In any show we do, the arc of the performance, we have a defined period of time. Ideally, it’s not going to be less than an hour…It’s like a steam locomotive or an oil tanker: It takes a while to get up to speed. So, there’s always an arc where we’re working out where it’s going to go, and there’s a period of time when we get there and sometimes, we’ll veer off on a sudden tangent…It varies. Personally, I think our hit rate is somewhere in the region of 65-75 percent. The rest of it’s just part of the journey.
Paste: How does the Dead C fit into your other endeavors—other recordings and your writing?
Russell: The Dead C is very much a part-time engagement, because opportunities are occasional. I have a full-time job—I manage an art school in Christchurch. I’m also engaged in a doctoral research project that I’ve been doing for the last six years or so.
There’s always this question that comes up: “Are you a rock band or are you some kind of art project?” And the answer is probably, yes, both of those things. For me, theory and practice are two sides of the same coin. Yeah, I write books and perform with the band…It’s reflecting on the experience of doing a practice, which is what we do in the Dead C. At the risk of sounding incredibly pretentious, being a writer and “theoretician,” for me, is the same as being in the band. Of course, when I’m doing stuff with the band, we don’t sit around talking about theory; we just have a beer and do it.