GET IN THE VAN // Dune Rats Blazin’ A Trail at Laneway Festival

Mar 16, 2017 / WORDS Benjamin Pratt / PHOTOS Matt Warrell / Sneak peak of what's inside Issue 51

“We’re still pretty broke,” sprays BC Michaels, drummer of Brissie’s weed toking, beer-guzzlin’ gutter-punk party boys Dune Rats, with a smile, a beer and mild enthusiasm for self-inflicted financial destitution. “We all still live with our mums,” says Danny Beausa, guitarist, vocalist and dice-throwin’ bandit of the band, echoing Michaels with a knee-slappin’ chuckle and clink of half-empty beer bottles.

It’s Friday afternoon and BC, Danny and bassist Brett Jansch are hanging out, having a few beers, indulging in juvenile shenanigans. Pretty much exactly what you’d expect from a band with their own beer and a catalogue of songs titled Bullshit, Dalai Lama Big Banana Marijuana, Drugs, Braindead and 6 Pack. They seem a little hammered, slightly blazed—ready for this interview.

“The first day we found out we got number one we partied pretty hard,” BC says with complete disbandment for finances beyond the essentials of partying, drinking and music. “I think we spent all the money we made from CD sales on a party … but you’re not number one everyday,” he says, taking a mouthful of beer.

I think we spent all the money we made from CD sales on a party … but you’re not number one everyday.
[BC Michaels]

The record Michaels is talking about is The Kids Will Know It’s Bullshit, which debuted at number one on the ARIA chart—a prestigious, somewhat glorified title any band would be stoked on, let alone a band of stoners who drink beer like it’s water and play four chord punk-infused dirty rock ‘n’ roll. Do they deserve it—probably not, but they sure as shit got everyone talking about ‘em. Regardless, they haven’t changed; they’re still the hoodlums we came to know back when the video for Red Light Green Light dropped in 2013—‘member when they remade DZ Deathrays’ clip for The Mess Up and replaced all the shots of Jägermeister with bong hit after bong hit? Yeah, those guys are number one now.

Read our The Kids Will Know It’s Bullshit review here >

Being from Brisbane, The Dunies are part of this whole punk rock skater vibe coming outta here that’s been breaking the mainstream for the last couple of years. Spearheaded by them, as well as old mates DZ Deathrays and Violent Soho, they represent—like canvas shoes, flannelette shirts, empty swimming pools, cheap pot and the invention of skateboards—this thrash stoner rock movement of the Brisbane counter-culture scene, some fifteen years after the millennium, that proves success is accessible to anyone, even degenerate sewer-dwellers of punk.

“All of us started off in Brissie just drinking, hanging around a table one day, trying to figure out just how we could make what we were doing a full time thing,” Beausa says about the alcohol instilled beginnings with DZ. “Going to Europe with DZ was something really sick and helped us out a lot early on … You sort of start off doing that though [playing shows with your mates], just no one comes to the shows,” he laughs.
“To be able to play to that many people with your mates was … um …” Beausa stalls, all the beers in his body starting to catch up with his central nervous system. BC jumps in, “… It was pretty much what you’d expect from a bunch of mates hanging out, hitting big cities with more than a few beers going ‘round,” he says raising his beer in a congratulatory manner, not divulging too much behind the scenes information—either by virtue or lack of memory.