Ahead of an Australian tour, The Bats’ Robert Scott talks to RENÉ SCHAEFER about the makings of the “Dunedin Sound”, balancing rock’n’roll with day jobs and what it’s like holding onto the same line-up for 27 years.

It’s impossible to underestimate the importance of Dunedin stalwart Robert Scott to New Zealand music. After founding one of the country’s most influential and beloved bands, The Clean, in 1978 with David and Hamish Kilgour, the bassist soon discovered his own prodigious and prolific songwriting talent.

Scott contributed a plethora of memorable songs to the Clean’s oeuvre and was present at the inception of the Flying Nun record label, whose early releases by such artists as The Chills, The Verlaines, Sneaky Feelings and Look Blue Go Purple defined the “Dunedin Sound”. Taking advantage of the sporadic nature of The Clean’s existence, Scott branched out with his own group The Bats in 1983. It soon became clear that this was a band of considerable originality.

The Bats’ intricate, yet muscular, sound is built around the juggernaut rhythm section of drummer Malcolm Grant and bassist Paul Kean (ex Toy Love). Robert Scott’s signature guitar style consists of an up-tempo electric guitar jangle, eschewing cliched effects and distortion for the pure electricity of his steadily propulsive strum. Guitarist Kaye Woodward contrasts this electric storm with sparse, yet highly melodic, lead lines that soar and swoop like high-spirited birds across the grandiose vistas conjured by Scott’s songs.

This unique sound was probably best captured on The Bats’ classic albums Daddy’s Highway (1987) and The Law Of Things (1988), which perfectly melded Scott’s melancholic musings with the band’s exuberant post-punk folk-rock on songs such as ‘North By North’ and ‘Smoking Her Wings’.

Flying Nun’s burgeoning international reputation in the late 1980s, fuelled by rave reviews in independent music zines and crucial exposure on American college radio, allowed The Bats to take their music far beyond the parochial hubs of Dunedin and Christchurch. Still, they steadfastly returned to their home base. Through this, and taking lengthy periods off to concentrate on other projects, they have maintained an enviable longevity as a band and a close friendship as individuals.

While never having transcended their cult status, they still consistently deliver strong albums that can easily hold their own next to their early work. Indeed, The Bats have never delivered a “bad” or lackluster album and their latest release, The Guilty Office (out in Australia through Mistletone), is as musically and emotionally charged as could be expected from a group of musicians who still love playing and writing together in the third decade of their collaboration.

The Bats are one of the few bands that I can think of who’ve had the same line-up for their entire 27-year career. It seems like each element is indispensable to your sound. Is the band more than the sum of its parts?
Yeah, I guess it is. We each have our own role and fill it well. We have learnt to cope with each other's shortcomings and foibles very well [laughs].

Tell me about The Bats’ songwriting process. Do you all get together and jam? How do you decide which songs become Bats songs and which are more suited to other projects, like Minisnap, or Robert Scott solo albums?
We do get together and jam in the studio, and that’s how songs like ‘The Guilty Office’ came to be. Most of the songs on the new album I had written about a year or so beforehand. I usually start with the chords and a vocal melody. I give it to the others and they work out their parts, then we fine tune it when we get together for album rehearsals. We sometimes write together during soundchecks. That can be quite fun and a different vibe too. We got a few songs together like that in Amsterdam recently. There are a few Bats songs that could go on a solo album and vice versa, but I'm not sure about that for Minisnap.

How important are the lyrics in The Bats? Are there particular themes running through your songwriting?
Whoooo … tricky! I think there are themes but I don't know what they are until later when someone tells me. Overall it's dark observations on the human condition with a bit of twisted beautiful landscape thrown in for good measure. I try and vary what I do and I hope I don't repeat myself too much.

You have a strong fanbase in North America, as a result of Flying Nun records finding their way there in the mid- to late-’80s, and bands being able to tour there on the back of that exposure. Do you think The Bats would have lasted this long if you hadn’t ventured outside of your country?
Good point. I don't think we would still be going if there was no interest outside of NZ. It gives us a great boost to know we are appreciated around the world; it does give us something to aim at. It does seem as though our music comes across as being a bit different from the norm. Maybe it’s the isolation, being stuck down here, that gives us the South Pacific/Antarctic sound: warm yet cold.

“Overall it's dark observations on the human condition with a bit of twisted beautiful landscape thrown in for good measure.”

Why do you think New Zealand bands are so reluctant to tour Australia? I’m thinking in particular of The Clean here, but it appears to apply across the board.
For a long time Australia was seen as a difficult place to tour, even though a lot of great bands came from there. The feedback was a little slow in coming to our ears and we were all busy listening to what Europe and the US was saying about us. Also there hasn't been a lot of record company help to make the tours happen. Over the last few years it has been much better of course, and we always have great shows when we make it over. Also with Hamish [Kilgour] being in New York, The Clean don't tour that much. Now that both bands have local record companies, you will be seeing more of us.

The Bats have maintained a very distinctive signature sound over the years, which is still very much in evidence on your new album, The Guilty Office. Was that consistency deliberate?
Not really. We usually operate within our own comfort zone. We tend to not take too many chances. This could be seen as a weakness too. So overall our sound is consistent because we do approach a lot of the songs in the same way, for example, chords with a lead figure over the top with bass and drums. We like to have songs that are easy to play live and not dependent on machines. We intend to change the formula for the next album.

Out of the many many songs you’ve written, do you have any favourites or particular ones that you are most proud of?
No, not really. Whatever is the most recent and getting good reviews, or a good response from the crowd. New ones like ‘Countersign’, ‘Stepping Out’ and ‘Two Lines’ went down very well on tour, and I think ‘Castle Lights’ is a well put together tune.

It’s often perceived that there was rivalry between the proponents of the “Dunedin Sound” and the more experimental or noisy bands, to some extent identified with Bruce Russell’s Xpressway label. The Bats always seemed to have a foot in both camps though, working with violinist Alastair Galbraith, Robert playing with The Dead C’s Michael Morley in The Weeds and having Brent McLachlan from Bailter Space co-produce The Law Of Things. So was that rivalry just a beat-up or did it really exist?
It was a beat-up, I think, and it makes for a nice story too. Maybe there was a little looking down one’s nose going on here and there between the camps, but there were also some good collaborations too. The scene is a bit too small to have that kind of thing going on, but I guess that didn't stop the Norwegian Death Metal scene from not getting on.

When you guys aren’t playing together, how do you occupy your time? I’m guessing none of you would be able to make a living purely from music.
True. I am a teacher aide doing music with kids aged five to 12, here in Port Chalmers. Paul organises events for the Christchurch city council, Kaye teaches English to foreign students and Malcolm works for [non-governmental organization] the IHC. So, yes, we enjoy escaping into the scruffy world of rock‘n’roll.

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The Bats will perform on Saturday, August 8, at The Hopetoun Hotel, Sydney. Their August 7 show at the Northcote Social Club, Melbourne, has sold out.

THE BATS: A SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

By Night
EP, 1984

And here is…’Music For The Fireside’
EP, 1985

Made Up In Blue
EP, 1986

Daddy’s Highway
Album, 1987

The Law Of Things
Album, 1988

Completely Bats
Compilation of early EPs, 1990

Fear Of God
Album, 1991

Silverbeet
Album, 1993

Courage
EP, 1993

Spill The Beans
EP, 1994

Couchmaster
Album, 1995

Afternoon In Bed
EP, 1995

Thousands Of Tiny Luminous Spheres
Compilation, 2000

At The National Grid
Album, 2005

The Guilty Office
Album, 2008