The Times Interview - Ruban Nielson from The Mint Chicks, Explain Yourself to PJ Taylor

Wednesday, 23 April 2008

• Howick and Botany Times

KALEIDOSCOPE EYES: The Mint Chicks, Ruban Nielson, Kody Nielson and Paul Roper, are poised for new directions after their national tour ends during NZ music month. They play the King's Arms on Anzac Day night (Friday). Photo supplied.

THE Mint Chicks is one of the big names dominating the New Zealand music scene, after collecting five Tui awards last year for their Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No! album, including for best album and rock group. They’re known for some amazing onstage antics, including when vocalist Kody Nielson climbed, hung and sang from a lighting rig while the band played on, at a gig at AUT last year with Shihad (the Quad rocked that night). As NZ music month nears and the Smokefreerockquest celebrates 20 years, The Mint Chicks, whose members all met at Orewa College, are proof that you can dream and work hard at music as a teenager and if you’re good enough, be in a working band travelling the world by your early 20s. You’re now based in Portland, Oregan, with its strong musical pedigree, producing people such as Robert Cray (Times, April 18, 2006) and its links to grunge. Why Portland? Are you launching an attack on the North American music scene? Did you think you’d have as much success in New Zealand in such short time? How have you gone down in Australia? What’s your attitude to the dynamic performance side of what you do? Will it change now you’re based in the Northern Hemisphere? Have you played Britain and Europe? Are there plans to make The Mint Chicks better known in that hemisphere?NME How did you come together as The Mint Chicks? And what’s with the band name? What are some of the more entertaining moments of being in The Mint Chicks? Who have been your musical influences?