The Brag

The Checks
One Deadly Summer
By Jonno Seidler

New Zealand’s The Checks burst out of the garage rock revolution at the beginning of the last decade, alongside the likes of The Strokes and The Hives. The band who the best in the world want as their support are getting set to preview their new record Deadly Summer Sway and launch its lead single ‘Candyman Shimmer’ at GoodGod next week. Having played alongside the big guns, including AC/DC, Oasis and the now-defunct R.E.M, drummer Jacob Moore tells me that it’s been a long road for his hard-working group, but they’re happy with where they’re at.

It’s no secret that the Checks were heavily inspired by The Strokes, but that’s not their only defining influence these days. Having been in the game for such a long innings, Moore cites “big and small bands, including The Mint Chicks, The Hives and Coshercot Honeys” as some of the groups who keep them on their toes. “You learn how to be professional by playing with the big bands, and you learn how to be mean by working with the smaller bands,” he laughs.

The Checks, like the true stalwarts they are, are on tour pretty much all of the time. Having just completed a gigantic loop of their native nation, they’re about to head off on another jaunt that will incorporate the Australian East Coast – and you have to wonder how the hell they do it. Moore is typically stoic about the amount of road and air miles his band is racking up. “Look, it’s great just being out there and doing it, you know?” he says. “We get to see how the audience respond to
new tracks and how the songs change throughout the tour.”

Deadly Summer Sway began life in an abandoned office block in Auckland’s CBD, which became The Check’s 24-hour living-and-working space. Their manager took over the floor and began renting out the space to artists in order to supplement the band’s income. “We had lots of late nights with Bassy Bob [Brockman, Grammy-award winning producer] in there, and sometimes it got a little hairy,” Moore admits. “The fire alarm went off a few times and we just kept going. You can actually hear it on one of the tracks, ‘Jetplane’. But it was really inspiring to not have any limits on ourselves and get the work done.”

Of course, you can’t actually put out a record that you mocked up in an empty building, so the group soon relocated to greener pastures, otherwise known as Roundhead Studio, owned by none of than NZ rock royalty Neil Finn. The Checks are fiercely patriotic when it comes to talking about their country. “New Zealand has a great history of very different interesting music genres, and it’s certainly a lot to be proud of,” he says. “Most of these indie bands that are becoming popular now sound like old ‘70s and ‘80s groups [anyway].”

On working with Brockman, an industry heavyweight who has worked with The Fugees and TLC among others, he’s relatively even-handed. “Usually the heavier these ‘heavyweights’ are, the more apprehensive you are about working with them,” Moore says. “Naturally you assume that people who are puffed up are full of air and not actually that good, but that wasn’t the case with Bob. He really brought out a new side to our playing.”
   
Having ditched SonyBMG to go independent (“been there, done that”), and already garnering praise from all sorts of international outlets and local press, it looks like The Checks may be puffing themselves up before long. “We’re just enjoying the experience. Any chance to get our stuff out there and go overseas is a good one for us.”

What: ‘Candyman Shimmer’ is out now
With: Underlights, Thieves, Pineapple Head
Where: GoodGod Small Club
When: Thursday December 15
More: Also playing with Andy Clockwise at Upstairs Beresford on Saturday December 17.