New tricks for Mint Chicks

With a national tour, an EP and a bunch of fan competitions in the pipeline, indie-rockers the Mint Chicks are as busy as ever. Jule Schlerer, of NZPA, talks to guitarist Ruban Nielson about new ways for bands to push their music.

In times of faltering record sales and music labels being less willing to spend money on bands, the Mint Chicks are using new channels to reach out to their fans.

The reunited four-piece band has recorded an EP and set up three fan competitions.

The band, masterminded by brothers Kody and Ruban Nielson, have joined a web project called MusicHy.pe to explore new participatory models to promote their music.

The Wellington-based start-up company allows music fans to hook all their social networking websites together and tracks their music-related activity.

They are also planning to get bands and musicians on board and organise competitions, aimed at forming a closer bond between artists and their fans.

First up are the Mint Chicks.

"The thing that's in it for us is that we can create new ways of promoting ourselves that are separate from the traditional record company thing of just buying ad space etc," Ruban Nielson said.

"It's about spending way less money and seeing how much interest there is in the ideas we come up with."

He also wants the conversation with fans to go both ways.

"We honestly think of our `fans' actually as peers; many kids that come to shows and seem like fanboys end up being in bands and doing stuff that overshadows us.

"Our so-called fans are so often directors, musicians, journalists, designers etc," he said.

Using MusicHy.pe as a platform, the band asked fans to remix The Mint Chicks' 2007 hit Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!, design a new Mint Chicks T-shirt and to direct a video for the band's latest song, Bad Buzz.

Although Nielson enjoyed setting up the competitions, he sees this kind of interaction also as a matter of survival for musicians.

"If we didn't do it we'd become less and less relevant.

"It's important to me that we're constantly giving people the chance to get exposure for the things they create.

"Those people go on to do well and it's part of what we represent as a band, that we often give people a platform nobody else could have or would have given them.

"As the internet grows, this part of what we do becomes more prominent," he said.

Not only have marketing channels changed through the growth of the web, but the distribution of music and the mediums used have too.

The Mint Chicks have released their new EP, Bad Buzz - for now - only on a limited-edition USB stick.

The decision not to put out a physical release was due to a couple of reasons, one being that the band were still deciding in which direction they wanted to go after they finished their contact with major music label Warner, which had bought their contract from New Zealand's Flying Nun label.

After founder Roger Shepherd bought back Flying Nun late last year, rejoining the indie label might be an option.

For now, the Mint Chicks are happy with just putting out their music digitally.

Nielson said record labels these days were a lot less important, but most bands were stuck in an outdated state of mind.

"So many bands want somebody to come and do everything for them and hold their hand.

"It's not just record labels who are dying out, it's bands who want to be babysat by a corporation as well," he said.

Bad Buzz was recorded by the Nielson brothers in the garage of their Whangaparaoa home, staying true to their do-it-yourself approach used on all their recordings, including the multi-award-winning album Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!.

Nielson said the new material sounded "pretty eclectic and transitional", using the album Screens - released last March - as a starting point.

"It's very '60s-sounding at times", he said On Screens, the band, who once described their sound as trouble-gum pop, had developed a less noise-oriented and punk-inspired style, more focused on refined arrangements and songwriting.

For the EP they reunited with bass player Michael Logie, who had left the band when the Nielson brothers and drummer Paul Roper moved to Portland, Oregon in late 2007.

Whether he will be a full-time Mint Chick has not been decided yet.

"We're just making everything up as we go along," Nielson said.

"He's playing the tour but probably can't come to the States with us."

The brothers have dual citizenship, so it was easy for them to come and go, but that didn't apply for the others.

For now, they split their time between their new abode in the US and their hometown of Auckland.

In the future, fans will most likely see The Mint Chicks diving deeper in the world of the web to fish for opportunities.

But for now the band is keen to bring their energetic live performance on the road.

Catch them

The Mint Chicks play Orientation, Otago University Main Common Room, on Wednesday night.