Soaked Oats Are Coming Across The Ditch

Soaked Oats are an emerging Kiwi band hailing from a nice little town called Dunedin.

Lo-fi late-night tunes that sound just like summer are what you can expect from the four-boy piece made up of Oscar Mein, Conor Feehly, Max Holmes, and Henry Francis. Unveiling their new video for Pink Beach, directed by Oscar's brother Jake Mein and on set to tour Australia .We called one of the boys, Oscar, to chat about their upcoming tour of Australia and get the low down on the New Zealand music scene.

First up, why Soaked Oats?

I ask myself that question now and again too.

Does someone just really like porridge or something?

My good friend Jack was doing some of our artwork and I told him I wanted something to do with oats, and he returned with that. More of a question for him, but he’s hard to get a hold of.

You’ve been to Australia before, right?

Yeah, a few times, but usually tend to hit the main Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne stops, but this is the first extensive tour.

You’ve got some pretty good venues lined up, I must say.

That’s good to know. I mean, we’ve played enough times to know the main spots and weasel out the crummier venues. Our label gave us some suggestions, but we booked this whole tour ourselves this time.

What is the best thing about the music scene in NZ?

There’s a humility to it in parts of the country.

The worst?

The opposite in other parts. The humility was what made it accessible for me to give it a go. There were many people in this scene who I thought were gods but then when I talked with them, they were honest enough to say that they had no idea what they were doing. That humility of just having no idea collectively was what gave me the push to just try it. But then you come to other parts, the bigger cities, and you’re met with that kind of artistic elitism and bravado which can serve its own purpose, but when you’re starting out, its not accessible and makes you think I’m not a musician I’m not even going to try crack into that scene.

We have that here too. We have pockets of creativity and then other places where people would just be like that’s not going to work.

Yeah, exactly, I think to start, you need that community saying go on then.

Do you have a venue/ festival you’d love to play at or another artist you might want to collaborate with?

We have a thirty-year plan and it all just leads to Coachella (laughs). Nah, just to be able to accrue the resources to be able to make what we want to make without feeling constricted, mostly in a financial sense. I guess I see the potential of people coming together with these artistic pursuits, so to be able to do that without having to hustle and stress about rent would be the dream.

So getting paid to do what you love? I think that’s the dream for everyone.

Yeah, I know. I mean, is it more radical these days to do it, though? To fully commit to being an artist and turn your back on financial security in order to pursue it.

I suppose it’s not really possible to pull a Patti Smith and go stay in the Chelsea Hotel in exchange for some art now.

Exactly. I mean, we can go to some far-out place and do it but that would be impossible now in New York or anywhere where people want to actually live.

Yeah, all the emerging artists that I am aware of are all working, you know, three jobs.

That’s it and I think that makes an impact on what people make. If you have the faith to go all in, then I kind of believe in that. It could be a naive belief, but I think it’s worth risking.

Finally, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this but you’re on a public Spotify playlist called Kiwi BBQ.

Fuck.

The little blurb underneath says to get the chilly bin out and enjoy these kiwi tunes, so I’d just like to know what would you be bringing in your chilly bin (which is called an esky, by the way. I don’t know why you people call it a chilly bin)?

You call it an esky, right. And then, in America it’s a cooler or something. Maybe I’d bring a chilly bin with an esky inside. Just a Russian doll situation of all the various names of chilly bins.

No beers?

Nah. I probably wouldn’t be getting fed at this kiwi BBQ then, would I? Oh well.

For information on Soaked Oats’ upcoming Australian tour, check out their website here.