Interview: Daffodils

Where did it all start for you guys?
We sort of formed in 2016 to do Rockquest, doing bands and stuff since intermediate school. I met Jade, who went to a different school, and we decided to start a band. I'd previously been in a band with Louis and Isaac, who used to be our drummer.
That first year of Rockquest we came second at the national finals, then did it again the next year and came second again. Both times it was to Alien Weaponry, who are obviously doing incredibly well now. It was a great way to start. A really positive first step.

You built a bit of a following pretty early on too?
Yeah, we started getting more confident writing original music just out of high school. Two Angels was the first song we put out, in 2017, and that got about 100,000 streams within a month. I don't really know how that happened, I guess we were just lucky. A Leo Underwater did well after that too, got to a million or so within a couple of months.
We recorded our first EP, Boys, around 2018, and it came out in 2019. The release show at the Tuning Fork sold out, and Benee opened for us. It was her second show ever, which is wild to think about now.

What happened after that?
The tour we were doing for Boys kept getting pushed back because of COVID, which put the brakes on everything for a bit. We made our second EP through the lockdowns, and I still really like that EP, but it took so long to make that I didn't feel like I related to it as much when it came out. It was a time of a lot of change for all of us.
The next couple of years felt a bit stagnant, if I'm honest. We parted ways with Isaac around then too.

Is that when Reuben ended up joining?
‍Yeah, that’s it. Isaac's doing well now actually, he did the Abbey Road recording school and mixed the most recent Ringlets album, The Lord Is My German Shepherd.
But after he left, we found Reuben Scott, who plays in Saltwater Criminals, a great Dunedin/Auckland power-pop indie-rock band. We started writing with him and it just reinvigorated all of us. We've got a record now that I'm proud of, and it should be out by the end of the year.
His first show with us was opening for Idles at Spark Arena, which was an intense way to join a band. We played a song there that ended up connecting the most out of anything on the record.

So, who's in the band these days?
‍Me, Jade, Louis and now Reuben. Jade's living in London for a bit now, so we've got someone filling in for this show, but she's still very much in the band.
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Tell us about making ‘A Good Year’
‍I reckon I started writing most of it in 2023. We recorded most of it at my parents' place, in a semi-detached granny flat we've turned into a studio over the years, my dad even knocked a wall out to fit a big shelf in. It gave us the freedom to take our time and play around with everything before taking it to the studio, rather than being stuck with a two-day budget to record drums and committing to a sound straight away.
It took about a year of tracking before we took it to Jol Mulholland to finish off, and then another year after that to get it properly done. It's pretty much finished now, just needs mastering.
There's still one song that doesn't have a title, we've been calling it the same dumb name for three years and I can't get it out of my head.

How has your sound changed since those early EPs?
‍It's louder, heavier, angrier, a lot more aggressive. It's got more elements of the music I listen to now, versus what I was making before, which was almost pop oriented. I wanted to bring it back to being a guitar band, if that makes sense.
Opening for bands like Idles has leaned us further in that direction, and I'm so stoked about it, it feels way more natural. I feel a lot more confident performing it too, which has probably been the biggest change for me personally.

What about the vocals, have they changed as well?
‍Yeah, totally. I sang in quite a low register on all the old stuff, it's softer, definitely. On the new stuff there's a lot more belting. I've naturally got quite a boomy voice. Dude, ask any of my friends, I’m pretty unavoidable in a room! Having a musical base to really let loose vocally was so nice, and so therapeutic. It's definitely different, but it's still got elements of the same thing. It's quite a different record.

You played the album front to back at the show, What was it like putting songs together like that?
‍I've never done something like that before, where it's very intentionally ordered. The record's got a real structure to it. Something that's really important to me when I'm listening to music is the intention behind a record - one that's designed to be listened to from start to finish. That's what drives me to listen to music.
Our intention going into this was to make something that feels as good start to finish as it does taking pieces out of it. Or the pieces all making a better whole. That's how I feel about this record, but that's up to whoever listens to it too. It's exciting to get to do it in a live context, the way we intended it to be listened to.

Do you think people still listen to albums like that?
‍I think something's going to change over the next few years. People who are interested in art and music are going to become more intentional about how they consume things, and short-form, low-attention content is going to start becoming less important, as people move back towards more traditional media to get away from all the bullshit. That's my hopeful take on the state of music anyway, history might prove me very wrong.

You kept tickets for the show were pretty affordable too, was that deliberate?
‍Yeah, I made them ten bucks, with an option to pay twenty if you want. I run these free shows once a month at Whammy called Public Service, where we film proper multi-cam videos for the bands playing.
I think Auckland's expensive enough at the moment that if something's not financially accessible, people won't come. People are happy to drop eighty bucks to see an international act, but don't do that for local bands in the same way.
I think we can take the Auckland music scene for granted and write off local music quite easily, and I want there to be no excuse for people not to go to shows.
More bodies in the room is better for the venue too, especially with how much venues are struggling at the moment. I want to give back where I can, because the people who run them are unbelievably generous with the space and their time.

What's next after the show?
‍We'll announce the first single around the time of the show, ideally, we're still figuring out exactly how that's going to look, but there should be one out by mid-August if not earlier. And once the record's out, I just want to play as many shows as possible. Being a live band is what I've missed most the last few years, that's what we all want to be doing, and having the record out will finally mean we can do that properly.

Daffodils debut album A Good Year is out before the end of the year, with a first single expected by mid-August. Find them on Instagram @daffodilsarenotforkids and stream their back catalogue on Spotify.

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