Adelaide fuzz, drone and noise band Night Rites was formed by three mates, Peter, Adam and Rhys, in a backyard studio during COVID. They initially had an indie psych sound, but after switching roles—Peter to drums, Adam to guitar, and Rhys on vocals—it led to a more droning style. Influenced by bands like The Black Angels and Jesus and Mary Chain, the band’s high points include performing at Austin Psych Fest and releasing an EP and album. We chatted to founding member Peter Blunden about the band’s evolution, the DIY approach, and the plans for upcoming Record Store Day.
Let’s start with how did the band first get together?
Well, it’s probably around about Covid time, and the three of us were playing in other bands and had other projects going. We’ve been hanging out in the scene a bit and we had this idea to start a new band. We were interested in Neo Psych and the droney sort of sounds that bands like Goat were doing, kind of big stuff, but we didn’t really know how to make it happen. So we got together; I was singing and playing guitar to start with, because that was kind of my thing. Adam was on guitar and Rhys was on bass, and then we had another drummer, Joel.
After about six months of jamming and trying to write music, it was going okay, but we decided we needed to change things up a bit. I wanted to play drums, so Joel Let me switch over to that, and Rhys said that he really wanted to sing, so we had a bit of a musical chairs. It was a really good way of kick starting some creative juices, to get out of your comfort zone and try something new and difficult. Work it out, how to do something, and doing it all together, which was really great. We could be really honest if something was not working or was working well, and just kind of trust each other to grow and work together.
In that period the sound changed a lot. It went from this slightly more indie psych sound to like a much more droning thing. I think we were all just trying to come to grips with the new instruments that kind of led to that syle of fun. Just keep playing. Just keep the sound going and don’t stop and don’t do anything fancy. Just keep going and try and let the sound grow by itself.
Who are your main influences?
We love Black Angels, and Brian Jonestown Massacre. Everyone loves BJM. The Black Angels have that real, droney, staccato, kind of dark sound, and that was a real influence for us. New Candies. Some old stuff too, like Jesus and Mary Chain, that real droney stuff.
Recently you made the trip over to the Austin Psych Fest?
We went last year. On the lineup, a lot of bands that we really love were playing and none had ever come to Australia. So we had this idea like, why don’t we just all go over there. Adam’s got family over there, so he was going anyway. So we thought the three of us will go as a bit of a business trip to see these bands that we love. There was, like, Darkside, a band that I never thought I’d get to see live. They’re not really in the genre that we do, they’re more of a mash up between electro and guitar rock in a real hemispherical way. I never thought I could see them live, but they were the first we saw.
How does going to an event like that change your your thinking or your outlook?
For a long time, I thought that the Adelaide music scene was maybe a bit quaint or a bit sort of unusual. It was quintessentially Adelaide, you know. That’s just how music operates here. But in other places in the world, it’s different. I lived in London for a while, and the music scene was different there, but only in the sense that it was vast. There’s so many bands and so many clubs that it was really hard to keep tabs on what’s happening. But going to Austin really struck me how similar it was to Adelaide. It’s bigger, but not by a lot, and there’s similar types of venues. The 13th Floor is a venue that’s owned by the guy from the Black Angels, and it’s just like the Cranker. Same vibe, same dive bar, same kind of people, same attitude to the bands coming on – the bands hanging out in the bar, and then the bands play. People reacting in similar ways, and same kind of banter at the front, chatting about the scene, and it just sounded the same. So that was really quite nice to see that it’s really not that different here.
What about like the three of you; do you have times where you just know exactly what each other’s doing? Or are there times when someone springs something and you’re like, Wow, where did that come from?
I think we surprise each other now and again. We’re not the kind of band that sets out with an idea in mind, very often. A lot of the time, ideas just evolve through us, maybe, warming up at the start of the jam and then going, Oh, that’s actually sounding pretty good. Let’s keep going with that. Occasionally, someone does bring an idea, and some of them can be a little unusual at the start. Maybe Adam would bring in an idea. He’s like, I want to do a song that’s just one chord. That’s always fun, because it’s sort of like setting yourself a challenge.
Tell me more about the album you have out, Nine of Swords. How did you go about choosing the right songs? Were there any arguments?
We’re all pretty much on the same page. I think we all agree with what songs work and which ones don’t. Sometimes we work on them and everybody’s happy, and sometimes we can’t quite get it there and it just drops away. Probably about half of the songs on the album had been previously recorded, and we either just remastered the previous recording, or we recorded it. Some of them were out as EPs or singles.
There’s nine tracks on the album, and probably four or five were in that basket, and the other five were new. We had a bit of a repertoire from playing gigs of songs that we knew we wanted to get on there. The question really was what order are we going to put these in? Once you work out what’s a good opener and what’s a good closer and what goes in the middle, then you start to see sort of gaps. We probably need a song between these two, and that leads you to a certain vibe, then we just jam until we find something that works.
There’s a song in the middle of the album that’s called “Inter(QUAA)lude”, and that was one of those. Adam was busy, or he was away and then he came around, and we just thought, let’s just start. He had his synthesiser, and I played the drum machine on Ableton, and it started coming together really well. The next night, Adam came around and put a bit of guitar on it, and it’s like, done.
Your music is designed to be listened to on a vinyl as a whole, rather than singles here and singles there. It’s more of a journey than a pop thing.
We definitely feel it that way, and we like the shows to run that way as well. We definitely crafted that way. We like the whole show to sort of be a journey. The album’s like that too. We try to bookend it with motifs, like keeping the guitar chords that open the show or the album to close it as well – we’re definitely aware of that sort of stuff.
You create the videos that go with the songs yourself?
We do everything. We knew we needed some videos to go out with the album, and we dabbled with some sort of promo content for shows and things like that. But for “Codrone”, we decided to shoot a live video. We recorded a live version of the song in the studio, just by setting up our phones and pointing them around the room at different angles and lighting it nicely putting on the screen. Rhys’s partner, Kim came in and did a sort of roaming camera. We just played the track live and recorded everything in the room. Took about 10 takes until we got one we really liked and just edited it all together on the laptop. So after we did that, we wanted do a proper music video to the recorded track. So for “Yes, Jess”, we got the projector that we use for live shows, and cobbled together lots of different footage that we’ve been using in the live shows, and then projected the most extreme stuff on the back wall.
I feel that Lo Fi resonance is an antidote to our modern, glossy, perfect lives that we’re surrounded by, with advertising and the radio and things like that.
I think that the accessibility of a lot of tools has led everything to have a similar aesthetic. People make advertising material or YouTube content or Tiktok content, with that same kind of look to it. I see a lot of corporate content and I don’t like it, I don’t want that to be part of my music world. We intentionally make it look as gritty as we can. We don’t want a polished, highly focused music video. We want it to look as ground and dirty as we can.
You’ve got something lined up for Nine of Swords for Record Store Day?
We actually released the album in October last year and it went really well. We recorded the whole thing ourselves, with a little bit of help from Brett Orison in Texas. He has a record label called Space Flight Records, and he was helping us out with some mixing early in the process, and then he did the mastering for us. Through him, we managed to get in contact with some other labels, Cardinal Fuzz in the UK, and Little Cloud Portland, sister record labels. They work together and they said they’d love to release our album. We were gearing up to self release it, but now I don’t touch and they do it for us, so great. We sold most of the copies we printed.
We noticed Record Store Day was coming up, and we thought, we actually don’t have that many copies left to promote, so maybe we could just do a reprint. Again, the guys from Cardinal Fuzz and Little Cloud managed to get us a really good deal. Their suggestion was, since we’re reprinting it, we don’t have to do the same cover again. Why not do something different? Dealing with an American and a UK label, we thought, maybe you can put a bit of Australia into this release. So we found some some photos of the local area. So we’ve got Aldinga Beach, some bushland, and a McLaren Vale kind of wheat field. It goes really well with the white artwork. So we’re putting assets, three variants of limited release for Record Store Day.
You have a short tour as well?
We’re off to Bendigo to play with Berlin band called The Third Sound, really sick. We were meant to be catching up with the Underground Youth, but that got cancelled because of global politics, so that sucks. We’re doing a show in Melbourne too, in The Old Bar. So just a little tour.
Check out Night Rites bandcamp link here and tour details on their Facebook page
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