Questions & Answers with NÖ CLASS

Hey James, hope you are fine in these fucked up times. The new E.P. is out April 11th, and you had planned a huge record release party in Melboure. But now, due COVID 19, everything is cancelled - how are you going to celebrate the release now?


James- Yeah! what a bummer! we had a big party at the Footscray Hotel planned on that date with a bunch of bands we like at the moment, our mate was gonna play some rock n roll vinyls all night, get everyone dancing. It would have been a great way to start gigging again... but you know, these things happen. There's a shitload of people out there who are completely fucked after this so it's hard to complain too much without being a bit of a dickhead. We'll be selling records in Melbourne through our bigcartel page (there's a link on our Facebook page) and we're gonna put up a video on that date too (April 11) it's of us playing at the pub we were gonna have the release at so if you're overseas you can kinda get the vibe of it all.

At the moment, Corona dominates our daily life. How does that Virus affect your life? You guys had planned a tour through Europe this summer - will you postpone that tour? How is the current situation regarding the tour? How do you deal with Corona & lockdown?


Yeah the tours off... for the moment, really wanna come over, would be good to get there next year, We have a couple of extra songs that we havent released that were saving to do a split with a European/English band so maybe we'll tour on that next year. It's kinda strange here, were all from New Zealand and our families and friends back home are all on complete lockdown, can't leave their house, cant visit each other, they're taking it really serious there. But here in Melbourne its kind of strange, most of us are all still working, venues pubs restaurants are all closed, but we all work in construction which seems to still be going for some reason. It's kind of a strange feeling driving to work and no one's on the roads, but its good to have cash still coming in... although I wouldn't mind a bloody sleep in! I get up at 530am to go to work while everyone chills out all day it sucks! haha

Dave- I built a bar table in my back shed, I stand on one side, serve myself a beer and run around the other side and sit on the stool and then drink the beer. It gets difficult when the bartender gets too chatty and I have to keep swapping sides to respond. Also, I got a bit too drunk in the last night and had to throw myself out.

It’s about 2 years between the release of your debut LP and the new E.P.. You guys were going through horrible times, as your bass player Kalem died after the recordings of "Painting In A Corner". Did you ever think about letting the band die as well?

Dave : Ah losing Kalem was pretty rough on us and many others. He was a rad dude and a good mate. We all miss him and always will. We gave it a lot of time before we had a jam together. Just waited until it felt right again. The song we wrote for him 'every now and then' on the new 7", it seemed like a fitting send-off for him. But yeah it was all a bit uncertain there for a bit.

Let me know what the listeners can expect from the new record. Did you change much in the recording process? Any new influences - like "let's play this song more like AC/DC" or "let's do this like GBH"?

James: We wrote half the songs with Kalem and half with Scotty so there kind of a new vibe I guess, not majorly though. I wanted to steer it in kind of a more pub rock n roll direction, like, we've got a bit of piano on one of the tracks, and there's a couple of guitar riffs here and there that have been inspired by stuff like Third World War and Ian Dury and the Blockheads and bands like that, but it's pretty subtle really, we're still finding our feet a bit when we try new stuff, a few people probably won't notice it too much. We are definitely sticking to the sort of music that was just at the very edge of punk starting in the early '70s, that hard rock n roll stuff (I actually made a playlist on Spotify called "pub rock n roll" by jamesmorgan_1987 if you wanna hear the kinda stuff were taking our inspiration from)

There's a lot of great bands coming out of Australia right now, not just Oi! related, even bands like AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS, PARKWAY DRIVE or THE CHATS sound fresh, are kinda successful and kick ass. Can you name your top 3 Australian bands right now and your top 3 of all time?


James: dunno about Parkway Drive but the others are cool haha. For nowadays stuff, there's actually a bit of a surge of rock n roll here. They're kinda poppy but I used to work with a guy who plays in a band called "Private Function" who are great, really crazy live act. There's also a glam band called "Smooch" that just started that are pretty good, and there's a band called "Punter" that are pretty good, early Aussie punk vibes

All time: The Angels, Coloured Balls, Daddy Cool (EAGLE ROCK!)

Dave: (All time) Coloured balls, Redgum, Acdc.
(Now) Enzyme, Power, Ironhawk.
The Chats are quite funny though. Also I wonder if I wore a bikini on stage like Amy for the sniffers we might sell more records..? I do have very nice legs!

Whenever you'll come to Europe: What are the "things you want to see"? It could be everything like "I want to see the Eiffel-tower" to "I want to drink czech beer".

James: I actually used to live in Europe for a few years, I stayed in Lyon in France for about 6 months, and I lived in Italy for about the same amount of time, then in London for a few years. But that's kinda what I was excited for, to go to the Elephants Head in Camden or catch up with some old mates in Brixton or just see a bunch of shit I haven't seen in ages. Now that we can't leave the country I'm fuckin dying to get the fuck out and go see Europe again, it's such a fuckin cool place. Definitely keen for some German piss though, beer here is pretty rubbish, keen for a currywurst too!

Dave: Ah I just wana get back to those glorious German beer gardens with the giant pretzels and those humungous steins (starts drooling). Oh the senf and curry ketchup too, lecker lecker!

“Don’t You Worry About Us” is out April 11th in Europe and Australia in 2 different versions (Euro Version and Australia Version). Euro Version is available in kiwi-black splatter or simple black wax through our webshop, the australian version through the band