Tadpole: Strange Days.

Better Days is in stores now.

Unless you’re a Killing Heidi fan, you probably haven’t heard of New Zealand rock juggernaut Tadpole. Well known in their home country, Tadpole’s only gigs in Australia thus far involved a quick jaunt last year supporting the Hooper siblings’ outfit. But with the release of the single Better Days, a driving, guitar-heavy slice of shiny rock joy topped with singer Renee’s immaculately powerful vocal assault, chances are you’ll be hearing the band’s name everywhere, very, very soon.

The group have just inked an Australian record deal, and are set to release the Buddhafinger album here in August, which has already been a huge hit in their home country. Renee and drummer Dean Lawton say they had a very specific reason for making Better Days the first single here.

“It was mainly the (animated) music video,” Dean begins. “I mean that was the seventh single from the Buddhafinger album (in New Zealand, where the album is almost two years old), but the video was so good we thought, well if we don’t get radio play we’ll get video play on TV, you know?”

“Plus that was probably the second most popular song in New Zealand,” Renee elaborates. “I guess the video’s a big part of that, but that song put the album back in the charts after fifty-three weeks, so it was a strong song for us at home, and I guess we hope it’ll work here as well.”

With the Australian success of bands like Shihad, Salmonella Dub, Zed and a host of others, the recognition and popularity of New Zealand acts here seems to have reached a level not seen since the Split Enz era or Flying Nun’s heyday. I wondered what Dean and Renee put that down to.

“Well, I think the thing is the government has put a lot of money into stuff at home,” says Dean. “So we’ve started to get better at things and we can make good music videos and we can afford to come over (to Australia) because the government is supplying us with grants to come over and tour and record albums - the last two years have just been huge.”

Renee concurs. “In the last two or three years the Labor government have put a real cash injection into the arts and in particular music, and they’ve just increased the number of grants from just music videos to giving people grants for making albums.”

“And not just five or ten thousand (dollars),” Dean continues. “I mean we got a fifty thousand dollar grant to make an album, and we don’t really have to pay that back; I think what happens is it works on sales or something and you pay it back a dollar a record, but it doesn’t matter.”

Renee says the government funding injection helps to compensate for New Zealand’s relatively small population, and hence potential audience. “All Australian bands say this to us, that Australia’s too small, and there’s not enough people to sell your albums to and play to, but in New Zealand that’s the same problem times about a hundred! So the government really has to put some effort in if they want New Zealand culture to survive, because record companies aren’t gonna do it; there’s no commercial gain for them.”

Dean says New Zealand bands strive to be world class from the get-go, simply because they have to be successful in countries other than their own in order to make a living.

“Most Kiwi bands are like that, I don’t know, we’re just driving, ‘cause normally at home there’s not a huge audience to play to, so those twenty or thirty people in the room have just gotta go home going ‘Wooowww!’ and that’s where your personality and your drive really comes from, when you’re just playing to a couple of people.”

“Plus there’s been a real tall poppy syndrome in New Zealand,” Renee adds. “I guess you guys probably have the same thing in Australia where in the past people have gone, ‘Oh it’s Australian, it’s not as good as stuff from America or England’, and bands (in New Zealand) have just got sick of it.”

Part of Tadpole’s game plan has been a relentless touring schedule that saw them on the road for a good two-thirds of last year. I ask the guys how the reality of the touring experience differs from how they imagined it when they were starting out.

“I thought it would be easier!” says Dean.

“I though it would be glamorous!” Renee chuckles.

“It’s probably the hardest thing about the whole industry,” Dean muses. “But it’s fun, it’s wicked fun playing to lots of people, that’s what we love doing, playing live, that’s what we think we’re good at.”

“I guess musicians always think they want to be musicians to avoid getting a real job,” Renee ponders, “but actually being a musician is much harder work than your average eight-till-six you know? It’s early starts and it’s late nights and it’s hard physical labour plus exhausting mental stuff, but I wouldn’t be doing anything else.”

With a new album in the works as we speak, and an Australian tour due around August, it looks like Tadpole aren’t about to get much chance to rest for a while yet.