Adrian Pertout speaks with Liam Finn (son of Neil) from Auckland, New Zealand about his new ‘Betchadupa’ project entitled ‘The Alphabetchadupa’.

Betchadupa, hailed by the music media as "one of New Zealand’s most talented and exciting bands" have just released their debut album, aptly entitled ‘The Alphabetchadupa’. 

The act features Liam Finn on vocals and guitar along with drummer Matt Eccles, guitarist Chris Garland and bassist Joe Bramley.  Since their formation in 1997, this act has gone from strength to strength, with their self-titled debut EP of 2000 reaching the #43 spot on the NZ charts – one of the offerings ‘Empty Head’ being also nominated for that year’s Silver Scroll Award for songwriting. 

‘Sleepy News’ happens to be the first single from their latest release, which was incidentally mixed in Los Angeles by Nick Launay (silverchair, The Living End, Talking Heads and Semisonic) and reached #26 on the national charts.  The follow-up single ‘Supa Day’ is now destined for similar success.

How did you start out in music?

LF: "Obviously, I’ve been brought up with quite a musical family, and a musical environment.  So it’s always been around.  I’ve kind of picked up instruments here and there, and there have always been 4-track and 8-track recorders around.  And ever since I can remember I have been making up little songs and recording them, and trying to play other instruments.  So I can’t really say what got me into music, or how I started, I just sort of did, without realising it.“

At first listen, some of the tracks on your debut album sound a little reminiscent of your dad’s style.  Was he a major influence from the songwriting point of view?

LF: "Obviously stuff’s going to rub off just because I’ve been around him, and the way that he writes songs, and hearing his songs my whole life.  But I don’t personally think that any of it’s really that much like dad’s music apart from the fact that there are a lot of harmonies, and that it’s quite melodic.  I think that in a way it’s just songwriting.  You know, we both really like a good song, and probably value the same things in a song.  So maybe what he thinks is a good song has rubbed off on me."

How do you go about writing songs?

LF: "I’ve never really thought about it.  Each song is completely different.  You might have one song where you wrote these chords a couple of months ago and you really like it, but can’t find anything at the time to use it for, and then all of a sudden you’ve written this thing that would be good for a verse, and you then add this to that.  Other times the whole song will come in one go, all the lyrics and everything.  And nearly everything I’ve written on guitar, but recently I’ve been trying to teach myself to get better at piano.  So I’ve written a couple of things on piano.  I play guitar in the band, but did one or two bass tracks on the record, and played drums on one song.  But guitar is my main instrument."

Tell me about some of the gear that you use. Do you have any particular favourite guitars or pedals?

LF: "I use a ’62 SG junior, which I bought about two years ago.  And I never thought that I’d be that attached to a guitar, but I’ve become very attached to that one.  It looks really cool.  It’s really nice – a kind of dark red wood.  I just really like it.  It’s got a single pickup, and it’s one single piece of wood.  Yeah, it sounds really fat.  So I use that for everything.  On the record I had the option of using a few different guitars, but I always ended up resorting to my old SG, just because it was what I was used to, and also because I knew what to do with it.  And as far as pedals, Hotcakes are always really good.  You know, the legendary Hotcake pedals that give you brilliant distortion, which is in a way more of an overdrive pedal.  That’s the pedal that I use the most.  I’ve got this other little analog delay pedal.  It’s a Rocktek delay.  They’re kind of really crappy, cheap, plastic kind of pedals, but I bought it off someone for twenty bucks.  That and the distortion pedal is the only thing that I use live."

How would you describe your debut album?

LF: "It’s a really personal record. And it’s a really good portrayal of what we’ve been doing over the last year.  The EPs were released in New Zealand, and the one that we released in Australia was very old and dated for us because it was done two or three years after we’d written the songs.  But the album is all new songs, and we’re happy with everything.  And song wise it’s really good to have something that’s really current and that we’re proud of.  But yeah, I don’t know what else to say about the record apart from it’s just us doing what we do.  It’s a very honest record.  It’s pretty much how we do everything live.  We didn’t want to clutter it with overdubs – too many sounds and stuff like that.  And so it’s a pretty live record.  I think we just wanted to be really honest, and no bullshit.  You know, we didn’t want to use click tracks, cut up the drums, or anything like that."

What are some of your current and future plans?

LF: "So far this year we’ve just been on the road since the start of January non stop.  We haven’t really had a break yet, so we’re kind of going back to Auckland and having maybe three days off, then doing all the press and promo for the record coming out in New Zealand.  And then hopefully coming back over here for another tour.  Basically just playing as much as we can, especially in Australia where we are less known and haven’t got our name out there yet.  So try and spread the word and see what happens basically…"