Meet the band making magic from a beaten-up car.
Meet the band making magic from a beaten-up car.
When Dartz hit the road, friendship, fast food and beer – a lot of beer – fuels their drive.
When Crispy finishes work on a Friday afternoon, he’ll open the door to his beaten-up Toyota Corolla, put in the key, and start the ignition.
One by one, he’ll pick up his band mates Danz, Rollyz and Clark, and they’ll aim that car north, usually towards Auckland, heading towards another show.
Nicknamed ‘Candice’, Crispy’s car is a faded red 1989 Toyota Corolla with yellow flames hand-painted on the bonnet and 150,000 kilometers on the clock.
It is the official tour vehicle of choice for Dartz, the hyper Wellington rock act that releases its second album today.
They’ve done more road trips in it than they’d care to admit.
“We’ve done so many miles in that car,” says Clark, the band’s bassist. “It's just us laughing in the car for eight hours, coming up with ideas.”
That’s not all they do in that car.
Dartz have written some of their best songs in that car.
They have plotted the band’s future in that car.
They have laughed, joked, smoked, farted, drunk way too much beer, eaten far too much junk food, and cemented long-term friendships in that car.
In the drive-through of McDonald’s Whanganui, they had their one and only fight in that car when Danz refused to shout the rest of the band burgers.
“It’s like we’re brothers,” says Clark. “We do argue, but they’re not serious.”
They’ve probably done things in that car that they don’t want to tell me about, and that I don’t want to know.
Yet Candice has been so important to Dartz’ rise, they have immortalised it in song.
“I’m fucking sweating in this Toyota Corolla,” sings Danz, the band’s front man on their song ‘Toyota Corolla’.
In the video, Candice catches on fire.
That car has helped Dartz become some of the hottest property on Aotearoa’s flourishing rock scene, a reputation cemented by a series of fun, fast and furious live shows.
Those shows are fuelled – heh – by songs that immortalise moments that have happened during the band’s long drives around the country.
In Marton, where Dartz regularly stop for chicken and chips, the four-piece were so stunned by a statue of Captain Cook they wrote a song about it.
‘1 Outs Captain Cook’ is about “wanting to fight that statue,” says Clark.
In Dunedin, two band members were walking up a hill to reach a liquor store when they came up with ‘Earn the Thirst’, a song about making sure you’ve done enough exercise to earn a cold beer.
“It was like, ‘This is one of our sayings, we’ve got to write a song about it,’” says Clark.
It might be their best song.
Dartz are doing all this the old school way.
Instead of cracking video giant TikTok or attempting to game Spotify’s smothered algorithms, they have built their live following slowly, but surely.
“It’s not like we’ve got massive streams,” says Clark. “The fandom is more intense than you’d ever find out online. We all do it all from shows and merch.
“We grind it up, pretty much.”
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Dartz were never supposed to be a band.
If it wasn’t for Danz emailing The Chats, an Australian pop-rock act, offering to play support for them on a whim in 2019, they would likely not be together.
Danz got the gig, but “he did not have a band,” says Clark.
So Danz roped in his best friend Crispy, then strangers Rollyz and Clark joined a songwriting session that yielded seven pop-punk rock songs.
Three weeks later, they played that first show.
It went well enough to earn them a second. It wasn’t long after that they embarked on their first road trip to Auckland. There, they played to “about eight mates at the Dogs Bollix,” says Clark.
But Dartz kept driving, kept playing, kept growing their fan base, kept jumping in Candice and clocking up the kilometres.
The shows have gotten bigger, and the fanbase has gotten stronger. In Auckland, they’ve upgraded from the Dogs Bollix to The Wine Cellar, Back Room and then Whammy Bar.
At the end of 2023, they upgraded again to a packed show at Galatos, where members of opening act Dick Move could be seen crowd-surfing in the moshpit.
The bastard children of The Exponents, Deja Voodoo and Elemeno P, Dartz continue a solid New Zealand tradition of writing simple songs about what they know.
Most of those songs involve beer.
There’s ‘40 Riddiford Street,’ a song about drinking together in their shitty Wellington flat.
“I’ve got 24 beers and two free hands,” sings Danz, while Rollyz, the drummer, performs in a liquor store’s beer chiller.
There’s ‘Paradise’, a song that finds the band masquerading as real estate agents.
The video features Danz drinking four Heinekens at the same time.
Their new album, Dangerous Day to Be a Cold One, is out today and Dartz will head out on the road for a nationwide tour in support of it.
Sadly, Candice is sidelined. “It’s currently parked dormant in Newtown and is not starting,” says Clark. “We hope to get her fixed soon.”
Instead, they’ll be travelling in Crispy’s other car, a Toyota Ipsum with 177,000 kilometres on the clock and more leg room.
They’re changing cars but sticking to their strict routine: Crispy drives, Clark’s in the front passenger seat, and Rollyz and Danz are in the back.
In Levin, they’ll make their first stop to stock up on beers. In Bulls, they’ll make their second to fill up on gas and grab snacks. In Taumarunui, it’s time for Burger King.
By the time they get to Hamilton, it’s usually nearing 11pm and it’s time for a treat.
They call ahead and order take out from Last Place. “It’s always the same order,” says Clark. “‘Here are the beers we want, here are the burgers we want.’”
They tried flying to their show once, but didn’t like it. This, they say, is the way Dartz works best: four friends, on the road, drinking beer, having yarns, seeing the country.
Out of that, says Clark, springs a little sprinkle of that Dartz magic.
“You have to contend with getting pretty bored,” says Clark. “We’re chatting shit, really.
“It’s pretty much a yarn between best friends the whole way.”
For tour dates and tickets, visit smokedartz.com.
When I talked to Dartz, I asked them when they were last interviewed. It had been more than a year – and that interview was in Australia. Hearing stories like that makes me want to keep doing this newsletter. If you can, please support it.
We live down the road and the kids love seeing Candice. As we drive by they swing into the chorus of ‘Hoons’. Bless Dartz
These guys hustle! Big respect, that Galatos gig was awesome