One minivan, two people, 49 shows.

Can Earth Tongue survive their biggest tour yet?

Gussie Larkin and Ezra Simons are about to do something a couples therapist would probably caution them against.

The Auckland-based musicians already live together at a flat in Kingsland where passing trains rattle their padded rehearsal studio.

They also work together, each one-half of the excellent scuzz-rock duo Earth Tongue, a band that began as their side-hustle but is quickly becoming their main hustle.

Digging In: Earth Tongue’s Gussie Larkin and Ezra Simons. (Photo: Supplied)

In just a few weeks, following a short local tour, Larkin and Simons will board a flight to Europe and put their 10-year relationship through its biggest test yet.

There, they’ll spend several months travelling in a minivan to play a whopping 49 tour dates on their longest jaunt yet – including one show up the Swiss Alps.

After that, the pair will move to Berlin.

This sounds intense.

Can they survive?

“We’re a couple first,” says Larkin,” who glances at Simons as she talks in a K’ Road café.

“Mostly, it’s pretty damn good,” says Simons, who looks back at Larkin.

“If it works, it works.”

Right now, it’s definitely working.

The pair met after performing in separate bands at a Miramar house party in 2014. They were soon living together and one day found themselves jamming on instruments in their lounge.

The sound that emerged was louder and rowdier than what they’ve been playing in their other bands. (Larkin remains a member of the excellent Wellington rock act Mermaidens; Simons plays with Troy Kingi, among his other projects.)

They soon settled on a fuzzed-out signature sound, one best described as the hybrid child of Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Beastwars and Mastodon with visuals that look like they’ve come from an old View-Master full of Dr Who slides.

They named their project Earth Tongue and within weeks scored an opening slot for Australian psych-rockers Wolfmother.

“The shows got quite big, quite fast,” admits Larkin.

Within months, they’d released their debut EP, Portable Shrine.

Now, they’re signed to esteemed label In The Red Records.

Larkin has jacked in her Live Nation job to work on the band full-time.

They’ve just returned from performing at SXSW 2024 and are just a couple of months away from releasing their horror-themed second album Great Haunting, the tour for which ends up at Whammy Bar on Saturday night.

Soon the pair will embark on that ginormous international tour, where they’ll open for Ty Segall for a string of shows, as well as a string of European music festivals.

It is, they say, where they need to be, the place where an established touring pipeline exists for 70s-indebted “stoner” psych-rock acts like themselves.

“We play lots in Germany,” says Simons. “We go to Oslo. We go to Stockholm. We go to Glasgow and Dublin, we go to Croatia and the Swiss Alps.”

All of this attention is forcing the duo to pay much more attention to Earth Tongue than they ever thought they would.

“At the start, we weren’t really taking it seriously. It just felt like quite a light-hearted thing,” says Larkin. “But as we've done more and more, it's become harder [and] we've become more invested … it’s starting to snowball.”

Aside from all the comparisons to famous rock duos like The White Stripes (or Royal Blood, but as I learned the hard way, never say that to their faces) they say Earth Tongue can only ever work as a duo.

“It’s the only reason we’re able to do all the stuff around the world,” says Simons, glancing at Larkin again. “It means we can travel around in a small vehicle. Flight tickets is a big one.”

Larkin looks back at him: “One room … one bed.”

Pressure on the band means pressure on them – and that means pressure on their relationship.

How are they juggling it all?

“We're trying to keep boundaries [but] we talk about Earth Tongue all the time,” says Larkin. “It’s kind of the only thing we talk about.”

Can they survive all this?

They look at each other and pause.

Finally, Simons says: “Ask us afterwards.”

Earth Tongue play Whammy Bar on Saturday night; tickets are available here.

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