The Best of Kiwi Punk With Trust Punks

At the mention of ‘New Zealand music’ the first thing that springs to most minds is the indie jangle of Flying Nun acts the Chills, the Clean and the Verlaines. Or Lorde Dave Dobbyn.

But the country has produced its share of quality punk music over the last decade. One such band is Trust Punks. The Auckland five piece is relatively new to the game but their debut album Discipline follows in the tradition of New Zealand punk bands with bellies full of Speights, chups on their shoulders and an ear for melody and volume.

Before they head to Australia for shows in Melbourne, Sydney and Wollongong they gave us a run down on their favourite New Zealand punk songs.

DIAL – “If You're Not Battling, You're Dead”

Hands down the most ferocious thing I've ever heard from a New Zealand band. They only ever made one EP and it's pretty much flawless.

Sharpie Crows – “Sheepskin”

I’ve fawned over this band to a genuinely embarrassing extent since high school. These days they are only sporadically active. Huf and Jackson who play bass and drums in Sharpies recorded the song Prone Hold on our record as well as some other singles we made last year and they pop up in other bands all over the place. Casey Latimer (guitar) is also responsible for Girls Pissing on Girls Pissing and Sam Bradford (words/keys) released an album on his own this year as Ron Gallipoli.

Rifles – "Mathematics"
It's pretty well known that any song that can be tagged as "math-rock" is usually over-bearing and wanky. This song is a vital exception. Members of this band now play in Old Loaves and Chalkhorses.

Damsels – “He The Lush, She The Blush”
Sam Walsh has an excellent voice and his delivery on this song really does it for me. These guys moved to Melbourne eventually but I don't think the city really took to them, unfortunately. I have no idea.

Wilberforces - "Believement"
Quite a few guitar bands in NZ, including my own, have basically wholesale ripped off Thom Burton's style of singing and his guitar-playing in Wilberforces. Those who haven't should start doing so immediately if they are interested in producing quality music.

Parents - "Let Down"
People who are into shit like Orchid and Pg. 99 and stuff should listen to Parents.

Perfect Hair Forever - "Sad and Blue"

The aural equivalent of screaming "MOOOOOOOOOM GET OUT OF MY ROOOOOOOOOOOOM"

CHEATS - "Peacock"
We play a lot of shows with CHEATS. For one of the more recent ones, mastermind Lawrence Goodwin eschewed playing guitar and singing for breakdancing and touching himself and it was fucking great.

Skeptics - "Agitator"

A stone cold classic from the vault. We decided to mostly avoid Flying Nun and associated stuff for this feature because it's well overrated by now and there is a pretty criminally overlooked period of experimental punk/hardcore stuff in New Zealand, especially from the mid to late 00's that is more worth talking about to us. Skeptics were always outliers on the FN catalogue though and this song especially is too incredible not to include.

"Discipline" is available now via [Spunk Records](http://www.spunk.com.au/ .).

Catch Trust Punks next week:
Nov 27 – Melbourne at the Grace Darling with Gold Class and Possible Humans
Nov 28 – Woolongong (early show) at Music Farmers. FREE SHOW
Nov 28 – Sydney at the Lansdowne Hotel with the Ocean Party, Day Ravies and Melon, Melon, Melon