It must be tough to be friends with Dad Jokes’ singer and guitarist Ian Brown. He rarely calls unless he needs something, and even then, the conversation is stilted at best. It's a social awkwardness that inspires the song and video "Bad Friend" which has a laugh at some of our shittiest acquaintances with the help of death, dismemberment and the power of a Sharpie marker.Taken from the band’s Bad Friends EP, the video tracks a Dad Jokes fan as he transforms from besotted to beserk. Imagine Glen Close’s character in Fatal Atrtraction if she was a red head and wore shitty punk shirts.We had a chat to Ian about the video.Noisey: The video has a strong narrative. Is it based on anyone?
Ian Brown: The song itself is about me being a shit friend because I don’t call my friends, and then complain that no one calls me. That and just social nervousness, I suppose. But I thought it’d be kind of funny to have someone that wants to be friends with someone so bad that he ends up taking it to the extreme.There’s some cool, self-made merchandise in the video.
We’ve got some friends who work at some printing places, and Matt’s sister is a photographer so we just went to her studio one night and spent an hour coming up with the dumbest 90’s style thing. And then another friend did all the animation on the posters. If you go to Whammy Bar, you can see some of the posters up there that we gave them afterwards.Do people always ask you to tell dad jokes?
All the time. And we never have a good one. Matt told one during a Radio New Zealand interview but they couldn’t put it on air because it was too raunchy.Catch Dad Jokes on tour with the Admiral and Roy Irwin:
July 4 – Hamilton at Nirvana Lounge
July 10 – Tauranga at Mauao Performing Arts Centre
July 11 – Wellington at Valhalla
July 17 – Auckland at Whammy
July 23 – Christchurch at Darkroom
July 25 – Dunedin at Chicks Hotel
July 31 – Auckland at Lucha Loung
Aug 1 – Wellington at Eyegum'Bad Friends' is available digitally and on cassette tape through MUZAI Records.Like this story? Like NOISEY on Facebook.
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Ian Brown: The song itself is about me being a shit friend because I don’t call my friends, and then complain that no one calls me. That and just social nervousness, I suppose. But I thought it’d be kind of funny to have someone that wants to be friends with someone so bad that he ends up taking it to the extreme.There’s some cool, self-made merchandise in the video.
We’ve got some friends who work at some printing places, and Matt’s sister is a photographer so we just went to her studio one night and spent an hour coming up with the dumbest 90’s style thing. And then another friend did all the animation on the posters. If you go to Whammy Bar, you can see some of the posters up there that we gave them afterwards.Do people always ask you to tell dad jokes?
All the time. And we never have a good one. Matt told one during a Radio New Zealand interview but they couldn’t put it on air because it was too raunchy.Catch Dad Jokes on tour with the Admiral and Roy Irwin:
July 4 – Hamilton at Nirvana Lounge
July 10 – Tauranga at Mauao Performing Arts Centre
July 11 – Wellington at Valhalla
July 17 – Auckland at Whammy
July 23 – Christchurch at Darkroom
July 25 – Dunedin at Chicks Hotel
July 31 – Auckland at Lucha Loung
Aug 1 – Wellington at Eyegum'Bad Friends' is available digitally and on cassette tape through MUZAI Records.Like this story? Like NOISEY on Facebook.