KEY POINTS:
The defining moment in the career of Angelo Munro, the lead singer of Auckland band the Bleeders, was writing lyrics to a song called Out of Time.
The song was inspired by close friends who died before the Bleeders released their first album.
Munro says it ranks at
the top of the list of highlights in the five years the band has been together.
"It got a lot of my feelings out with the lyrics and a lot of people kind of related to the song.
Munro says the song was really healing, at a time when the grief of losing close friends was still raw.
"Even though it's only a song, and it's not a tour or a plaque on your wall, writing that song is something I'm really proud of."
The Bleeders, who release their self-title second album this month, are a group of Westies, with a North Shore member thrown in for good measure.
The group consists of Munro, 28, on vocals, Gareth Stack, 25, on bass, Ian King, 26, on guitar, Hadleigh O'Donald, 24, on guitar and George Clarke, 27 on drums.
All of the members come from previous New Zealand bands and Munro says fans can expect more of the same with this album but "far more aggressive and rock and roll than the last one".
Munro says old fans who may have thought their first album was a "little soft in parts" may hop back on and be excited again but those fans who liked the melodics will still be happy.
"We've managed to create something that anyone who has managed to be a fan of the Bleeders will be able to relate to."
Munro says he doesn't want to sound "wanky" but the band has definitely got better over the past five years.
"We've gotten better at our instruments, I've gotten better at singing, we've just developed.
"We were a bunch of kids when we started the band and just wrote two-minute punk rock songs."
Munro says the groups' combined love of rock and roll and their desire to develop the band may have taken a while but they are in a "real good place".
Like the band, Munro says their fan base has also evolved.
"We're very lucky, we've grown up playing in other bands and being part of musical scenes and because of that our band got shows early on.
"It was easy for us to get shows, so we got the chance early on to play to people."
Munro says about a year before their first album came out the band started to cross over to the mainstream.
"Then the radio really hopped on board, the fan base just widened to more suburban kids, whereas before it was just die hard punk kids that go to every show."
The focus for the Bleeders now is to be based overseas or to at least tour more overseas.
"We've toured the UK before and Australia a bunch but next year hope to get to the UK and tour America, that's a big goal."
It has always been a big goal for the band to take the music overseas but it's never been about being the biggest band in New Zealand, he says.
"It's always about doing as much as we can do here then when it's time to go, it's time to go and I think this album is time to go."
Munro is not keen to have the Bleeders put in a genre but says if you must it would be punk rock and roll.
"It's got a touch of hard core, a touch of punk rock, we're very much a rock band these days."
The album is also about moving forward, he says.
"It's not taking a step backwards, we're moving forward, we are progressing as a band but it's stripped back to the point where it's raw and aggressive and has a lot more feel in the last album.
"It has a lot more integrity to it."
Munro says he has also learnt to knuckle down and to write lyrics, part of the job when you are the singer.
' 'At first it was kind of hard but after a while I kind of got the knack of things and my songwriting has got better, so come album two I feel like I'm where I need to be."
Every song serves its purpose, he says.
"With the new album we wrote these ballsy songs and I wanted to strip it back and make it aggressive again.
"I had my own influences for the new album, I knew where I was going with it and trying not to look back, if you look back you're not moving forward."
Munro's appeal to fans of the Bleeders is simple.
" Don't burn our album or we'll come out and hunt you down."
* The Bleeders self-titled album is released on November 12.
- NZPA