KEY POINTS:
There are flashes of Indian influence on the Bleeders' new song The Price We Pay. Don't panic, the Auckland punks haven't written a Bollywood-themed second album - the song is their tribute to curry.
"I like scungy foodcourt curry, but the other guys like fancy places," says singer Angelo Munro. "As a band we're always eating it and the chorus had a real Indian feel, so we kind of took the piss and thought, 'Let's Indian it up'."
So the sound of tambura, a long-necked Indian lute, and frenzied tambourines make it "a full-on Krishna party".
But mostly the band's new self-titled album is "straight up the guts" and a far heavier beast than last year's debut, As Sweet as Sin.
Today Munro is at tattoo and clothing store Illicit on Auckland's K Rd just before opening time. This is his day job and the heavily tattooed singer, dressed in a plaid shirt and black jeans, looks the part among the Switchblade and bat skull T-shirts and bullet belts.
While he'd rather play music full time, he says having a day job makes sense now that he's married and saving for a house.
"I'm a bit of a boring kind of guy. I hang out with my wife at the weekend and watch NRL," he smiles. Last year the Bleeders were a full-time band, which might sound glamorous, but living on $20,000 a year is not.
"Sure, you're playing music and that's the best thing in the world, but you break it down and that's $150 a week and a friend is having a birthday and you can't even buy them a gift. That's horrible. I'd love to do music full-time but I wouldn't want to do it the way we did last year."
Of all Munro's tattoos, the clearest are the letters W-E-S-T and P-U-N-X inked across the four fingers of each hand. That's what the Bleeders are, a westie punk band - with one guy from the North Shore - whose raw and aggressive live show and debut release, A Bleeding Heart EP, got them noticed in 2003.
However, they weren't happy with As Sweet as Sin even though it sold around 10,000 copies - not bad for a punk rock band - and won best rock album at last year's New Zealand Music Awards. It was a good album but sometimes the band's melodic sound came across more like punk pop, and even, much to Munro's embarrassment, emo.
He says American producer Sal Villanueva taught the band, which is made up of Munro, guitarists Hadleigh Donald and Ian King, bass player Gareth Stack, and drummer George Kladis, a lot about songwriting, but felt the CD should have sounded better considering it cost $100,000.
"We were proud of it but after listening to it it was a little watered down. It came back sounding like a $50,000 album," he says. "This time we spent half the amount of money and we think it sounds better."
For inspiration on Bleeders they looked back to earlier songs So Lonely and All That Glitters. Munro says those songs represented the point where the band "crossed over" without compromising their trademark aggression and rawness.
"They are aggressive and raw songs but still catchy so we followed that recipe, and to be different we've done some out-of-the-ordinary bits, like [the Indian influence on] The Price We Pay. Black Widow Creeps has riffs that remind me of Tool."
There's also hints of what he calls the "stoned" sound of metal bands such as Clutch and Mastodon coming through.
"Basically," he laughs, "we gave a little bit of a buzz for dudes who like their doobies. There's some stoner stuff going on, which is good because it's really fast, high energy music, and then it'll slow down and buzz out so that's cool. It keeps the dynamics alive, man.
"We've got better at songwriting. We still have all those parts that go into making a good song but we're smarter about where we use melodic parts, so it's not so much about having a big hook in every chorus."
As Sweet as Sin may have been musically light but lyrically it was a dark album and an emotional time for the band who wrote the song Out of Time for friends who died in a car crash.
This time round the music is heavy and dirty and the sentiment of the songs is positive, even when dealing with issues such as depression on Inside Your Head. Plus there's also imaginary tales about a "crack whore and dreg of society" on Stay Away and escaping from Alcatraz prison on A Great Escape.
"This album's trying to be really positive. I'm not really a negative kind of guy," he says. "A lot of people who like rock music and like our band are kids and suburban teenagers who have a hard time and might not have a good home.
"On Inside Your Head I'm trying to reach out to someone with depression and it sounds like I'm being like John Kirwan," he laughs, "but I've had people close to me go through it and it's not a nice thing."
Munro is the only member of the band who is straight edge, a lifestyle where he abstains from alcohol and drugs. He calls Stay Away his "drug free song".
"It's inspired by people I know whose lives have been f***** up by drugs and alcohol. We're not Blink 182 and writing songs about farts and having a poo. I write about things that matter."
LOWDOWN
Who: The Bleeders
Line-up: Angelo Munro (vocals); Hadleigh Donald (guitar/backing vocals); Ian King (guitar/backing vocals); Gareth Stack (bass/backing vocals); George Kladis (drums)
Past releases: A Bleeding Heart EP (2003); As Sweet as Sin (2006)
New album: Bleeders, out now
Playing: Transmission Room, Mayoral Drive, Auckland December 7
