Accelerants churn out solid chugging rhythms

Marty Squire is not too wooried that he's not a fantastic singer.

If there was such a thing as rock'n'roll criteria, The Accelerants would tick every box. Wild 60s swagger? Check. Songs about dirty little secrets, late-night rendezvous and wild girls? Check. Arguments, relationship break-ups, life-threatening accidents? Check. There's just one thing missing.

"You don't need earplugs at our gigs," says frontman Marty Squire, on the phone from Wellington, where the band are midway through their national tour. He recalls seeing the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Wellington as a teen, an experience that put him off loud concerts for good.

"For a week after I was scared out of my brains, I thought my hearing was gone. I'm sure in the day that was very cool and challenging but you don't have to be special to go down to a music shop, buy a 100-watt amp and turn it up real loud, y'know?"

You're more likely to notice the solid, chugging rhythms than wince at the decibels when the Accelerants play instore at Real Groovy, today, 6.30pm and tomorrow at Edens Bar.

Squire's preoccupation with the beat is inspired by another un-rock'n'roll experience, when he was into DJ culture during a stint in Auckland.

The Accelerants are more of a scuzzier, streetwise affair than Squire's last band, the promising surf garage-punk Wellington outfit, D-Super. His second band's lo-fi debut album, Blood and Bones, with its drawbar organs, fuzzed out guitars and hyper delivery, is influenced by the soul and R&B they were listening to.

"It's lost, really, this garage rock thing that's come along. Everyone's mined that white 60s influence, that Detroit scene, MC5 that sort of thing. It's cool and I love it but it's done.

"And we wanted to try to do our own thing. We didn't want to be a purist 60s band. That to me would be quite embarrassing."

Even so, if he could be reincarnated as any musician, he would come back as Jimi Hendrix, because "he makes me feel strange" and because of the way he bowled along in a time of tame beat music and blew everyone away with his other-worldly guitar playing.

He also admires contemporary singers such as Jason Pierce from Spiritualized and Mark Linkous from Sparklehorse.

"I love it when someone does something that can seem so obvious. People who do their own thing. One-man band people."

It's also why the Accelerants had to bring in guitarist Graeme Cummack this year. While recording Blood and Bones, Squire got carried away over-dubbing guitar parts, and realised he wouldn't be able to play them all live on his own.

Cummack's addition is yet another in the Accelerants' revolving line-up. Members who have come and gone include Squire's wife, Kirsty, (keyboards) who left when the couple split, replaced by Leo Francis, and former bass player John Douglas, replaced by Luke Hutching. The only original member other than Squire, is drummer Ricky Boyd.

The band recorded the album in a converted flat above Bar Bodega in Wellington, which has since been bulldozed. "We had this agreement that we could annoy them all day if they would keep us up till 6 o'clock in the morning every weekend."

Despite the amiable agreement, things weren't so rosy in the Accelerants' camp. Squire and Douglas frequently butted heads, until one day Douglas packed his bags. "I think he got sick of me," says Squire.

"That's pretty easy. Because I recorded it, I was really precious about it. He had a really firm idea about how it should sound but I felt like I had more of a right to indulge myself."

The experience is just another learning curve in his rock'n'roll career. There have been many since he was a member of the high-school choir who chickened out when his voice broke.

In D-Super he was originally the band's bass player but when they couldn't find a singer he "lucked out" and got the job.

"I still don't really like the way my voice sounds," he says. "I'm not a fantastic singer but it doesn't bother me because I know there are other things that I'm really good at."

Squire says it was during his time in D-Super that he learned to get on with people. The band released one album, Straight to the Sun but he was less focused than he is now. The album got good reviews but Squire was ready to throw in the towel.

"I'd got married and I just thought, '[expletive] this, I can't be bothered, it's too much effort'. Then I had a car accident. It's all a bit of a blur to me but me and my wife went to look at the car and there was nothing there.

"I thought, 'I could have been really badly hurt, lost a hand, died. Why am I dicking around doing stuff that I'm not interested in? I'm not going to waste any more time'."

Who: The Accelerants
When and where: Real Groovy instore, 6.30pm tonight, Edens Bar, tomorrow with Connan and the Mockasins and the Shallows