Just as the movie with a similar name makes a comeback, Hamilton's robo-rockers hit the road, Scott Kara reports.
Some of Greg Locke's best friends are robots.
"It is weird that I tend to talk about them as if they exist," ponders the Hamilton - or Hamiltron, as the case may be - musician with a laugh.
Locke is the mastermind behind self-playing robot band the Trons who are
made up of Swamp the drummer, singer and rhythm guitarist Ham, keyboardist Fifi, and lead guitarist Wiggolowski Motor-Finger (aka Wiggy).
It's quite a sight to see these garage rock-obsessed 'bots going at it as they strum up a mechanical storm, make precision chord changes, with Swamp tapping away maniacally on his specially modified drum kit.
And while there may not be blood running through their circuits, Locke says when it comes to making music, each of the quartet do have their say.
"Writing the music is collaborative with the machines," he continues.
"I have an idea, I'll programme it in, and the programming is very rudimentary so it's easy to make mistakes. I listen to that sound, and it never sounds like what I expect, so there is a lot of interplay going on with the robots to see what sounds they will produce and what works."
However, they're not much fun to be on tour with.
"Being in a band with them travelling through Europe is a bit boring and they're a pretty lazy bunch of guys," he laughs.
The Trons sound like Flying Nun bands the Clean and Snapper have been melted down and then reassembled and programmed as robots.
"That's my upbringing," says Locke. "I bought the Clean's Boodle Boodle Boodle by accident about 25 years ago - as well as things like Velvet Underground and Stereolab, and bands like that."
Locke, who also plays in Hamilton surf rock band the Hollow Grinders, first started thinking about the idea of a robot band about 15 years ago.
"I was always into Moe Tucker-style drumming, Velvet Underground-style drumming, and the idea of a machine-like drummer. And I thought about making a machine drummer."
But not a drum machine because he liked the idea of using real sounds and instruments. The resonance you get when someone hits a drum or a guitar is three-dimensional compared to what you can do with a computer.
"And I thought rhythmically it would be strong but it would also have mechanical variation."
He got a chance to try out his idea at the Hamilton Fringe Festival, even though he had no clue if it would actually work or not. He initially thought he would use gears and cogs but then he came across the ideal computer to run his band of 'bots.
When the company he was working for decommissioned an old vending machine for photocopier cards, the computer and electronics within it were perfect for what he needed. He reprogrammed it to run the robots and the instruments - and IBM 486DX40 (aka Turbo) still powers the Trons to this day. The rest of the robots are made up of second-hand materials, gear he picks up on Trade Me, and "stuff I had lying around".
"I had quite a bit of junk," he laughs.
While there is a gimmicky element to the band, it's something Locke is okay with because he sees the funny side to the Trons. "It's good to have some fun and humour, which is why I'm okay with that novelty side, but it's not the long term goal of what I'm after. And it gets people interested and arouses their imagination so it's a good thing."
The Trons have been in hot demand in Europe, getting invited by Mercedes to play at the Paris Auto Show ("Mercedes said, 'This is what we want. Everyone else has got the highest tech thing possible and we'll do this low-tech thing'."), and to a kinetic art and machine music festival in Austria.
With those two overseas experiences on the Trons CV they fronted up to Creative New Zealand to apply for funding to record and release The Trons, their debut CD/DVD double album.
There's the jangly frenzy of Sister Robot, the dissonant ambient rock of MX12, and on Twister Locke samples film-maker and sculptor Len Lye's cacophonous, rowdy, and, if you're standing too close, lethal, Trilogy installation.
The Trons and Trilogy hit it off when Locke and the band headed to New Plymouth to play at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery's 40th birthday earlier this year. Trilogy was on display in the gallery at the time which inspired Locke to use a snippet of Lye's crushing sound for Twister. "I just liked how the sounds worked into the Trons' sounds. I feel really honoured to have a piece like that in among it and I'd like to introduce more of those sorts of sounds in the future."
And what does the future hold for these boundary-pushing little beings?
"I want to work out what sounds work with machines, but still in that rock garage framework. I still want it to be good, cool music and I've got to add another keyboard that does more analogue washed sounds to get more of a texture going on and broaden the sound again.
"So experimenting, but in a garage rock vein."
LOWDOWN
Who: The Trons
Line-up: Swamp (drums), Ham (vocals/guitar), Fifi (keyboards), Wiggolowski Motor-Finger (aka Wiggy) (guitar)
Where and when: The Wine Cellar, K Rd, December 11
New album: The Trons, out now.
More info: thetrons.com
-TimeOut