Irreverent Brisbane trio Dune Rats have garnered some pretty solid acclaim from alt-rock veterans The Dandy Warhols following their well-received performance at Splendour In The Grass. Taking to Instagram, the Dandys frontman compared our homegrown three-piece to Nirvana.
Taking a cheeky pic from the side of stage, Dandys singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor shared the glory of the stony trio with fans of the ‘Bohemian Like You’ hit-makers and then laid the compliment of music compliments on them: “Dune Rats. Nirvana but fun. This guy just belched for 4 seconds into the mic.”
While every band likes to know that they’re unique and doing their own thing, we reckon there’s probably worse bands to be compared to. The Dune Rats boys seem to agree as well, even retweeting the frontman’s post.
The band has been keeping very busy lately. In addition to their Splendour appearance, they recently announced the launch of their new record label, Ratbag Records. “Ratbag Records is the Dunies way of giving the bands they love a leg up,” they said in a press release.
The label’s first signing is Byron Bay trio Skegss. According to Dunies vocalist/guitarist Danny Beusa, Skegss were chosen to christen the label “Because we froth the music and the dudes are real as fuck. They love doing the same shit that we do too.”
According to Triple J, Dune Rats have had their own label since signing with Warner Music Australia last year, but touring and other commitments distracted them from expanding Ratbag.
“We didn’t just want to do a record label and do it half-assed, so we wanted to have that time and have someone in control of it,” the band told the station. They’re hoping on expanding rapidly and even have their eye on a band from Denmark they’d like to sign.
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“I think a lot of the DIY bands like Skeggs — little surfie coastal dudes — they don’t really care that much about that whole [business] side of it,” says Dune Rats bassist Brett Jansch.
“They just want to write shows and play shows… We want to be sick about making sure they get through those mainstream avenues and they can go and do what they want.”
“At the end of the day, they [Warner] are awesome with the whole back-end of it and the way they’re trying to service the acts and they’re fully getting our DIY aesthetic with Ratbag and giving bands like Skegss, and the other bands that we’re going to be putting out, making sure they can put out what they want and do what they want.”
