Five-piece Whanganui powerhouse DRXNES (previously Drones and still pronounced the same), have celebrated the fifth anniversary of the founding of the band with a video, lovingly assembled from hours of nostalgic behind the scenes footage and the best moments of their 2019 tour of a dozen cities across Aotearoa. The result looks stunning, and the song is one of their finest. Time for NZM to check in with vocalist Rob Reynolds, guitarists Isaac Chamberlain and Adam Robinson, drummer Ethan Coleman and Liam Robinson (bass) to see what they’ve been up to since we last talked in 2018.

Why did you pick Zero to get treated to some visuals?

We chose Zero because of the context and meaning it has with us as a band, and we had a fair amount of unused footage from the tour.

Zero is our highest streaming song but also has a very meaningful and important message that we all relate to on different levels as a band. It had to have a video! We had a massive archive of footage from the last 4-5 years and we had Josh along to film our entire tour in 2019. So it made sense to make something out of all the footage we have and reflect on the journey so far.

Who created the video, and why did you pick them?

We chose Joshua Dey to film this video as he has been our right hand man from the start, if not our sixth member! Josh has been with us from the start filming and producing all our videos and promo to date and we want to support it him in anyway we can. Always feels like we get the better deal, absolute legend! And we wouldn’t be and won’t be going anywhere without him!

What was the artistic concept of the Zero video? 

Zero, for me, is all about the evolution of self. So I wanted the video to follow the evolution of Drxnes. It begins with early archival footage from a time where Drxnes had really just begun their journey together. Along the way we see the evolution of not only the band as a unit, but the live shows in terms of size, energy and frequency. The footage and camera work evolves too, going from the earlier 720p footage to the crisp 4k from the 2019 tour.. We had lots of footage!

It has a documentary sort of feel. Can you explain a shots/scenes for some context?

3:16 shows the journey to the South Island segment of the NZ tour. You see a montage of scenery from the air, Dunedin landmarks, and locals followed by the boys sound checking and getting into the zone before their dunedin show. The final shot shows Ethan scribbling ‘DRXNES’ onto his drumstick before Rob comes in with his scream, initiating the final sequence of live footage from Tauranga, Rotorua, Hamilton, Auckland, New Plymouth, Wellington, Christchurch, and of course Dunedin.

All the crowd shots are my favourites. Seeing the crowd having a good time and enjoying what we do is the main goal and puts a smile on my face every time.

How are you dealing with quarantine as a band?

We are trying to stay connected through Messenger and video calls but we are very limited with what we can do in this situation. It has been a good time to take a breath and reflect on what we have done as a band and really build some excitement into moving forward once this is all over. For me it’s been a great time to reflect and work on my admin skills.

What’s next, musically speaking?

First of all after this lockdown period we will be jumping straight back into the studio to complete our next single The Machine. I also feel there is a need to put on some shows since we’ve all been stuck inside dreaming of sweaty mosh pits!