With a release history that dates back to 2015, including a couple of albums, We Will Ride Fast isn’t exactly a new on-the-scene Kiwi artist, however 2026 is shaping up as a year of accelerated activity for the Tauranga-based darkwave / post-punk act. With its retro-futurist combination of synths, drum machines and motorik vocals Unfurl Your Weeds grabbed the attention of NZ On Air Music enough for the single to be included on the April NewTracks compilation.

Who is We Will Ride Fast and where do you hail from?

I’m Kyle Sattler, aka We Will Ride Fast. I’m currently living in Tauranga, the city by the sea, but I’m originally from Morrinsville – just over on the west side of the Kaimai.

What instruments do you play?

I started music when I picked up a bass guitar back in my art school days in Whanganui, but we used to just jam a lot so I became versatile on multiple instruments. I’ve played guitar in bands and in recording, a lot, so lots of self-taught rock/punk guitar.
Somewhere along the line I started singing and did the bass/vocal combo in a number of bands. In We Will Ride Fast I’m playing a Roland Juno keyboard into a pedal board with overdrive and delay, and of course I sing.

You studied visual art – what has that mainly led to as a practitioner?

Yes, I hold a Master’s degree in visual arts. The work for my master’s project was a combination of stop-motion-based moving image work paired with ambient soundscapes. I was and still am very interested in the effect of synchresis as a basis for generating artworks. Creatively, I am focused on the combination of moving image and sound, which has a nice synergy with the music videos I make.
I also have a volume of ambient music released under my name, Kyle Sattler. They’re essentially experimental soundscapes that constitute the sound component of my video and sound installations. Readers should check it out!
But my arts practice didn’t start there, and in the early days I was obsessed with painting. I still actively work with screen printing, drawing, paint, photography, and other mixed media approaches.

Any other music projects that NZM readers might know you from??

I was 19 when I first started playing in a band. Friends of mine had a falling out with their then bass player and asked me if I wanted to do it (they said they could teach me). So, with next to no skills, I said yes. Ultimately we became the three-piece called Frayden and over 15 years, self-produced five albums and a bunch of other stuff.

We were based in both Whanganui and Auckland. Our last album ‘Ghost Crash’ (2009) was recorded and produced with the legend Bob Frisbee out of his then New Lynn studio. During my time in Auckland I also played shows with Seedy Burners, The Bennies and Manic Cop.

What’s the background to your solo artist gig We Will Ride Fast?

I was doing solo recordings as far back as 1999 and released a bunch of demo tunes via Bandcamp under the name The Queen’s Birthday, but never made any attempt to promote the songs.

We Will Ride Fast came about after I moved from Auckland to Tauranga in 2014 and decided to start a new solo project based on the same DIY, self-recorded ethos. We Will Ride Fast’s first few shows were actually as a two-piece, featuring Simon Fritchley on guitar. He plays bass and sings with Mt Maunganui’s doom/stoner rockers Hemordroid. Much kudos to Simon for helping me get We Will Ride Fast into something that could be played live.

How did you come to choose that intriguing artist name?

“We will ride fast, we are the wind and the sun, step up to be free” This line was sung using a Dada-inspired improvisational recording technique when I was looking for lyrics for a new song circa 2015. The words come from a book called Stasiland, by Australian author Anna Funder. The song ended up being called We Will Ride Fast and subsequently became the name and first track for my new project. 

How has your music process evolved from ‘Emotional Molecules’ album to now?

I think the process is more or less the same, except that with ‘Emotional Molecules’ (2011I was tracking the project for vinyl production first and foremost. ‘Emotional Molecules’ was a funded research project looking at packaging design, vinyl production, and the NZ vinyl marketplace.
I was fortunate to follow up with the ‘Army Of Invisible Zombies’ LP in 2023. From a production point of view, ‘Army Of Invisible Zombies’ is a better LP – apart from the screen-printed vinyl jackets for ‘Emotional Molecules’.

I work at Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology in Tauranga as an academic staff member on the Bachelor of Creative Industries degree. The role requires staff to conduct academic research, and with that there are funding opportunities for applicable research. Both LPs were funded through the Toi Ohomai research committee.

There’s an amount of tongue-in-cheek / parody in your songs and music.

I flirt with the idea that We Will Ride Fast is actually just a conceptual artwork that I’ve been working on for a while. If I was making a comparison, I’d reference Scottish artist Martin Creed, whose multidisciplinary creative practice sees him also writing songs and performing them.
With him in mind, it’s not far from the truth to suggest this. There’s certainly context for this approach within the field of visual arts, and this is reinforced through some of the thematic content in the songs and lyrics.

For example, the song Surfing The Meme Machine is based on the seminal theoretical work, The Meme Machine, by Susan Blackmore. The book argues that memes are units of cultural information, ideas, behaviours, and beliefs, that evolve through imitation and competition, shaping human minds and culture in a way analogous to genes driving biological evolution.
I also think that the occasional foray into absurdity is a useful tool within the performance side of music. By creating distance between yourself and the character/persona of the performing artist, it becomes a little easier to be someone less comfortable.

Do you perform live as We Will Ride Fast?

Playing live music has been one of my life’s greatest loves, and with We Will Ride Fast this is no different. I think it’s the ultimate thrill, and over time live performance becomes the place where the most exciting song growth happens.
Live is, for me, the peak “flow” state (Csikszentmihalyi), so it’s become a healing exercise too. Playing live to air on the 95bFM Friday Drive show was a pretty special experience, and also really daunting in terms of playing live and solo. A highlight for sure. An unfurling of my weeds, so to speak.

Nice! What is the lyrical story behind Unfurl Your Weeds?

Unfurl Your Weeds is an anthem for just letting go of all your baggage. You only live once so what are you waiting for? Don’t let the negative thoughts get in the way!

What made Unfurl Your Weeds stand out for you as a single choice?

It’s an interesting question and might be tied more to strategy than anything else. I have been focused on releasing singles simply because the cost of vinyl production is prohibitive, otherwise I would focus on albums/records.
By releasing singles, I can also embrace the “fun” factor of making all the visual content, i.e. music videos. My release strategy for 2026 was to prepare and release a minimum of six singles. The other five songs and videos are all sitting there ready to go. Unfurl Your Weeds represents the first in that queue, and was chosen as the first drop as I thought it was the most attention-grabbing.

What’s your own favourite moment, musical or lyrical, of the track?

I’m a big fan of the breakdown in the middle where for a while it’s just drums, bass and vocals. “All deeds lead to the sleeping seas, out on a season of need, in a psycho cosmic swirl, unfurl your weeds.”

Can you tie the sound back to an important band or time in your own life?

That’s a tricky question. I remember fondly, many years ago as a 14 year-old boy, sitting in a music store with my mate Hayden Fritchley (Swallow The Rat). They had booths where you could sit and pre-listen to something on headphones before buying.
We had seen an ad for an album in Thrasher magazine and decided to give it a whirl. The album was ‘How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can’t Even Smile Today’ by Suicidal Tendencies. Both of our musical leanings changed forever within the first 15 seconds of hearing that music. Two young punk skateboarders finally exposed to the thing that was going to resonate the most.

What are the key production hardware/software tools you use? 

I’m using Logic Pro almost exclusively these days and lean heavily into the MIDI functions for my rhythm parts in WWRF. Even though I always learn and play my songs on the bass first, I very rarely record myself playing it, certainly not for We Will Ride Fast, and that’s been a distinct difference from past projects.
By building MIDI compositions, the bass parts become interchangeable with the synth parts. This has been the basic structural method underlying WWRF. The organic parts are the guitar-like keys and vocals, and they are generally recorded wherever I have my laptop and mobile recording equipment.

What would you like listeners to take away from this song?

I’ve set 2026 up so that I can consistently release music throughout the year. I always pitched Unfurl Your Weeds as the up-front attention seeker. Short snappy and simple. I was just hoping people notice it!

It’s your second single including vocals by Frances Ellen – is this a new creative norm?

There certainly seems to be a pattern to it, yeah, but I wouldn’t say either of us knows for sure long term. Frances has her own songs that need recording and releasing, and there are ongoing conversations about helping make that happen for her.
However, in the short term, We Will Ride Fast have a song titled In Numbers out at the end of April. This will be the third song in a row with Frances involved, and probably the one where her voice is the most forward in the mix.
In Numbers is also a slight departure for me in that the song production was handled by Lewis Kelly, a producer based out of Nottingham, UK. There is another song featuring Frances later in the year, but my schedule has others ahead in the release queue.

Is there anyone else in your team?

Yeah I’d like to give a shout out Renee Jones for all her help over the last few years. Aside from that I’m quite DIY focused with everything. I’m a returning customer of Carl Saff’s for mastering and plan to have Lewis Kelly mixing more in the future.

Can you please name three other local tunes that would fit well on a playlist alongside your song.

AW: One Dark Night
Half Hexagon: Ism
Swallow The Rat: MMA Math – A Place to Bury Strangers Remix

Have any of your previous single releases been included on New Tracks, or received NZ On Air funding? 

No, this is my first time, and I’m yet to be successful with any NZ On Air funding applications. I reached the 10/30 criteria count in mid 2025 and think it’s a fair stipulation that that you must first demonstrate consistency.  As a solo artist I’ve had to work quite hard to achieve the criteria, and it’s not easy being based in Tauranga, away from the industry centres.

How can we find you on social media?

kylesattler.com
instagram.com/wewillridefast/
facebook.com/wewillridefast
youtube.com/@wewillridefast
tiktok.com/@wewillridefast 

instagram.com/frances_ellen_music/

You also make your own videos. Where do you sit on the AI music video debate?

In 2024 I used the AI text-to-video platform Runway to make a video for a song called Matter Makes Abstraction. I thought it was appropriate given the name and theme of the song.
I never paid for anything, only using the free trial credits, so I ended up making two fake accounts to get enough content. I think the low-grade visual distortions from the free accounts worked well for the song.
I’m not a fan of the look of AI video footage, but I also acknowledge the amount of work and skill that goes into a music video, so I can see the benefits for those who don’t have access to that.
I’m a lot more concerned about platforms like Suno that pump out generic song forms in seconds. If you don’t understand how the parts were played, or didn’t use that information to make choices about song composition, then you aren’t songwriting, in my opinion.

Any last words?

Follow We Will Ride Fast on social media, keep an eye out for the new songs and hit me up for shows. I’m keen!