Dillon Jo are a queer, female-fronted four-piece from Te Whanganui-a-Tara, formed first in 2025 as an acoustic singer-songwriter duo of Betty Smith and Georgie Levien, before expanding into a band that blends melodic dream pop, shoegaze, alternative rock and indie pop. Released in October 2026 their engaging debut album, ‘Guard Dog’, explores growing up, queer love, relationships, mental health and feminine rage.

There’s a palpable energy about Dillon Jo, vibrant enough that its even apparent in the band’s press release emails. Reaching out to share their first single of 2026, Betty Smith described Jo as a joyful love song about first queer love, written when the band’s two lead singer/guitarists were 19 and living by Pōhara beach.

‘With a 2000s-inspired rock drum beat and dreamy pop hooks, it captures that rush of falling hard for the first time.’

Recombining those sonic components Dillon Jo describe their sound as ‘dreamy droppy rock rop’, a dynamic blending of hazy guitars and melodic alternative pop vocals with heavier rock elements. Betty shares the songwriting and guitar/vocals duties with Georgie Levien, and it was as a duo that Dillon Jo first formed she explains.

“In our first year of university Georgie and I got quite close, and over the summer started writing so many songs together. Our plan was to pursue our own solo projects, but then because of the amount of songs we had written, we decided to start a band together!

“We started off as an acoustic duo for the first few months, playing low-key shows and busking wherever we could. About a year and a half ago, we asked Kahu and Ruadh to be in the band to widen our sound, and at the first practice everything just clicked.”

Bass player Kahu Sanson-Burnett is well-known as both a collaborative musician and producer. Raised in Nelson, he made an early SFRQ splash with Jola Burns and his indie pop/rock band Parallel Park, which has recently taken a break to allow solo projects to percolate through.

Drummer Ruadh Munro was previously part of Pōneke shoegaze punk act Scarlett Crush, also currently on hiatus.

“All of us competed in Rockquest at some point throughout high school, with Georgie and Kahu competing against one another in different bands in Nelson,” Betty explains. “Both of them got quite far, so it’s really cool to combine forces now!

“Rockquest was really significant growing up for most of us. I think it was a really good opportunity to grow as musicians and gain experience in performing original work live. A few months ago we were asked to be the guest band for five regional finals across the North Island for Rockquest, so it was pretty full circle to see the next generation of talent and play on those stages again!”

Having joined forces as students of Massey University’s Commercial Music degree the four clearly work efficiently together. From becoming a four-piece in late ’25 to releasing an inspiring 11-song album in October 2026 progress has been fast-forward, the speed made possible by having band member Kahu looking after their recording, mostly done in his flat’s bedroom studio.

From the outset as a duo, Dillon Jo have been about raw, honest storytelling, their songs capturing the shared coming-of-age zeitgeist.

“Usually Betty or I write the entire song together on acoustic guitar,” explains Georgie. “Then we’ll show it to the band and that’s when we start playing with dynamics and all that fun stuff. The guys, Ru and Kahu, always have awesome ideas on how we can transform the songs from melodic singer-songwriter tunes to a wider more stage ready sound.”

Five tracks on ‘Guard Dog’ were released as singles in the run up to the October album release, the mood shifting between explosive alt rock and stripped-back vulnerability, capturing the confusion and sometimes painful intensity of approaching your 20s in the mid 2020s.

“I think the album as a whole sort of tells a story from beginning to end,” says Georgie. “There are broader topics it touches on like mental health, relationships, queer love and self-identity, but I like to think of it as a story about transitioning from 18 and having left school, to now just finishing university.

“The coolest thing about this album is it doesn’t sit in one emotion for very long and actually explores a wide range of feelings – and in a way reflects that through the sonic dynamics of the songs.”

She’s excited to have ‘Guard Dog’ available, especially for their Te Whanganui-a-Tara fans.

“Over the past year and a bit we’ve been performing these songs to all the people that have shown up for us at our shows. It means a lot to be able to give them something they can listen to, and for it to also be a representation of everything we’ve done so far. We have enough songs and we had enough time to record them, so why not release them for the world to hear!

“What I’d love listeners to take away from it is allowing yourself to feel all of the emotions through the lyrics and the music; from falling in love, to the angst of growing up.”

San Fran has been the band’s most frequent live performance venue and Betty says it’s always a great night when they get to play there. She names their burning fourth album single Vertigo as a band favourite to play live.

“I think that Vertigo probably aligns the most with the Wellington alternative scene as it’s one of our heavier tracks we’ve put out, and we got a great response from people about it. It’s so high energy and we love to have lots of fun on stage.”

“Vertigo was one of our newer songs from this year, and as soon as we wrote it, we loved playing it as much as we could. It started off as me playing around with the riff that repeats throughout the song, and it went from there. When I sat down with Georgie and played it, I had a feeling of what it should be about.

“It stemmed from when Georgie had a bad drug experience, and I think we both wanted the lyrics to feel as if you were experiencing that trip all over again, and spiraling in your own head. It’s quite a dark song, but it’s exactly what we wanted it to feel like. It also became super cathartic to play live as it’s that release of all of those dark feelings.”

Georgie credits Betty and their band manager/ photographer Evie Thomson with the outside house concept for the Vertigo music video shoot, bouncing increasingly extreme and out of the box ideas off each other until they landed on a full blown fight scene for the end.

“The video was actually a full day of shooting along with the album cover shoot, so we had to be pretty locked in, but there were lots of fun moments. I thought it was so funny watching Kahu throw bread at people’s faces. All of his scenes were really hard not to laugh because he had to angrily cut and throw sausages around.”

Dillon Jo received New Music Single funding from NZ On Air for Drift, the last single before the album release.

“We’re in the process of filming a video with the talented Molly Doyle, so stay tuned for the Drift music video coming soon!”

Made with support from NZ On Air