Get your hard hats and your high-vis vests on. For a hazard-free gig, you can count on No Danger: an eclectic six-piece band that play sets with covers ranging from Black Sabbath to the Spice Girls, alongside their own originals, one of which they’re planning to officially release soon. Critic Te Ārohi caught up with the band to talk OSHA.
“What’s not dangerous?” says Blake, of their signature stage look. The band are known for donning high-vis at their Pint Night performances, which they did for their first gig at U-Bar, as a joke on No Danger. “I think we all decided it was lame. Then did one gig without it and everyone was annoyed,” says Robbie. No Danger are Lucas (bass), Blake (vocals), Will (guitar), Alex (keys/harmonica/melodica), Robbie (drums), and Hamish (trumpet). Will, Alex, Robbie, Hamish, and Luke met in their first-year hall, while Blake and Will went to high school together.
Many of the group first started playing music together for fun at their hall. “We were always thinking throughout the whole of second-year, we gotta get a band together,” says Alex. Come last May, in their third year, Will surprised the guys by signing them up to open for the Audio Visual Dropkicks after chatting with Kaia of the band. “I essentially just lied to her,” Will recalls of the situation. “Like, ‘Yeah, we can open for you guys. Sure, why not?’ And I hadn't even messaged these guys.” They had just over a month to prepare for the gig after this revelation, and it was about three weeks before the gig that Blake joined the band.
“We take well-known songs, then change them up. Make them a bit weird,” says Robbie of their approach to covers. Alex recalls when they played a gig at Rewind, the venue owner doubted their setlist, this time containing some Michael Bublé and DnB: “He said looking at our setlist beforehand, ‘This is not gonna work, there's no way this fits together.’ But afterwards, he was like, ‘Yeah, it just does.’”
No Danger’s originals are also as varied in range as their covers. Punk, funk, ska, window shopping songs, and some “politically charged lyrics” are all on the table for the group. “We’re all quite different people, so there’s a lot of different influences,” says Alex. They’ve also got an upcoming single in the works, ‘Roll On By’. Will, who led the songwriting on this track, had two concepts in mind during the process. “My main main intention was to try and make a parody of a surf rock song. Or make a surf rock song, but it's the old-timey classical kind of surf rock song.”
You can catch No Danger at the final Pint Night of the year, October 11 at U-Bar, playing alongside DownsideUp, Black Sale House, and Evo. Keep up with No Danger on socials (@no_danger_dunedin). And to No Danger, Critic has been wondering: do you cover ‘The Safety Dance?’