The Spinoff presents the premiere of buzzed-about Auckland post-punk band Daffodils’ new music video ‘Boys’.

Daffodils songwriter and frontperson Theo Spike Salmon says:

I wrote ‘Boys’ two years ago, around the end of high school. We’ve revised stuff, and played around with slightly different structuring, but it’s honestly not changed much at all. When I wrote it, I was kind of struggling with how to balance doing all the high school lad shit, while also trying to be sensitive to other people. Like remaining empathetic and just not being a dick in general. 

I like the idea that it’s a song that a bunch of dudes about to go off and get on the rark at the beach can enjoy, with the windows down when they’re driving. But I also like the idea that it’s more conscious than a dumbass driving song should be. I don’t think I’ve ever had any really bold intentions for it, with a lot of the music we write, it’s kind of just an extension of how we deal with shit. 

When I was like 12 or 13, everyone had a PS2, so you’d go over to your friend’s place and play Spy vs Spy or Lego Star Wars or something, then sneak out and do naughty shit. With the video, we talked with Conor [Pritchard] and ran through a bunch of ideas, and in the end, we just wanted it to be… fun. Something that people could watch and be like, “Oh yeah, that’s the shit I did.” I think my original idea was way deeper than that, but Jade [Bryham] and I were talking a lot about what would actually be achievable in three and a half minutes, and I think what we settled on in the end was that we just wanted that nostalgic feeling.

For us, there were just constant all-ages gigs in, like, shitty church halls, before the council started cracking down on those kind of things. That was what we’d go out to. You’d drink a bottle of Scrumpy at the top of Mount Eden then walk to a gig with these bands like Desperate Models and Roidz.  I loved that all ages scene. That was a big part of my early teenage years, just going to gigs like every single weekend, where everything would be so loud that you wouldn’t be able to hear anything for two days afterwards. It was always worth it.

Daffodils’ ‘Boys’ EP is available on streaming services, and on vinyl from Holiday Records.

This piece was made with support from New Zealand on Air.