This interview feature is part of our Dunedin Scene Report. Check out the series here.
Many Aotearoa New Zealand acts like to write about London (moving there is not going to solve all of your problems, bud), but none have written about the city as… idiosyncratically as Bunchy’s Big Score.
Here’s how “Jeremy Cricket”, the opening track on their new album Wanda’s Bicycle, begins: “Jeremy Cricket / You’d be a good excuse / To move to London / And take a shower / Standing outside / In the greyest light / Like a burnt-out matchstick / Thumbs in fists, painted white.”
Nonsensical? Maybe. Does it matter? Absolutely not.
Bunchy’s Big Score are an Ōtepoti Dunedin art-rock band who always take the road less travelled in their music. The weirder a lyric is, the more delightfully oddball a rhythm is, the better.
Wanda’s Bicycle, released last month, is full of artful and playful tracks like “Jeremy Cricket”. Dunedin is producing plenty of exciting rock bands right now, of the furiously political and noisy variety — whom I will continue to extol the virtues of — but it’s equally refreshing to hear a fun-loving band like Bunchy’s Big Score emerge out of the cold Otago city’s current music community.
The musical touchstones here are so enjoyable. The Velvet Underground, a lot; crooked vocals that recall Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus; classic Dunedin bands like The Clean and The Chills; indie-pop à la Alvvays; and did I mention The Velvet Underground?
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“I know it’s gonna be cliché, but The Velvet Underground is probably my favourite band of all time,” says the band’s founding member Max White.
He started Bunchy’s Big Score in 2023 as a recording project for just him and a friend, but the latest incarnation features a finely assembled collection of local musicians: Jack Ingram, who also plays in U-No Juno, Niki Knight, and Reef Brazendale now join White in the lineup.
Their first album, Happy Birthday, Daniel Johnston!!! Don’t Be Afraid…<3 (2025), featured scrappier, more lo-fi cuts in the mould of the titular late, great Austin musician. Heading into 2026, however, White wanted to level up. Follow-up album Wanda’s Bicycle is “a bit less lo-fi,” he says, recorded at South Link Studios in their hometown.
“This [‘Wanda’s Bicycle’] is probably the most commercial Bunchy’s Big Score ever goes,” he admits. “I got a proper band together and we went to a proper studio to do it rather than just the dingy flats, which we did for the last one, and really made a good go of trying to make a good-sounding album.”
South Link Studios, run by Nick Roughan, who boasts over four decades’ experience in the Aotearoa music industry, has been a godsend for so many new Dunedin bands. Operating under the auspices of South Link Educational Trust, the studios offer any artist or band a certain amount of free studio time per year, backed by an experienced audio engineer. It’s an absolute game-changer for a city so often overlooked on a national scale. And the output speaks for itself: Pearly*, who just featured in our Future of Music series, recorded an album there.
“[…] we haven’t had to pay for recording, basically because of Southlink Studios,” White says, “so in some ways it kind of evens out.” He’s referring to the cost of trying to be a band these days. In order to fund a national tour in support of their new album, Bunchy’s Big Score had to put on several fundraiser shows, which were well attended by their music community. They didn’t have merch at those shows, but they have remedied the situation for their tour dates.
“We’re hoping on the financial side of things it is a little better,” he says. “[There’s] a strong sense of community here. People doing favours for each other, not in a way where it’s like you’re ripping your friends off. I think people are just keen to help each other out and it goes both ways.”
Robert Scott — aka legendary member of The Bats and The Clean, Robert Scott — provided backing vocals on some of the album tracks, which White understatedly says was “really cool.”
“And he was such a nice guy,” he reveals. “We were kind of shitting ourselves when he showed up ’cause we’d never met him before, but he was so, so friendly.”
Bunchy’s Big Score are yet to find any luck with New Zealand labels (Idiots! Philistines!), but White reveals a small label in China has expressed internet in re-releasing Wanda’s Bicycle. “I get the impression that it’s kind of like one guy’s passion project and he just releases bands that he likes, which is cool.”
Like many Dunedin musicians I speak with, White, 22, admits to having a “complicated relationship” with his hometown.
“I’ve been through times where I’ve felt quite jaded towards the place, particularly when you’re thinking about trying to have a commercially reliable music career,” he says. “At times it feels like Ōtepoti can’t do that much for you.” (The sooner we make New Zealand music less Auckland-oriented, the better.) He pauses. “But on the other side, some of the country’s best music does come from here…”
Wanda’s Bicycle is a perfect example of this point: Bunchy’s Big Score’s album is way more musically challenging and lyrically playful than many of their New Zealand contemporaries that score better when it comes to commercial and label support. “Oscar Says”, a standout track, landed on the Hot 20 Aotearoa Singles Chart for one week in April, and it’s perhaps unfortunate that the full album didn’t chart upon its release.
White sighs. “I want to quit my day job. I think there’s a degree of that — no matter what people tell you — subconsciously, I think most artists feel that way. It would be awesome to do music, but I also think, at the same time, there are musicians from Dunedin who do genuinely just like playing music.”
Dunedin has been good to White and Bunchy’s Big Score. His favourite local venue is Yours (a recurring theme in all of my Dunedin interviews), which he says is aesthetically aligned with “what Bunchy’s Big Score is.” They’ve played Pearl Diver “quite a few times,” and Pioneer Hall, “which is great for the all ages [scene].”
“Every weekend, there’s always a lot on,” he continues. “Every time we’re playing a gig, I’m like, ‘What else is on? What are we competing with?’ And there’s always stuff on.”
They organised their national tour alone, aided by those fundraiser shows. Despite some initial difficulty nailing down a Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington slot, they managed to secure venues and dates in the capital, their hometown (of course), Ōtautahi Christchurch, and Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland twice over.
This is the band’s first national run. “We’ve decided it’s time to try out for the North Island!” White exclaims. “We’ve done South Island and we’ve played Christchurch quite a number of times, and that’s been really good. We like to play in Christchurch, Darkroom in particular is our venue we like to play there.”
He admits to being a bit “nervous” about their North Island debut, even though some of his bandmates have played up north with their other bands. “I think that a few people know what Bunchy’s Big Score is and might be hopefully a little curious,” he says. “Like, ‘What’s this weird, weird band?!’ I’m cautiously optimistic.”
White admits he’s “toyed with the idea” of “confirming” by moving to Auckland, a fate that’s befallen many great South Island musicians. Flipping through a new book about The Clean, he realised that things were much the same back in the halcyon ‘Dunedin Sound’ days. “[T]here’s this part where they’re talking about how hard it is to break into the Auckland scene and such, you know, ’cause it’s probably really competitive up there, and maybe that’s something that hasn’t hasn’t changed. I don’t know. maybe one day!
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Bunchy’s Big Score play their first Auckland show tonight (July 16th) at Whammy Bar, followed by their second big-city performance at Mt. Eden Scout Hall on Friday, before concluding their tour at Moon in Wellington on Saturday.
What happens then? More music, definitely. White says he wants every Bunchy’s Big Score album to sound “completely different” — perhaps their next album will return to the scrappy, Johnston-esque lo-fi of their debut, or perhaps their third record will sound even more tight and polished than Wanda’s Bicycle. They plan to apply for NZ On Air funding for music videos. If this year has seen White and his band level up in so many respects, it still feels like their biggest and best is yet to come.
Bunchy’s Big Score’s Wanda’s Bicycle is out now. Ticket information for their remaining tour dates can be found here.
