Bass player Lez White has revealed he felt there was ‘unfinished business’ when Th' Dudes disbanded in 1980.
The Kiwi musician joined Mike Puru for The Breeze’s NZ Music Month special to chat about his journey joining the band, its ending and Th' Dudes’ resurgence in popularity during the mid ‘90s.
“I kind of like to think there was some unfinished business,” White admits.
“I can understand at the time [...] you could only go around New Zealand so many times.”
“We’d recently done a trip to Australia where we supported an English band called The Members,” White explained.
“As much fun as it was, it gave us a cruel realisation that if we went to Australia, we’d have to start all over again.”
“We just kind of hit a ceiling and a brick wall there.”
“Now with the internet [...] I think it might be the case that bands can stay in New Zealand and still have a profile and have a path on an international level.”
“Back then you could only go so far and then apart from repeating the same exercise over and over again, there wasn’t really a path towards anything else,” he finished.
White says that even with their success in New Zealand it was still a “pretty hand to mouth existence”.
“It was a very expensive business, but no regrets, we had a great time.”
The mid ‘90s saw a resurgence in popularity for Th' Dudes, and in 2019 they were inducted into the NZ Music Hall of Fame.
With White leaving to live in Australia in 1985, he said this newfound popularity was initially unbeknownst to him.
“In a way, I’m kind of glad that I missed the buildup because I got to discover it sort of brand new,” White said.
“It was like a new present under the Christmas tree.”
