Tearaway Magazine - May 2000
betchadupa @ the beach
They were the first band on the mainstage at the Big Day Out, so you could have easily have missed them. 
betchadupa is based around 16 year olds Liam Finn and Matt Eccles. They've got music in their blood...and in their 
living rooms, probably. Their dads are famous. Matt's father drums for Aussie band, The Angels and Liams dad is...well, 
Neil Finn. Apart from that, they're just your average college kids witha record contract trying to make a name for themselves.

Matt: I met Liam many years ago at a beach and we started writing songs and began developing a musical relationship.
T: On the beach?
Matt: Yeah (laughs)
Liam: Our families are friends. We got writing good songs together and he eventually moved over (from Aussie).
Matt: My dad was originally from Auckland. He played in Citizen Band and stuff like that.

T: How did betchadupa get together as a band?
Liam: We'd done recording, me and Matt before. The other guitarist, Chris, has been a fried of mine for a long time
 and the bass player, Joe, I met when I was at Auckland Grammar for a short time. (Matt and Liam are at Selwyn College).

T: Where did the name come from?
Liam: It came from a Polish friend of Matt's called Moolgda. I don't know where it is from, it's a crazy name. 
He's a pretty crazy guy.
Matt: He comes out with a lot of stuff that suprises you.
Liam: When you're not expecting anything he'll come out with something outrageous.
Matt: "betchadupa" was a catch phrase of his.
Liam: He gave me a t-shirt that said "betchadupa" on it. I think its a Polish thing.

T: What was touring with the feelers like?
Liam: there is nothing better I can think of than going on tour. Just the rush you get off playing live, 
when the crowd likes you, you feel the energy off them and they feed off you. It's a really good feeling. 
Russel was one of our best shows.

T: So you were conceived at the beach and you seem to do well by the beach?
Liam: Yeah the beach is our place.

T: How do you find time to tour and study?
Liam: We just had the summer holidays and now we're back at school, we're working around it. 
But we're still going to be doing shows around Auckland.

T: Are u head-downers or slacker types?
Liam: We have a good time but we do or work.

T: What are your subjects?
Liam: Literature, photography, drama and media studies. I really like photography but literature is 
really good. I read The Post Office by Charles Bukowski and really enjoyed The Beach by Alex Garland.

T: How come all your publicity shots are all black and white?
Liam: We want to keep a simple, home-done, hand-made feel. Not too commercial or anything.
Matt: It's classic. How can you go past black and white?
Liam: It's more us. It's our personalities rather than advertising personalities. We're not the next Hanson. 
We want to create a vibe ourselves, by people hearing us, rather than people seeing our photo and name everywhere. 
We want to create a bit of a fan base and get people to see our live show rather than sell tons and tons of records 
and get really famous.

T: What things influence your songs?
Liam: I'm quite influenced by places I'll go that might have a certain mood, like the beach. If you have a really
 good time somewhere you might want to capture that mood. A song can capture a place or time or a memory with
something like that...hmmm.It's getting quite deep. I've never thought about it that deep.

T: What places have inspired some of your songs?
Liam: Me and Matt wrote this one to be released later, called West Coast Religion which is about Piha. We were
 out there and played the guitar and just got caught in the moment. Spill the Light which is on the EP 
was inspired by being away from my friends. It's sort of a song about missing friends and 
wanting to be back at the beach with Matt, I guess.