First we’ll take Berlin

It’s a long and winding road from Dunedin’s dive bars to the top of the Berlin dance charts, Leah Hinton tells

Leah Hinton (right) and DJ Lars Moston live at Wilde Mohre Festival last year. just threw a dart at a map,’’ she reckons.

When the band arrived in Berlin, it didn’t take long for Hinton to realise that the city had a music culture all of its own.

‘‘House and techno are such a big part of Berlin’s whole DNA, I reckon something pretty mindblowing would have to come along to bump it out of fashion here.’’

With her heavy metal career in the rearview mirror, Leah decided to put more time into her solo song writing.

That is until she bumped into house DJ Lars Moston at a local bar.

The pair initially bonded over tearing apart each other’s tastes in music.

But the challenge of trying to write a song together proved impossible to resist.

Channelling her grunge and metal inclinations into a technopop framework initially proved difficult.

But recalling a piece of songwriting advice from

Verlaines frontman and University of Otago lecturer Graeme Downes helped her bridge the gap.

‘‘One thing that really stuck with me from Graeme’s course is the importance of repetition when creating hooks,’’ she says.

Hinton and Moston’s initial collaboration proved a resounding success.

Moston’s profile in the local dance scene helped him work the track into club sets across Europe.

Now, after five singles, the pair’s tunes have clocked up a collective 30 weeks on Germany’s influential club charts.

Hinton puts the success down to a new stage strategy that sees her trading her trusty guitar for a more clubfriendly keytar.

‘‘We’ve developed two versions of the live set, one is pop, like the album, and the other is a dance or ‘clubby’ version, which is awesome because we can tailor our live set towards all sorts of festivals,’’ she explains.

When asked about her enduring interest in metal, Hinton points to one track on the new album.

‘‘It’s a dark, minimalistic version of the Alice Cooper classic Poison.

‘‘Lars came up with the idea after hearing the original on the ’80s channel while riding the Berlin night train.

‘‘It’s very intimate and mesmerising, and almost uncomfortable at times — completely different from the original rock vibe.’’

There have already been several uptempo dance remixes of their cover to cater for the famously highenergy Berlin club crowds.

As for what comes next? Hinton and Moston are touring the new album across Europe this summer, starting in Ibiza.

They hope to bring their houseinspired live set to the southern hemisphere later in the year.

The pair are realistic about what it might take to reproduce their northern hemisphere success in New Zealand.

‘‘Actually, our ideal audience would probably include a mosh pit, a group of ravers, some grunge kids nodding their heads in the corner, some trip hoppers swaying and a couple of old punk dads,’’ says Hinton.

No Time To Explain is out now on Motor Music.