David Saunders, guitarist, songwriter, Auckland emigre and leader of legendary schoolkid snot-poppers, the Battling Strings (go find or remember 'If I Do', the anthemic highlight of the Weird Culture Weird Custom 1985 student radio compilation). He stuck to his guitar and said he'd also keep singing if that was okay.

Denise Roughan, guitarist, vocalist, songwriter with Dunedin's much-loved and lamented Look Blue Go Purple. Fresh from five years in that all-women outfit, Denise asked if she could borrow a friend's bass gear for this 3Ds lark. The change of instrument was agreeable to her and she agreed to sing a song or two in this new band.

Dominic Stones, Bird Nest Roys guitarist, another escaped Aucklander, and also late of Snapper. Tired of playing guitar, feeling like a bit of sit-down in this new band, Dominic told the others he was really a drummer at heart, so they put him behind the kit and away he went. He agreed not to sing.

By christmas of 1990, these 3Ds emerged from their practice rooms fresh from those early, gnarly attempts at being Motorhead Junior. They had something a lot more interesting and distinctive to say than that and they also had a second axe-weilder, in the form of David Mitchell, to say it with.

Mitchell's reputation for ripping his knuckles to shreds on guitar strings in the course of a night's manic performance with Goblin Mix, the Exploding Budgies and Plagal Grind was legendary. He matched those vaguely gaelic guitar histrionics with a formidable vocal whine and a head overflowing with lyrical images of drunken sailors and downtrodden love. David was also another old friend and another 'D', so he was welcomed to The 3Ds fold...

The 3Ds spent another year practicing and performing in Dunedin. Fans were flocking to the city's venues to see them play and reviewers were left gushing things like "horrid little riffs that get under your nails and won't come out, the best guitar sound this side of a sawmill and an increasing number of slick little ditties with names like 'Evocation of W.C. Fields..." (ALLEY OOP 7, July 1989).

Next, Flying Nun sent the band into local studio, Fish Street, along with producer/engineer Matthew Heine of S.P.U.D. The result is a seven song EP called, appropriately enough, Fish Tales. The EP featured a rag-tag mix of outlandishly heavy riff-making (take 'Mud Sacrifice'), frenzied pop ('Evil Kid' and more), and finished off with an ethereal medieval song spoken by Denise called 'Ball of Purple Thread'.

Fish Tales sent more than a few people into raptures of praise and salivation. The 3Ds followed that trick with more serious gigging around New Zealand (mostly in their hometown, but making it up to Christchurch once or twice and even Auckland!) and a bout of songwriting that saw them scurrying back into Fish Street a few months later with another EP to record.

Swarthy Songs For Swabs was the result. Sticking to the nautical title theme established by Fish Tales but dispensing with their senses altogether, The 3Ds emerged with what was regarded as a frighteningly good record, six songs long. Produced by the band and Tex Houston (live sound engineer and producer on LBGP's swan-song, This Is This), Swarthy Songs For Swabs had critics local and overseas rushing to explain how The 3Ds hadn't so much reinvented noisy pop as turn it inside out and upside down. According to influential American college radio magazine, CMJ, The 3Ds exhibited "world-conquering potential", while the two Davids' "twin guitar poetry alternates between passionate melodicism and fractured chaos, with a sound and timbre as immediately identifiable as [Sonic Youth guitarists] Lee and Thurston". Phew!

And they weren't the only Americans to be impressed. New York label, First Warning, were first to the gun, and in late 1991 they released a compilation CD and cassette of Fish Tales and Swarthy Songs Stateside. First Warning, with major label distribution by BMG, also released The 3Ds' new album, Hellzapoppin in the States to coincide with The 3Ds' first American tour in June.

Hellzapoppin, released in New Zealand in March 1992, is another Fish Street recording with Tex Houston -- but this time, sixteen track equipment was 'flown in' to the Dunedin studio to allow the band more scope to transfer their incendiary live performance to tape.

The brief American tour was another resounding success for the Dunedin band. They played well-received showcase gigs at the prestigious New Music Seminar and gigs on both the East and West coasts of the USA. Live reviews were as full as praise as the superlative-laden album notices, with CMJ again among the most enthusiastic -- "New Zealand's 3Ds come from down there and play three faith-renewing shows to near-hysterical, resounding acclaim... a mind-boggling, eye-popping, heartstopping affirmation of twin-guitar hysteria, as visceral and electrifying as any Crazy Horse, Television or Sonic Youth guitar orgy... Pretty damn stunning."