Ringlets on ‘The Lord Is My German Shepherd (Time for Walkies),’ music videos and first shows outside Aotearoa

Ringlets. Photo credit: Lola Fountain-Best

Jordan Royal (Sonic Alien 4ZZZ) caught up with Leith and Arabella of Auckland bright post-punk quartet Ringlets to chat about their sharp and surreal sophomore album The Lord Is My German Shepherd (Time For Walkies). From shifting sonic textures and impulsive studio decisions to playful, veiled lyricism, the band unpacked their fluid creative process and the layered emotional themes running through the record. They discussed everything from German Shepherd flatmates and on-the-fly vocal takes to the under appreciated labour of care workers explored in Street Massage, and how a string of resourceful, unpolished video shoots became an unlikely visual triptych. With BIGSOUND around the corner, they also shared their excitement about their first shows outside Aotearoa.

Interview aired on Sonic Alien 4ZZZ 9 July 2025.

★

Jordan: I'm joined by Leith and Arabella from Auckland-based band Ringlets chatting about their sophomore album The Lord Is My German Shepherd (Time For Walkies). Thank you guys so much for taking the time to join the call, I really appreciate your time.

Leith: It's so great to be here, thanks for having us on, Jordan.

Arabella: Yeah, thanks for having us.

Jordan: Of course! Of course! The Lord Is My German Shepherd (Time For Walkies) is your sophomore album to your 2023 debut. I was wondering what felt different for you guys this time around, creatively, emotionally or just how you approached the whole process.

Leith: Sure, so I guess the kind of key thing is just that some of the usual, I guess there's already a kind of shared language in place and a lot of those things that you're sort of working out at the start of a relationship, you know, what side of the bed are you sleeping on, like that kind of thing. It's all kind of settled and you know what you're kind of doing, like base level. And so the second time around it's just a bit easier to just kind of go for it without sort of talking about the rudimentary things so much.

Arabella: Just a mutual understanding.

Jordan: Yeah, true. It would be nice to work out, I mean, you know, looking the first time around what you would maybe want to do differently, what helped, what didn’t help, and then like full steam ahead for the second time around. That's awesome as well, building on like you guys already established relationships. 

The name of the album is really cool. I definitely, I needed to know the story behind it if there was a story behind it.
The Lord Is My German Shepherd (Time For Walkies). Where did that name come from?

Leith: Like a lot of the things on the record, it’s a lot of kind of re-association and there’s not too much behind it that’s kind of, I can really talk about. But I think, especially like around the time that we started, you know, that we were recording it, I moved into a new place and there was a German Shepherd at this flat that I kind of, you know, I don’t really have a lot of animals in my life, but I think the name was already out there by then as a potential title. And I think that in my mind sort of cemented that I was now living with a dog with this name.

Jordan: It was fated.

Leith: Yeah.

Jordan: That's such a cool coincidence. German Shepherds are huge in a flat too. That’d be a challenge.

Leith: Yeah, I only ever knew one other German Shepherd and it was my friend Kaze. He had one when we were growing up and his name was Bilbo and it had this like colossal bald patch on its back.

Jordan: That's such a good name for a German Shepherd.

Leith: Bilbo, yeah.

Jordan: You guys cover like a lot of sonic ground with this album. It’s very like gritty at points and then there’s gentler touches like on Half An Idiot. I was curious where a Ringlets song starts from. I mean, you guys both like, you know, sing and do vocals across it. I was wondering if it's a lyric or if it's like jamming or just piece by piece layering together.

Arabella: It can be a combination of all of that. Yeah, often it just starts with one idea that’s built on and either it comes together quite quickly or it’s jammed out for a while. Yeah, I still don’t fully even understand our process, but it’s quite fast and fleeting that I think, yeah, we just get there somehow.

Jordan: Oh, that’s awesome. It must be so nice to like have, I don’t know, something to bring to the rest of the band and then have that creative sprint happen if it’s like, if it comes together really quickly, that’s so awesome. Is there a song in particular that started in a completely different space or like frame than how it ended up?

Arabella: The song I’m singing lead vocals on the album was initially an entirely different song that I changed while we were in the studio, like vocally and lyrically. So, that was like an obvious answer. I think Hit The Frog was not really finalized until we kind of went to record it as well.

Leith: Yeah, there’s the opening track. The opening track started with completely sort of different words and it was supposed to be this call and response thing to the verse. And then just because of some funny story that László said, the whole sort of lyrical content changed and kind of like the second verse and some of the chorus was sort of written just sort of right before recording it quite sort of suddenly. And there was still that intention to put the like response vocal in the verse and it just, I guess, I don’t know, I just forgot.

Arabella: I don’t think we heard that, like your vocals on that until that was recorded as well.

Leith: Yeah. And what was funny about that was that it was sort of, you know, maybe two days left to get all the vocals done. And it happened to be when Joel showed up and I just had this compulsion to just like get it, I think I just did two takes the whole way through and that was it. The other ones we had like punch-ins and things, but that one out of some like weird pride thing, I was just like I need to just get it done in one or two takes.

Arabella: Yeah, it was the same with mine as well. I felt very rushed to just get it out of the way. That’s a reoccurring thing for us as a band.

Ringlets. Photo credit: Lola Fountain-Best

Jordan: Get something done, get something out.

Arabella: Yeah. Just hurry up.

Jordan: It’s kind of a nice process, though. I feel like having a smaller amount of time to just get something out rather than like over a long period of time, labouring over something.
I love, I feel like each little sonic element like fits in like a little perfect puzzle into this album. It’s like so, it’s so much fun to listen to. I was wondering if there’s any like layers or textures or moments instrumentally across the album that might fly under the radar on like first listen, but you guys secretly love.

Leith: I know I’ve got one and it’s on that first song again, where there’s just like all of these like beautiful lutes that László has put underneath portions of it. And there’s also lots of these sort of like falsetto sustained vocal lines that are just like completely buried in the mix. And when we were, you know, got the stems back, just muting the lutes and the OOs together, it just absolutely filled me up. But you can’t hear them at all.

Arabella: Yeah, I think for me, it’s just these tiny little moments of like drum fills. And I wouldn’t even be able to articulate right now. But yeah.

Jordan: I love hearing like musicians or people in the bands like a little like, I don’t know, maybe what’s the Easter egg, like that little Easter egg that’s like buried in, it’s really fun to hear about. Lyrically, this album dives into, I mean, themes of like manipulative egos, moral ambiguity and emotional exhaustion. Is there a particular lyric that maybe is on your brain that you can quote that came from a really special place or is really stuck with you guys.

Leith: I’ve got the record here. And on the sleeve, on the insert, we’ve got all the words. Let me just like.

Arabella: Just learn them real quick.

Leith: Let me just go, because you forget what they are. I mean, favourite line, my favourite line is on Hit The Frog. And it’s: “I’ve got the yips, tickle me Elmo, cack handed down to the elbow.” And I don’t know, I’m not one to sort of go into what all the songs are about. You know, they’re all either like just a bit silly or really personal. And I think a lot of the lyrics are quite a concerted effort to just veil the sincerity with as much kind of humour and metaphor as possible to allow the listener as well to project their own experiences and opinions into it. But that line, that line, tickle me Elmo, I really like.

Arabella: My favourite line on the album is in the same song, but it’s like the next verse, which is, “I’ve got the drips, where did the towel go?” I just think it’s great.

Jordan: Both of those lines are so playful as well. And I really like your point, Leith, as well, of like letting the listener like impart their own meaning or their own storyline to the lyrics and to the songs too. I feel like that’s such a fun thing to do as a listener. In particular on Street Massage, which is like one that has really stuck with me, I read that it had started from a different place then it ended up going, but there's like sort of a common line throughout of sort of exploring the emotional and physical toll of like underpaid care workers. I was wondering if that song developed from anything in particular and what you were drawing on when you when you wrote that.

Leith: Yeah, so I guess our manager asked us for some write-ups about some of the songs and like out of exhaustion, I was just honest that time. Yeah, it was initially, it didn't have a working title at the time and it was sort of informed by some work I was doing as a speech therapist. And then László, our guitar player who's responsible for a lot of the song titles, wanted to call it that and I love the title. And so some of the words sort of became more centred around a masseuse instead, but was able to kind of still kind of carry the theme through because massage therapists are therapists.
And yeah, I guess it, I mean you said it, it just sort talks to the nurturers and people in society that have these responsibilities that aren't compensated properly.

Jordan: Yeah, for sure. Like those types of, I guess, professionals and those types of workers are definitely like, as you said, sort of unnoticed and overworked, I think was like sort of what you touched on as well.
And I, I don't know, I listened to that song and like read that meaning and I was like, oh, I need to ask you about that song. I think it came together so amazingly. You guys as well for each single released a video with it, which is amazing. I love when like music and visuals pair together and I feel like sort of like the meaning behind the song and the visual goes really hand in hand. Could you talk me through your approach to building that visual world and if there were any funny stories behind filming at all.

Leith: It's, well, okay, so the three videos are very different, which I'd like to think, you know, was us showing some range. But I think in reality, it was just sort of, it was just quite an accident, really. And if anything, it's just a lack of cohesion in our kind of visual.We're not really, well, I'm not a very visual person, but the first video was done really collaboratively with Joe Curtis, who sort of co-produced and co-directed it and filmed it and edited. Well, no, he didn't edit it. Nadia Darby edited it, but that one was just sort of playing on. It was the most serious, was the only kind of serious video of the three. And it plays on lots of themes of nihilism. And, you know, the idea is that we're doing these pointless tasks throughout it, kind of Sisyphean struggle with the kind of ending being that we're then doing something pointless together, which feels a lot like what being in a contemporary rock group is like in the year 2025.

And then the next video was pretty, it was all László, really. And it was after a friend's gig, a friend's, in this band Cold Ceiling, they were playing and we were at an afters and it was like 2am in Point Chevalier and someone had a camera. So, we just sort of went out and tried to shoot something because at that time we had nothing and not really any money to make anything. And that footage just sat around for a while until we kind of got to kick up the bum to try and make something.
And László bless him edited it together and it turned out quite fun.

And then the last video that was done kind of quite ad hoc, again, Joe Curtis shot the last one and we managed to acquire Fats White to come down and star in it, which was fantastic. And it basically just sort of recreates this old documentary footage I’d seen about Irish door dancing for the festival some decades ago.

And I've got Irish family and I don't know, it just sort of spoke to me. And, you know, you can impose some metaphor on it all you like, but I just think it's a really funny, beautiful thing to dance on a door. That video was so cheap, like the other one. It's just a product of a limited resource more than anything.

Jordan: True. That's so crazy that you're not that much of a visual person.
I feel like they all look so—they were all like so much fun to watch. I find it it's like quite surprising that it came together a bit ad hoc. They feel very nicely put together. I'm not sure. But that's so amazing.

Leith: That's Joe Curtis, I think, for at least the first and last video. Joe is a very visual person. Joe’s able to, you know, polish a turd.

Jordan: Yeah, piece it together. But you guys heading over to Brisbane in September for BIGSOUND, which I'm so excited for. I'm so excited to see you guys. I was wondering what you guys are most excited for and if there's anyone that you're particularly keen to keen to see.

Arabella: Yeah, we're really excited to come over. It'll be our first shows outside of New Zealand. So, we're really looking forward to it. And just to be there, really.

Leith: I'm most excited for the gluten free bagels at Nodo that you were telling me about off air, Jordan.

Jordan: Yeah, yeah. I'll have to show you some of the bagel places outside of the BIGSOUND area. No, I'm so excited for you guys to come. It's such like a nice little swell of like a huge music community that comes together. That's so exciting it's your first time playing outside of New Zealand, too. That's crazy.

Arabella: Yeah, it's gonna be good. 

Jordan: But thank you guys so much for taking the time to come on and have a chat. I really, really appreciate your time. So, thank you so much.

Leith: Thank you, Jordan, for having us on and playing some of the tunes and stuff. We appreciate it.

Listen to The Lord Is My German Shepherd (Time For Walkies) below.