Led by the highly respected singer/songwriter Dave Dobbyn, DD Smash was one of the most popular New Zealand bands of their era.
Formed in 1981, the group was originally named Dave Dobbyn’s Divers and consisted of ex-Lip Service guitarist Rob ‘Revox’ Guy, drummer Peter Warren and bassist Lisle Kinney.
After a handful of gigs, they renamed themselves DD Smash and issued their first single, Repetition.
It quickly hit the Top 25 and led to the 1982 release of the LP Cool Bananas which entered the charts at number one.
Kinney left the band after a car accident, and with new bassist Ian Morris, DD Smash resurfaced in 1983 with the hit Outlook For Tuesday.
After the live LP Deep In The Heart of Taxes, Dobbyn fired everyone but Warren, recording The Optimist (1984) with session players.
On 7 December 1984, the band played at a free concert at Aotea Square in Auckland which ended in rioting.
Dobbyn was made the scapegoat of the incident and was tried for inciting the crowd to violence.
The charges were eventually dropped, but in the wake of the trial DD Smash quietly disintegrated, as Dobbyn began focussing more on solo work.
His greatest success came in 1986 when he wrote and recorded the song Slice Of Heaven for the soundtrack of the animated motion picture, Footrot Flats: The Dog’s Tail. The single hit number one on the New Zealand music charts for eight weeks and topped the charts in Australia for four.
