Ahead of playing Time Out’s Big Night Out this fortnight, the loud and hairy metal double DP tell Mark Tjhung about playing SXSW and how it almost didn’t happen 

Metal videos are streaming from Germany. Figurines are scattered among amps and an electronic drum kit. And on the couch at DP’s home studio, Paul MacLean and Dave Wong are reminiscing about the old days over a couple of king cans of beer.

“I found it, eh. It’s funny,” says drummer MacLean, chuckling about DP’s 2008 debut EP with the full weight of his beard and Mohawk. Wong rolls with it, joining in the laughter. “Songs of Man & Beast was a very DIY thing,” he explains about their first and only release to date.

Fortunately for them, these hairy rockers are now in a position to look back and laugh. The two years since the release has seen the duo become one of the territory’s most talked about rock outfits, with their bold, monstrous brand of Black Sabbath-, Deep Purple- and Death from Above 1979-inspired, turned-up-to-11, distortion-loaded metal that’s starting to stretch into other far-flung hemispheres.

Last month, the band played Texas’ super fest South by Southwest (SXSW), joining 2,000 or so other bands from across the globe, and apparently becoming the first ever Hong Kong band to participate in Austin’s mad week of music.

“It was like Lan Kwai Fong on New Year’s Eve for five days,” says MacLean. “There were bands everywhere. Literally,” says Wong. “It’s just bars and bars on both sides of the road for several blocks, people playing out on the street. It’s crazy.”

Rewind a couple of weeks, however, and the Hong Kong-born Wong and his Canadian-born partner-in-metal weren’t quite as enthused. This probably had something to do with the fact they were lacking some relatively important gear for their bass and drums act. Like a bass. And drums. It became apparent, unlike Hong Kong, that SXSW venues didn’t supply any equipment. After a fruitless many days of attempted renting and pleading, the former The Academy members found their saviour in some complete strangers. “We emailed [Hypnogaja, the band playing before us] and sounded fairly desperate,” says MacLean. “We’d travelled 29 hours to get there to play and might not get a chance to play. They wrote back saying, ‘we’re not gonna leave you hanging.’”

Equipped and relieved, they got on with the rocking, channelling that energy into other things. “I beat the shit out of that guy’s drums,” says MacLean, laughing. “We’d talked about not wrecking his stuff since he’d be so nice about lending it. But I couldn’t help it.”

“We were just on this high of actually pulling everything together. There were no nerves or anything, we were just pumped,” adds Wong.

With Austin’s iconic festival, as well as Vietnam, Australia and England all having been conquered live by DP’s chunky riffs and shattering beats, the pair are preparing to unleash their music into the recorded realm with their debut album: an eight or nine track self-titled (or at least “should be”, according to MacLean) LP that’s all but finished. After recording and production work in Hong Kong, Canada, and England, live favourites like Supermegadon, My Hyena and City of Zeros sound fatter and more confrontational, particularly when compared to the 2008 EP. “It’s not going to be as stripped back as you get live,” says Wong, also noting the presence of keyboards on some tracks.

The album is just one piece of the tripartite puzzle that is starting to take shape for DP. They’re planning on a 7-inch of My Hyena to be released on Metal Postcard Records and a video for Velvet Tiger, made with the help of former Hong Kong resident and member of Regurgitator Quan Yeomans, all to be released before the summer.

It’s a combination that the band hope will launch them into a new era. “[Releasing the album] will be good for us, because we’ll be forced to move into a new chapter of music and writing. It’ll be good to get a second wave of stuff going,” says Wong. MacLean agrees: “We’re gonna focus on releases. But at the moment, it’s all about the Time Out show.”

The Time Out show? Could he possibly be talking about the showcase DP are headlining along with nine of the best acts in Hong Kong’s independent music scene, including A Roller Control, Poubelle International, Chochukmo, Snoblind, S.T., The Yours, Volt in Music, Good Fellas and the Sinister Left? Must be.

Let’s just hope DP remember their gear.

DP play Time Out’s Big Night Out on April 24. Tickets: www.timeout.com.hk/bignightout. Hear their track City of Zeros on the Time Out Podcast.