Shihad - Give It A Whirl Interview

...we played and played and played, you know. One year it was 158 shows ... The tightness and the communication musically between the band can only come from being able to do that. And you can't do that in New Zealand, because you run out of land...

– Jon Toogood on the band honing its playing via extensive live touring

There was also a huge cultural cringe back then, you know — for the New Zealand public at any rate. When we were growing up....that whole Split Enz thing had died off a little bit, and it was just the Flying Nun scene. And there was this 'anti' thing from a lot of people about New Zealand music, because it was perceived as being totally indie....

– Tom Larkin on local reaction to mainstream Kiwi rock groups in the late 1980s and early 1990s

With the name change it's a lot like changing the name of your son or your daughter at the age of twelve. So it was pretty weird. There's never, to my knowledge, been a band having to change their name because of a war, and so there was nowhere we could reference from. So that made it very difficult.

– Jon Toogood on the band changing its name from Shihad to Pacifier, in 2002

It was kind of the "kooky Wellington" scene, which Wellington became famous for, and of course, we wanted to blow up...

– Tom Larkin describes Wellington's local music scene at the time the band formed, early in this interview

...it's a 'rock' country which is good for a band like us, but at the same time I think they lack a little bit of...I suppose 'sexy groove', which New Zealand has, because we've got a Polynesian culture and we've got our own culture...

– Jon Toogood on differences between the music scene in New Zealand and Australia

...Bailterspace were a huge influence on us in the fact that they went "oh we're a good band and we're just gonna go over to New York"... some of those shows that they played in Wellington were the loudest, the most ridiculously loud shows ... just a wave of melody, that made your whole insides shake....

– Jon Toogood on the influence of Flying Nun band Bailterspace

...We wanted to be the loudest, the heaviest, the fastest band in the world, and that was it...

– Jon Toogood recalls the band's international ambitions, early in this interview