Lessons from a vintage indie band in keeping the important things simple
Saturday, 14 March 2026
Mike “MOD” O'Donnell is a US-based commentator with extensive experience as a director and adviser to New Zealand businesses. He is currently NZTE’s regional trade director for North America. This column represents his personal opinions.
OPINION: Last Saturday night I found myself in San Bernardino, California, watching the Violent Femmes play live.
Not a tribute act. Not a reunion tour with an asterisk. The actual Violent Femmes. Yes, they are still alive. Forty-three years after their debut album, bless their little punk hearts.
Back when I was at university in New Zealand, every flat seemed to own a battered copy, slouched on the lounge floor like an unemployed flatmate.
That record was the soundtrack to cheap beer, mismatched furniture and the feeling that the world was chaotic, unjust and still somehow full of promise.
Read more:
When Gordon Gano launched into Blister in the Sun last Saturday, the crowd lit up. And here’s the genuinely surprising thing: more than four decades on, they sounded exactly like they did back then. Edgy. Spare. Note perfect.
No overproduction. No unnecessary flourishes. Just a band doing something simple, clean and unmistakably theirs, right down to the Weber BBQ being used as a percussion instrument.
Which got me thinking about two other things that work best when kept simple: banking and insurance. Without them, you’re essentially trying to cross the economic landscape in a campervan with no wheels, no map and an optimistic playlist.
Over the past six months I’ve had some curiously contrasting experiences of both here in the United States. Each offers a small but useful lesson for businesses back home.
Insurance first.
Regular readers won’t be shocked to learn that one of my first missions after arriving was to buy a car. Naturally, an old one. A 40-year-old Mercedes-Benz 560 SL convertible, from the era when cars were hand assembled and engineers still won arguments with accountants.
Everyone said, “Go with Geico”. So I did. Five minutes online. No local licence. No US history. No drama. I compared options, clicked “buy”, and Bob’s your uncle.
Six months later they emailed, not to upsell, not to “circle back”, but to tell me my premium could drop if I could prove my New Zealand driving record. Forty years without an accident, it turns out, knocks a third off the price.
Better still, they told me before renewal.
Fast. Digital. Flexible. Customer centric. Almost suspiciously competent.
As it turns out, that wasn’t just my experience. Industry reviews regularly rank Geico’s website and app among the best digital insurance experiences in the United States.
Banking, though, was a different album entirely. I won’t name names, except to say it’s one of the American “big three”. I arrived armed with introductions and a mountain of paperwork.
The staff were excellent humans, polite, diligent and operating within systems that appear to have been designed during the Truman administration. Truly decent people with cutting edge tech from last century.
After a month, I finally had an account. Not so bad, I thought.
Then came the invitation from the bank to try Venmo, the local tool for person to person payments. Why not?
Because halfway through set-up the system froze and my entire account was suspended. Apparently my randomly assigned phone number once belonged to someone with a dodgy financial past.
Cue the full theatre of bureaucracy.
Living here has reminded me how differently our two countries are wired. In New Zealand, systems tend to be smaller, more personal and slightly improvised, a bit like a well-run community hall gig where you can still see the drummer’s shoes.
America, by contrast, feels like a stadium show run by a thousand people in headsets. Impressive scale, dazzling lights, and yet somehow no one who can actually turn the volume down when the feedback starts.
I spent hours with the bank’s fraud centre somewhere offshore. Helpful people, clearly intelligent, but tightly bound by scripts and entirely devoid of discretion, even with my local manager on the line confirming that I was, in fact, me.
Their solution? Post me a verification code. By mail. In 2026. From Manila.
Two months and zero letters later, the branch conceded defeat, closed the account, opened a new one, and gently suggested I steer clear of Venmo. Possibly forever.
Here’s the thing. In a market the size of America, giants can afford friction. In fact, some of them appear to specialise in it. Scale can hide inefficiency. Customers tolerate it because the alternatives are limited and the exits are far away.
New Zealand businesses don’t have that luxury.
Our market is smaller. Our reputation travels faster. And our success depends on things simply working. We win when we’re quick, clear and human. When we strip away the noise, the process and the excuses.
Like that first Violent Femmes album. Simple. Authentic. No wasted notes.
Because whether you’re running a band, an insurance company or an export firm, the rule is the same: get the basics right and deliver when it matters.
Or as Gordon Gano reminded us all those years ago, sometimes you’ve just got to add it up.