The music video starts innocently enough. The camera pans across the Fanie du Toit Sport Grounds on the North-West University’s Potchefstroom Campus. We see 20-year-old musicians Daniël Marais and Johan Balt as their cheerful, lively notes begin a narration that ends in…well, is ‘regret’ too strong of a word?

Mal Maandagaande (Crazy Monday nights) by Die Piesangskille (The Banana Peels) is a tongue in the cheek encapsulation – and a bit of an exaggeration – of what a Monday night entails for these two students and the consequences thereof. It is a light-hearted ode to being young.

It was an instant hit and thrust the band into the spotlight.

“We wrote the song on a Tuesday after a Monday night spent partying. It was at the beginning of the year and there weren’t many students back on campus, so we had one crazy Monday night and that is where the song came from,” says Daniël.

Die Piesangskille is a two-piece band featuring Daniël on vocals and Johan on guitar. The former hails from Kimberley and is studying a BCom degree in Business Management whilst the latter hails from Knysna and is enrolled for an LLB degree.

Die band’s name originated one night in the communal square of their hostel Over de Voor on the Potchefstroom Campus. “We were busy writing a song and we realized that we needed a name. Coincidentally a banana peel was lying on the floor…it is not a very interesting story, but that is how we got our name,” Daniël explains with a chuckle.

Daniël and Johan name Glaskas, éF-éL and Die Tuindwergies as the bands that inspired their specific brand of music, and although they would like to emulate their success, it is not where their current focus is.   

“Right now, we are taking it day by day and we try to not focus too much on the future. We have just released our first album and we hope to continue with the band for a few years after graduation and see where the road takes us,” says Daniël.

Their debut album is titled Almal Gly (Everybody Slips), and they describe its launch as something they couldn’t imagine happening.

“We have to thank Roux Cloete and Johan Viljoen. Johan was our producer and Roux was the executive producer. Without them it wouldn’t have been possible. The process of recording the album took about two months, but we started writing it in August last year. We just wrote about stuff that has happened to us. The album is the story of six months of our lives together. It was a fun, but difficult process because we had to record between classes,” says Johan.

As their success continues to grow, expect Potchefstroom to soon be known as Banana Republic, as Daniël explains: “The music scene in Potchefstroom is unique because there is a lot of support from the students. We are super appreciative of that.”