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Dig the new breed

It’s the traditional path to rock stardom: land a contract, make a top ten hit, get an intro to your label’s HQ in London or LA. Pity that’s often the end of the road for Kiwi musicians. But a new group of Kiwi musos is blazing its own trail, and they don’t need a major label to get there. Stephen Jewell follows the indie OE.

Ever since Split Enz first moved to London in 1976, achieving international success has been perceived as the Holy Grail for New Zealand musicians. Some acts such as The Datsuns have made a name for themselves overseas before receiving mainstream acclaim back home, but for every Crowded House or Fat Freddy’s Drop that has prospered on the world stage many other much-hyped major label-affiliated acts have discovered that the streets of London, and indeed New York and Los Angeles, are not paved with gold.

Just ask Anika Moa, Shihad, Bic Runga or even boy wonders from Devonport The Checks. But now a new breed has emerged: staunchly independent bands that circumvent the traditional channels of the local music industry and instead form more fluid relationships with equally autonomous international outlets. No major-label path to stardom for them.

Following in the footsteps of The Checks, who released their debut album Hunting Whales in Britain late last year, Wellington’s So So Modern and Auckland’s Cut Off Your Hands have both made significant inroads into Britain’s vibrant and highly competitive indie scene.

Cut Off Your Hands especially seem to have Britain at their feet. Crucially, they bypassed New Zealand from the outset, instead linking up with Speak n Spell, a Melbourne and Sydney-based record label and management agency run by former Wellingtonian David Benge and Australians Jonathan Wilson and David Shrimpton.

Cut Off Your Hands made an effort not to get established in their home country. “The first good piece of advice we got from anyone was ‘Don’t sign in New Zealand’,” says Cut Off Your Hands guitarist Michael Ramirez. “London is where the industry is. There is a music industry in New Zealand but there’s only a select few that can make their career out of it.”

As they took to the stage of the star-making Camden Barfly for their headlining slot of Levi’s 2008 Ones to Watch tour—Coldplay and Stereophonics were earlier ‘stars of the future’—‘Girl’,  their first single for boutique label Sixsevenine, was released in Britain. The Auckland quartet relocated to London after two fleeting visits to the UK last year and hunkered down in ex-Orange Juice frontman Edwyn Collins’ West Hampstead studio to record their debut album, due for release in October.  After collaborating with esteemed producers Stephen Street (Blur, Morrissey) and Flood (U2, Nine Inch Nails), the band opted to work on their album with erstwhile Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, whom they had previously teamed up with on last year’s Australasian EP Blue on Blue—a coup for such a freshman band.

Cut Off Your Hands (and have Britain at your feet)

“Bernard shakes us up and challenges us,” declares Ramirez, who makes up Cut Off Your Hands alongside vocalist Nick Johnston, drummer Brent Harris and bassist Phil Hadfield. “There’s no one back home who will do that, as there is basically no such thing as a producer in New Zealand.” Ouch.

But while an immediate move offshore has worked in Cut Off Your Hands’ favour, it could prove detrimental to the New Zealand music scene as a whole, according to Andrew Dubber, a former AUT University lecturer and sometime Idealog correspondent. Dubber is now Music Industries Degree Leader at Birmingham University and founder of the influential New Music Strategies weblog.

“I don’t think New Zealand music success is about getting rid of a band and sending them overseas,” he says. “When it comes to bands who are successful in America, the UK or wherever, good on them. But as far as the New Zealand music economy is concerned it’s next to irrelevant, other than some small songwriting publishing revenue that might come through.

“We can be rightly proud of Cut Off Your Hands because they’ve made a mark internationally but as far as creating New Zealand music goes, it’s a loss because they’re probably not going to come back any time soon.”

Dubber draws parallels between New Zealand and Birmingham’s similar-sized music industries. “When people talk about music success in the West Midlands and Birmingham, they mention the Editors, Jamelia, Black Sabbath and UB40,” he says. “These people have been great for the British music economy but not so much the Birmingham music economy. Bands who leave New Zealand and become international successes and stay away instead make a big contribution to the London, LA or New York music economies, and become a part of that.”

Both bands have a salutary lesson in the story of The Checks. Visiting NME editor Conor McNicholas was so impressed by their performance at a 2005 industry showcase in Auckland that he invited them to join the bill of his magazine’s influential New Music Tour later that year. The Devonport schoolmates then signed to indie label Full Time Hobby and moved to London in 2006 to record their debut album. Unfortunately by the time Hunting Whales was released last October, The Datsuns-led garage rock scene had long since dissipated and The Checks subsequently struggled to make an impact.

“One of the problems in New Zealand is that artists try to sound like bands from somewhere else because they want to get radio play. But when you go out there in the world, sounding like everybody else isn’t helpful. There’s a lot of international opportunities for New Zealand artists and one of the key things they have going for them is their New Zealandness” 

The band returned home shortly afterwards although, according to manager Phil Moore, they will return to the Northern Hemisphere later this year. “To top the charts would have been great but we’re still working on that one,” he says. “The Checks now have many fans in the UK, Japan, Germany and Switzerland. These people absolutely love the album and want to see the band live. We’ll continue to work on keeping those fans happy and building that audience over time.”

But as Fat Freddy’s Drop demonstrates, it is possible for a band to remain based in New Zealand and build an international reputation by making regular forays offshore. That’s the plan for fellow Wellingtonians So So Modern. Like Cut Off Your Hands, the Kilburnie synth punks first journeyed to Britain at Easter 2007 after playing at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas.

So So Modern also made a telling impression in Britain, laying the seeds for a return to the Northern Hemisphere late last year. They toured Europe supporting like-minded German band The Robocop Kraus. They also formed a liaison with leading London-based independent Transgressive Records, whose roster includes current indie darlings Foals and The Young Knives. The low-key, seven-inch vinyl series Friends and Fires has been released ahead of their forthcoming debut album, which the band recorded in Wellington.

“We met a great band at South by Southwest, who we stayed with in London, which is how we ended up meeting the guys from Transgressive as we played a party at one of their houses,” recalls Mark Leong, who alternates guitar and keyboards with Aiden Leong and Grayson Gilmour, while Dan Nagels plays drums. “It’s been pretty good working with them as they’re selling our music in a very natural way and not throwing money around. We’re just playing shows and letting it grow, focusing on the opportunities and being realistic on a human scale. We’re living in a day and age where music is so accessible that theoretically if you’re a good band, people should acknowledge you eventually.”

Leong maintains that So So Modern’s independent status has played a vital role in their rapidly increasing success. “A lot of people give up a lot of the decision-making and general running of the band a bit too early,” he says. “We always felt it was important. Independence for us is all about having the freedom to keep the decision-making within the band. We’re responsible for our own affairs so it doesn’t really matter to us if we’re on an indie label or not, as we can’t be pushed in a direction that we don’t want to go.”

Despite their international accomplishments, So So Modern and Cut Off Your Hands are still relatively unknown in New Zealand outside of the close-knit bNet audience. “We don’t care so much about putting out a sparkly record and that’s something that So So Modern have done as well,” says Cut Off Your Hands’ Harris. “We’ve just played heaps of shows and released a few lo-fi EPs. That’s why a lot of people haven’t heard of us back home, because you wouldn’t unless you’re going to shows. It’s all down to the word on the street.

“We’re focusing on the opportunities and being realistic on a human scale. We’re living in a day and age where music is so accessible that if you’re good, people should acknowledge you eventually”

“We’re not doing huge releases with big television ads like Goldenhorse and The Feelers would do. That’s not really what it’s about.”

Both bands’ meagre domestic CD sales are dwarfed by the multi-platinum achievements of those more established major label-affiliated bands and the much-overrated Opshop, an Auckland-based quartet whose sound is modelled on major UK stadium-fillers like Snow Patrol and the Stereophonics. After Opshop’s debut London show at Notting Hill club Neighbourhood last year (organised by expat Kiwi promoters Spacific), lead singer Jason Kerrison protested a little too loudly in New Zealand Inspired that “It wasn’t just the expat Kiwi community who turned up.”

However, Cut Off Your Hands and So So Modern don’t just preach to the converted and consistently attract a diverse cross section to their British and European concerts. Rather than emulating the already well-worn styles of major international acts, they prevail where more homogeneous mainstream New Zealand acts have failed in the global music market. Rather than providing more of the same, they offer something different.

“One of the problems in New Zealand is that artists try either consciously or unconsciously to sound like bands from somewhere else because they want to get local radio play,” says Birmingham University’s Dubber. “But when you go out there in the world, sounding like everybody else isn’t helpful. There’s a lot of international opportunities for New Zealand artists and one of the key things they have going for them is their New Zealandness. I did some consultancy for some bands from Holland and it never occurred to any of them to sing in Dutch because their ambition is to take over the world.”

Dubber points to ethereal Icelandic group Sigur Rós, whose vocalist Jónsi Birgisson has invented his own nonsense-based language. “One of the most interesting things about them apart from the gorgeousness of the music is the fact that you’ve never heard words like that before,” he continues. “That’s actually their selling point … here’s something that we haven’t heard before.”

But a strong personal identity is no guarantee of success, and the latest Kiwi prodigies hope not to suffer the same fate as The Checks. NME praised So So Modern for transcending their influences and being “interesting, challenging and engaging” after playing at Artrocker magazine’s weekly new talent night at Islington’s Buffalo Bar. And Cut Off Your Hands have matured exponentially since their initial British excursion when they wore their post-punk influences on their sleeves and now embrace a warmer, more diverse sound, which owes more to The Smiths than Bloc Party.

However, whatever the final outcome, having the chance to realise their dreams is what matters the most. “We don’t worry ourselves too much about what’s going to happen,” reasons Cut Off Your Hands’ Harris. “It would be awesome if we became really successful but ultimately we just do it because we like to make music. We do obviously try and make strategic decisions but at the end of the day we just roll with it. We will hopefully continue to play shows and make music that we love to play. That’s the main thing. You can sit back and analyse what’s gone down with all these different bands and how you can avoid that but in the end you’ve just got to go with your heart.”

Stephen Jewell is a London-based New Zealand journalist

Play, Lady, play

Ladyhawke has yet to play at home, but Pip Brown’s alter ego has some big-name friends in the UK

Arriving early at much-vaunted Australian duo The Presets’ recent London show, I was surprised and impressed by the Fleetwood Mac-inflected electropop of opening act and fellow Modular Records act Ladyhawke. Not least because the band, which is spearheaded by Masterton-born Pip Brown, is the first Kiwi act to sign with the leading Australian label whose eclectic roster includes the Avalanches and Cut Copy.

“They’re really sensible and chilled out,” says Brown. “They get what I’m doing and I have complete creative freedom. Nobody questions me.” Brown—who played guitar for raucous Wellington rockers Two Lane Blacktop—has radically reinvented herself. Moving first to Australia in 2005 and then London early this year, she teamed up with Pnau’s Nick Littlemore to form dance duo Teenager before branching out on her own as Ladyhawke.

Ladyhawke's Pip Hawke (top) is enjoying her unexpected success, while The Checks (above) have struggled

Having never played live down under, Ladyhawke’s profile is understandably low-key back home, but if her burgeoning British reputation is any indication it won’t stay that way for long. Her debut album is due in August and although she earlier released only a limited edition single, Back of the Van, Brown’s schedule is already hectic. Our chat is squeezed in while she is briefly in town for the London leg of a tour run by the cult Channel Four youth show Skins.

“It’s actually come up really quickly,” she admits. “I didn’t expect there to be such a fuss so early on in the piece. It’s a lot to live up to and there’s a lot of pressure but I’ve just got to do what I’ve got to do. “London was never really on the cards. I was always planning to go back to New Zealand but this blew up without me realising.”

Even though she had to leave her native shores to further herself musically, Brown is staunchly proud of her Kiwi roots. “I’m a New Zealander, I can’t claim to be anything other than that,” she reasons. “I’m a performing artist and I create music. Just because I didn’t make it on the soil of those islands doesn’t mean that it’s not New Zealand music. I grew up in New Zealand; my influences still come from there. I can see how it looks to people, like I’m just going off in all directions. But it’s really hard to stay in New Zealand, if you want to get your music out to people.”

— Stephen Jewell

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