Bio

Humans have perpetually sought immortality, and musicians of all people have cracked it. Robert Johnson was unknown to the world until his music was rereleased 23 years after his death, and today guitarists still discuss his unique style and probably will until the end of time. My musical journey has been like a rollercoaster. It's had its ups and downs, predictable one moment, crazy the next. I hope the final destination of my musical journey will immortalize me, and people will be pouring over my music long after I'm dead and gone. I didn't have a musical upbringing because none of my family were musicians, and we didn’t have any instruments in the house. My mother could not cope with music so she would steer me clear of shops playing music through the Tannoy. Because of this affliction, we had to make sure there was no music in the house, so the fact that I play music is a sheer miracle. That miracle came when I was 13. My dad brought back a four string ¾ size classical guitar, and my inquisitive mind picked it up. Due to having no idea what to do with the guitar, I looked up people playing on YouTube so that I could emulate them. I found Dire Straits playing Sultans of Swing as heard on the Alchemy live record and after learning the opening licks, I was hooked. Shortly after this, the blues came knocking. I was addicted to the soulful soloing of Mark Knopfler, Gary Moore and Alvin Lee, but there was an important distinction between my playing and theirs; they all played electric guitars, and my acoustic couldn’t keep up. So, I pleaded with my dad to buy me a Stratocaster. I named the jet black guitar The Brown KC, after a strange sticker on the headstock, turned the digital distortion up on my cheap solid state no name amplifier and rocked out every free minute. As I was homeschooled, I had a rigorous practice routine: wake up, play for 18 hours, sleep, repeat. Little did I know, I was on the cusp of getting very serious about music. Over the next year, I would pick up bass, organ and drums among other instruments that my dad found on Facebook marketplace and my music taste shifted to British indie records by The Smiths, Pulp and The Fratellis. I started going to school at Ao Tawhiti Unlimited, and it was there that I got an opportunity to perform for the first time. It was a recyclable fashion show, not really my scene, and I played two songs in a short halftime performance. Like all first performances do, it went terribly. Someone had stepped on my guitar lead before the first song, so all the audience heard was my shaky out of tune voice with its awkward northern pronunciations, and as I got to the chorus of the second song my guitar strap decided that now was a perfect time to fall apart. So all in all, it was bad. But I loved it. For the next hour I was riding on the euphoric buzz of performing live and I took every opportunity I got to play shows: busking, jazz competitions and taking unnecessary NCEA performance standards. Whenever there was a show, I was on stage. When I wasn’t performing however, I didn’t have much opportunity to play my guitar. I was distracted by gathering NCEA credits, and the music class I was in consisted of a jazz big band, who wouldn’t put up with me playing Joy Division. Because of this, my playing suffered, and I knew I needed to play every day if I was going to go professional. I heard about Hagley School of Music through a group of young musicians at a folk festival who convinced me that, “Hagley is a magical land where you can play guitar all day in an elating fever dream of musical development”. I decided to go. I had a shaky interview where I flew through a few Smiths songs and was asked to “listen to good guitarists instead”. That dig against Johnny Marr made me reconsider enrolling, but the prospect of playing music at school was too enticing. I hadn't played that much since I started Ao Tawhiti and I was slowly climbing back to the bar I had set myself when I was 14. While my heart still belonged to the bands of Rough Trade, Creation and Factory record labels, I dove back into blues to satisfy my teachers' demand for "good guitarists". I would like to think the future holds much for me. This year I will collect the last of my NCEA credits, achieve UE and release my debut, solo EP on my independent label as New Zealand's answer to the #takebackthecharts movement. When I'm in university, I will start gigging to make a living off of music performance, playing festival stages after headlining artists to steal their adoring audience off them. That's just how the rock and roll cycle works. As for my long term future, only greatness awaits. Whether that be platinum records and Grammy sweeps or an iconic show to a man and his dog, the universe decrees that I shall play music. I hope that in a few decades the world's youth will make me immortal the same way I make Ian Curtis, Richey Edwards and Scott Walker immortal. No matter where I roam I'll follow Primal Scream's battle cry of the early 90s, "We want to be free, we want to be free to do what we want to do, and we want to have a good time".