Happy touring

Helensville musician Andrew Spraggon was itching to be back on the road, and now that he and his bandmates in Sola Rosa have the tar beneath their wheels, they're happy.

They got such a buzz from audiences on their promotional tour for their album, Get it Together, earlier this year, that they're touring the country again with a final show in Auckland at Sale St.
"I adore touring. Back in the day, I never used to like it as much but now that we're much better as a band, I enjoy it thoroughly. It's also great that I'm now playing keyboards and percussions on stage. It's a lot more enjoyable than just twiddling knobs,'' says Spraggon, who wrote the 11 tracks for their album, and arranged, recorded, produced and mixed them, a job that took more than three years.
"The hardest thing about taking that long to put an album together is running out of money. When you take that long people stop asking you to play at festivals.''
The former front man for 1990s' rock band Cicada assures me Sola Rosa's next album will take far less time to produce. It's already in the making, with a remix album due for release in summer 2010 and the next album in 2011.
Spraggon says now the band has a manager he's got more time to focus on creating music.
"It got to a point where I was doing 90 per cent admin and only 10 per cent creativity.''
He feels "blessed to be able to give people as much pleasure back''.
Sola Rosa, 7 Sale St, Freemans Bay,
Sept 5, 8pm. Also, LA Mitchell.
For tickets see:
www.undertheradar.co.nz