A new generation of Kiwis are getting hooked on vinyl, and a Hawke’s Bay record store says he’s seen a huge increase in sales, mainly to pop-loving teens. One of New Zealand’s most successful bands is ahead of the curve already. Jack Riddell reports.
Fat Freddy’s Drop have released their latest album - but they’re forcing fans to grab a physical copy to hear first, rather than opening their streaming service.
Slo Mo is the band’s sixth studio album.
The band’s Hawke’s Bay-based saxophone player Scott Towers, aka Chopper Reeds, says the resurgence of records has been a great thing for music creators and lovers.
“We love records, and we love committing our music to vinyl, because there’s no way around it – unless you’ve got a very, very good digital set up – the records do sound better.
“When you hear a record off a good sound system, all of a sudden you’re hearing bits of the music that you’ve never heard before when you’ve been listening to digital music.”
Towers said it was easy to complete a project and put it out digitally, only for the “machinations of international freighting” and other production issues to put physical copies down the bottom of the list for fans.
“We thought actually for us what’s really important is the sound of it and we love the sort of artefact that you create when you make a record.”
Gordon Stevenson, who runs Napier’s Just For The Record in Poraiti, said he had seen a “dramatic” increase of record sales at his store and was looking forward to putting Slo Mo on his shelves.
But he believes another artist is to blame for the recent boom in record sales.
“Vinyl is the best way to listen to music and I think the other important factor is all these Swifties; my god, we sell an awful lot of Taylor Swift. It’s a wonderful problem to have, I’m certainly not complaining.”
Recorded at the band’s Bay Studio, located in Wellington’s Lyall Bay, Slo Mo was created “back-to-front” compared to Fat Freddy’s previous studio albums, according to Towers.
“Often, we just take live jams and then sort of whittle them away down to a studio version, whereas these songs started the other way, and I think as a result there’s a little bit more subtly to them in the way that we are writing and arranging them.”
Towers moved to Hawke’s Bay with his family from Auckland about eight years ago. The relocation to a semi-rural lifestyle block permeated into his approach to this record.
“There’s a really nice sense of space and openness about where we live. Lots of sky, not many neighbours and I actually have started to really appreciate music that has that same sort of sense of space about it.
“I’m always about taking things out of the recording rather than adding things in, that’s my main sort of, I guess, philosophical approach to it.”
Fat Freddy’s Drop head off on a European tour next month where they will grace some of the highest-regarded stages across the continent, before returning to New Zealand for a summer tour, which includes a special show at Hastings Tōmoana Showgrounds. Towers is looking forward to the more laid-back touring schedule at home and seeing familiar faces in the crowd.
“There’s nothing quite like looking out at the audience and seeing your friends and family out there too. I mean you can’t get past that - that’s a really exciting part of the process.
“When we’re in Europe, we might be playing somewhere in France on a Thursday and then somewhere on the other side of Germany on Friday. You’ve got to get all the people and things from one country to the next and then the third night you’re probably in Austria.
“It sounds exhilarating and exciting, and it is, but it’s absolutely exhausting that style of travel.”