“Let loose for the night, let all your cares go. We're gonna have good music, good times, good dance moves, and drink some good beverages. People are going to go home and just say, ‘chauughh, that was a good time!'
“That's what our shows and music are all about — the best that life has to offer, good music, good people and good times.”
Winners of the 2018 Battle of the Bands, White Chapel Jak perform covers that might be better than the originals.
“We do songs you will know but within our own style which is funk-roots-rock-based. We like to play other people's songs in our own style.”
Hurunui grew up listening to her father's eclectic taste in music, from Tina Turner to Talking Heads, and her mother's love of top 40.
The rest of the band are musically “educated” and bringing their technical chops to the show.
“It's like I rediscovered music in my thirties with these boys. I've learned so much about music over the last seven years,” Hurunui says.
But the born-again party maker was not always the lead singer in White Chapel Jak. In another life she was a prefect at Gisborne Girls' High School.
“I made my parents very proud and confused.
“They were surprised that I made it that far and was voted in as a prefect.”
There must have been mischief in the water, because Mandy, band manager and Bonnie's partner, was head prefect at Girls' High. (They were at school together but Bonnie makes it clear Mandy is three years older).
“You can call us high achievers if you want but we're good Gisborne stock.”
White Chapel Jak, Smash Palace, Saturday, September 11. Tickets $47.50 + bf, on sale today. Available from www.eventbrite.co.nz
