Are male duos the latest fashion in local pop?

By CATHRIN SCHAER

They knew they loved them before they met them. That might sound like the next hit from Australian super-duo Savage Garden but in fact it's a story about two local groups, Nurture and Before Friday.

Both acts feature two boys armed with pop-rock ballads and both have just released singles through major local record. companies

Already it seems like a sure bet. Even before it was released Nurture's single, Beautiful, had substantial radio play, becoming the second-most-played local tune on radios around the country.

With the duo's heartfelt sentiments, catchy choruses and sweet vocals, adult contemporary radio stations just love them, an industry insider says.

Before Friday, whose sound has slightly more emphasis on guitar, have already produced a Top 40 single with their first release, Now. They're hoping the new song - Your Kiss - will be even bigger.

Nonetheless, one has to ask, is it all just a formula? Are they mere Savage Garden-a-likes, a two-guy real-life version of Popstars? Or a throwback to 80s duos such as Go West, Tears for Fears, and Wham!?

Certainly not, insists Chris Banks, of Nurture. And, he adds, that kind of talk makes him furious. Banks' original claim to fame was as the third member of chart-topping local dance-pop group Deep Obsession - so he's well used to dealing with this kind of criticism.

"As New Zealanders we're going against the grain by making pop music," he explains. "People seem happy to buy Britney Spears or Savage Garden albums at the shops but if it comes from within their own country it seems to get their hackles up," Banks says.

"With Deep Obsession, the girls had to deal with being branded talentless bimbos. As a guy, you don't get that - but people do assume you must be in it for the money. And with Nurture that's very frustrating - especially when we put as much into our music as, say, Linkin Park put into theirs."

Banks says the pop sound he and Phil Madsen, the other half of Nurture, produce comes from a life-long history of liking "uncool" records.

"I've been slagged off all my life for liking certain types of artists," Banks says, "so I was really surprised when I met Phil and he had the same CDs."

"Things like James Last and Peter Gabriel," Madsen adds. "I respect a good male vocal."

The duo came together through a mutual musician friend. Banks, who works as a commercial composer when he's not in his own band, had written some songs and thought he might need a male singer to make some demos.

Madsen has been in bands since he was 13 and a few years ago was discovered singing in a Big Fresh supermarket in Nelson by an Auckland agent who told him to get up to the big city and turn professional. Most recently he's done stints at the Sky City Casino and also taken a lead role at the Christmas in the Park events.

The one-time collaboration in the studio between Madsen and Banks was so successful that it became a permanent arrangement. The pair write Nurture's songs together, one coming up with a tune then passing it on to the other for input. And they've just done their first tour performing live on radio stations around the country.

They reckon it went really well - "you get a lot more respect for playing live," Madsen says - and like most other New Zealand musicians their hopes for Nurture's future are pretty straightforward. There's an album due out later this year and naturally they'd like to make it big overseas.

On a more philosophical level, "We'd like to think the music touches people in a personal way," Banks says. "If someone gets some kind of emotion out of our songs that's great."

Before Friday member Ben Bell-Booth says he and his other half Dean Chandler have similar aims.

"We want to produce good radio songs - something that people can enjoy, maybe sing along to."

Bell-Booth and Chandler have been friends since they were at high school. And when they started writing songs together the two Wellingtonians decided they would deliberately make radio-friendly pop rock.

"We've just never been the kind of guys who play in thrash bands and hang around the student radio station," Bell-Booth says. "That's just not us.

"We've both played in covers bands and we don't see the point. We know we don't want to be struggling musicians," he says.

But they certainly don't want to be a manufactured boy band either.

"When you're making this kind of music you get hassled for being money-oriented," Bell-Booth admits. "But we are honest guys - there's integrity to our music. We've just both always liked melodic pop music."

Other acts among their favourites include Coldplay, Weta and Robbie Williams.

Before Friday (in case you're wondering, the name comes from the record company telling them they had to decide on a name "before Friday") hope to have an album out by the end of the year and they, too, think they have what it takes to make it internationally.

Nationally, they say, things are also looking good. "Local radio seems to have opened up to more New Zealand music. And, although we're in the minority now, I think more bands and record companies are also opening up to this kind of sound."