ELEANOR BLACK meets the nicest new band on the block.
If Barbie and Ken were to come to life as folk-rock musicians, they would be just like Lucid3, jamming at their local with the gangly guy from next door.
Barbie would sing beautifully, taking turns with a keyboard and guitar, while Ken strummed a second guitar and swayed with the music, turning every so often to flash a smile at the drummer in the corner.
On stage, Lucid3 are not like other struggling indie bands. They are cheerful, they smile a lot and they don't try to act cool. That is not to say they are plastic, just polished.
A few weeks later at a central city cafe, the Auckland-based trio are just as perky, despite feeling worn down by the pressure of funding their first LP, shooting video clips and meeting the press. Victoria Girling-Butcher and Marcus Lawson still look too good to be true, and Derek Metivier is still a set of right angles attached to a torso.
After three years together, Lucid3 have hit their stride. They have just begun their second tour, supporting goodshirt, and will soon release their debut album, Running Down the Keys, a mix of material from their EP, Fluid, and 10 songs written in the past year. Their performances draw loyal audiences and complimentary reviews and the group which formed primarily to record music are now addicted to live gigs.
If they could figure out a way to make music full-time, life would be close to perfect. But Lawson is the only one who entertains thoughts of making big money in New Zealand. "Bic Runga has a Beemer," he says with a hopeful grin.
As it is, they work part-time, play together as often as they can, and plough their money straight into their music. Bass player Lawson, 30, who has a collection of vintage guitars, has started selling them off to pay the bills. Girling-Butcher, 25, who writes the lyrics and sings, treads the floor at a cafe, and Metivier, 36, a sound engineer, perfects other people's work. It's frustrating.
The trio, who act like siblings - sharing in-jokes, praising each other when one or the other is too bashful to admit their strengths, and laughing a lot - made 1000 copies of Running Down the Keys for just $12,000. Metivier produced it at home and the band made a deal with Global Routes, a company which specialises in distributing independent music from New Zealand and overseas. While they would like to sign with a record company, they want to maintain control over their work, and say they have not yet been offered the right deal.
Girling-Butcher attended the Nelson School of Music and first took her music on the road six years ago. She had not long moved to Auckland when she met Lawson, a self-taught guitarist and former singer with 7 Dials, at a party. Lawson was impressed and told longtime friend Metivier about the girl with "a voice that makes you melt".
Metivier was born in France and emigrated to New Zealand with his family as a teenager. He learned sound engineering in London and does work for TVNZ and for a studio in New Caledonia. Thanks to his European connections, Running Down the Keys may be released by the Paris-based Oceania Records. The band has been asked to play the French festival circuit in August.
They want to try their luck in Australia but have not made any plans to travel - yet. A certainty is that they will soon start work on their second full-length album.
Girling-Butcher, who loses sleep the nights before meeting reporters, dreamed about the first single. "I had a dream that we shot the video and I was just wearing underwear and I was slapping my hip and singing 'Sexy Munter'. In my dream I was thinking, 'This is completely against my ethics. Why am I singing a song called Sexy Munter and slapping my own ass?"
Well, Barbie certainly wouldn't do it.
* Lucid3 are on tour with goodshirt until April 20. They play tonight at Harringtons, Tauranga.
Like Barbie and Ken with music added
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.