Teen band, Vivid. Kathleen Williams, Jade Paynter, Ellie McBurney and Ash Parton. Photo / Babiche Martens.
Teen band, Vivid. Kathleen Williams, Jade Paynter, Ellie McBurney and Ash Parton. Photo / Babiche Martens.
We meet the talented teen musicians, the friends behind the band Vivid.
The friends behind the band Vivid describe their sound as pop rock, although like most teenagers "we're still on the 'journey of discovery'. Our music's really just about having fun."
The 17- and 18-year-olds started the band at school, after developing their singular talents for playing various instruments: Ellie learnedguitar in music class at high school; Kathleen the drums in primary school ("because being at an all-girl school no one else played drums back then. So I wanted to be different."). Jade initially started out playing the trombone, "but ended up begging my mum to let me play anything but. And now I play bass," while Ash, on vocals and guitar, took her talent further because, "My mum told me I was good".
They've since gone on to rock this year's Smokefree Rockquest, scooping third place in the national and Auckland finals and the People's Choice Award for Auckland Central.
The best part of being in a band? "We love being able to share so many awesome experiences with each other. Compared to being a soloist, it's way more fun being able to get excited together over all of the new opportunities that come our way - and we can all get away with more on stage when we rock out together. It's such a blast."
ADVICE FOR YOUNG MUSOS "Just get out there and play live gigs - even if it's only to your family (this was the case for us when we were starting out). Playing live is the best way to improve and get confident with what you do. And also, don't let the haters get you down. No one really took us seriously to start with and we got laughed at quite a lot (and probably still do). But you've just got to be yourself, put yourself out there and not worry about what other people think."
DEALING WITH NERVES We get so nervous its unreal. But to cope, we all get real deep and give each other mean pep talks and tell each other we love each other before going on stage.
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: 1.Tongue Tied by Grouplove 2.Bootleg Rascal by Sticky Fingers 3.Kupenga by Strangely Arousing (they won SmokeFree Pacifica Beats last year, such a cool sound) 4.Claimed by the Sea by French for Rabbits
