Cornerstone Roots bringing their Lost Tribe to Whanganui and Ohakune

The veterans and the up-and-comers of the Raglan and New Zealand roots reggae scene are teaming up this weekend for shows in Whanganui and Ohakune.

While Cornerstone Roots have been a force for nearly two decades, their fellow Raglanites, Lost Tribe Aotearoa, are on a meteoric rise as both head to Lucky Bar + Kitchen for Friday's gig.

In just 10 month since forming, Lost Tribe have toured, won the Mai FM big break competition and recorded four tracks at Neil Finn's Roundhead Studios where they met Ed Sheeran.

"Me and Tux (cousin Tux Severne) have played for probably 20 years but decided last year that we'd take it to the next level and start writing out own tracks," Lost Tribe guitarist Ben Aves said.

A make-shift gig followed from which they were asked to play with Cornerstone Roots on Boxing Day.

So they set about writing a set of songs in just a few weeks.

Their big song Irie was written while Aves was jamming and singer Jesse Biddle started improvising vocals.

"It's played out like a movie, mate," Aves said. "That was the first song as a full band that we'd made."

The band worked up about 10 songs that form their set now and ended up at Roundhead Studio.

"We probably shouldn't have been there. Walking into the studio with bare feet, singlets and shorts, but we came out with four tracks and we've just slowly been releasing them."

Irie won them the Mai FM big break competition and has got them mainstream radio play.

"Yeah, it's pretty mean. The exposure through Spotify and Facebook and all those platforms is crazy."

They have been mentored by Cornerstone Roots who have been performing in New Zealand since 2001 and have released three critically acclaimed albums, Soul Revolution, Free Yourself and Future Is Now to go with four EPs.

*Cornerstone Roots with Lost Tribe Aotearoa play on September 21 at Lucky and September 22 at Kings in Ohakune.

Tickets are available on Eventfinder.