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The Eighth Note: Beatcomber

Eighth Note

‘The Eighth Note’ is 8 quick Questions with Wellington Musicians.

A chance for us to catch up with people & see what they’re up to, or introduce you to a new musician/band and their music.

Today’s guest is Jonathan from nofi/super-lofi self credited bedroom popstars Beatcomber‘.

Who are you? Tell us a bit about your music.
Hello! We’re BEATCOMBER! We are a self proclaimed garage, no-fi 5 piece rock band from Wellington. We consist of Sam Young on percussion, Sophie Scott-Maunder on Vocals and Keys, Thomas King on the Druuums, Trent Thomas Drummond Williams on Guitar and Vocals and myself, Jonathan Shirley on Bass.

What have you been working on lately? Any new tracks or albums on the way?
Playing shows at the moment! We go through motions of not having any gigs then suddenly like a couple or even back-to-back weeks of gigs. We enjoy gigging though! and I feel like its what we do best and where we get to test things live. We recently released a single called ‘Sick Breeze’ and have some other stuff cooking that we are finding time to finish. We are a pretty slow moving band, which ain’t too bad.

Where is the best place people can follow you & find your music?
Most stuff of ours is on Bandcamp but we’re still repping the Soundcloud and usually post quick demos and jams on that.

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What were the 3 most influential albums to you growing up?
Lol, I am not too sure about what the rest of the band would say. If we were going to say instead something like, what 3 albums do we usually blast as a group (that may influence us)? I would say True Stories by Talking Heads, A Hard Days Night by The Beatles and I’m In Your Mind Fuzz by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard.

Which other Wellington musician (s) would you most like to work with?
Yikes! Once myself, Thomas and Sam couldn’t play a show as we were away but both Trent and Sophie were super keen to play, so they enlisted both Callum and Oliver Devlin of Hans Pucket and Emerald Rose of Draghound/Fuzz Queen to play in our stead and as a group they sounded ammmmazzzing, so I think we should work with them again hah. Otherwise I don’t think we mind! I think its pretty fun mixing it up and having like a one time member of the band or something for a show. We are open to offers!

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What’s your favourite Wellington venue to play in?
Hmm I think we all like San Fran! It has really great sound and a pretty gig oriented environment, we also like Valhalla for the mammoth sound system and Caroline is a new favourite! But I don’t think there is anywhere in Wellington we dislike playing! The sound peeps and workers are all nice and friendly at each venue.

In your songwriting or composing (or the band’s songwriting) how do the compositions and songs take shape?
Usually we’ll be at a band practice and most of the time Trent will bring like a riff or something or someone else in the band will play something random and we’ll all be like ‘yeaaa that sounds cool!’ and then we’ll jam that. Then we’ll all get really frustrated with each other, bang our heads and the mood will drop to a pretty grim vibe, but then one of us will try keep the energy pumping and then we’ll have a breakthrough and jam like crazy until we kind of have something. Then we have a great time and get really excited! Very mixed emotions (bill heavens reference).

Where/when is your next gig?
Our last gig of year was on the 15th of December for the ‘Hans Pucket Single Release + Xmas Party’, at Caroline. After that I believe we are done for the year! then we have some exciting shows lined up for early 2017 ,including some sneaky festivals, so more shows to come!


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