Wellington Music: New Album - Hobnail

When/where was the new album recorded?

Recorded at my home studio during the first half of 2025.

Who produced/engineered the album? How did the tracks come together in the studio, or at home?

Self produced. Arrangements came from a combination of rehearsals, jamming, and working out parts in the studio as the recording process progressed.

Given that this is a covers album drawn from Kiwi & Australian songwriters, are there any overall themes within the songs that connect them? Given the wealth of songs you could chose, what drew you to these tracks?

There is no theme other than the huge respect we have for the songwriters, and the fact that they are all wonderful songs.

When tackling a cover version of another artists song the choice is usually to be relatively faithful to the original, or recontextualise it in some way? How did you decide which approach to take with these tracks? Was there a specific essence you wanted to draw out with your bands instrumentation?

I don't see much point in doing faithful reproductions - you might as well just listen to the original! We approached this as our interpretations of the songs, and kept our arrangements to the instrumentation that we would use live, with minimal overdubs. So violin, acoustic guitars, and mandolin was the foundation and over that we leant into our harmonies to help the songs become more "us". We love singing harmonies, hence the album title - Three Part.

What was your favourite cover on the album, and why is that particular track so meaningful for you as a musician?

I guess I'd have to say Red Morning by Barry Saunders. He has an amazing body of work, and 'Red Morning' is my favourite of all. He's a good friend of ours, and we have been fortunate enough to work with him regularly over the years. I was quite nervous about how he would feel about what we did with his song, but to my great relief he was very complimentary. Thanks Barry!

Was there any specific gear you used to capture that?

As well as our customary acoustic guitars and violin, we used a baritone guitar, octave mandolin and open tuned guitars.

Is there a physical copy available? If not which digital platforms is it available on?

Physical copies available through Bandcamp or by emailing robjoass@gmail.com. It’s on all the streaming services. [Spotify].

Are you working on a video/videos for any of the songs? Are you doing any gigs or promotion for its release?

Touring widely at present. We’ve just finished 6 dates in the South Island and about to start heading north. Dates are on our Website.