What the ‘folk’ is going on in Christchurch?
Friday, 19 April 2024
Sinking their teeth into performing at the old Dux de Lux, embracing their city as a bit flatter - and therefore a bit weirder - and forging their own unique paths in a place distanced from the rest of the industry, are experiences three folk music artists share.
Musical talents Tom Lark, Adam McGrath, and married duo Matthew and Lauren Barus known as Terrible Sons, are the three best folk artist finalists at the 2024 Aotearoa Music Awards.
The catch? They each hail from Christchurch.
So what’s in the water in Ōtautahi, nurturing national folk success? The Press speaks to them all.
Adam McGrath
His dad had “a bit of a thing for selling stolen things,” as he puts it.
Whether it was furniture or a washing machine it would move into his family home briefly, and then move out again.
And then came the record player.
Often there wasn’t much room to store these newly rehomed items, so the record player was stored in Adam McGrath’s bedroom, and 4-year-old McGrath was hooked.
“I just became obsessed with it,” he said. Specifically, the Elvis Presley records. “I would march the kids in my street around the neighbourhood singing G.I. Blues.”
That would spark the start of a lengthy music career that’s taken McGrath away for many nights on the road. He’s led the band The Eastern for 16 years and released his first solo album - Dear Companions - last year.
But while his career took him far around the world, home was always Christchurch.
“There’s just something about Christchurch. You’re just that [bit] further away, and it's just a little weirder and a little flatter, and you have to make something on your own terms.”
A younger McGrath grew up in Shirley and Mairehau, but his “most shaping influences” came from the Bishopdale area - where he played league for the Marist Western Suburbs League Club.
But Bishopdale remains the location of his all time favourite spot in the city today. The Dove Bookshop and tearooms are “quiet and unpretentious” and always leave him relaxed with a sense of calm.
When he’s on stage, it’s normally just him, an acoustic guitar and harmonica.
How McGrath believes his hometown has fuelled music success is centred around “resilience”.
“[There’s] a certain sense that you're gonna do it anyway because it has to be done… and I think that a lot of good music gets made that way.”
Terrible Sons
The stage name Terrible Sons originated from a bit of “tongue and cheek”, about two brothers ditching their accountancy and engineering studies to be low paid musicians.
“Mum and dad thought that was ridiculous of course”, said Matthew Barus, explaining the name that was once a shared idea with his brother Jo, to one he now shares as musical act with his wife Lauren.
The Christchurch husband-and-wife indie folk duo Terrible Sons entered a new era of songwriting together when they tackled their latest album The Raft Is Not The Shore entirely collaboratively.
“This was the first record that had both of our voices in more of an equal measure,” Lauren said.
It’s a process harboured on trust, something the pair have been building for 13 years.
The parents of two live in Addington, and said the third person in their songwriting team would be the landscape overlooking Camp Bay, a sandy beach with small surf around the corner from Diamond Harbour.
Another inspiration instigator was the old Dux de Lux, where “a whole generation of people got into music”.
It was “the place to play,” Matthew said when he was at university during the 90s, and where he had his light bulb moment thinking ‘this is something I would love to do’.
Lauren added that at both the Dux and The Arts Centre, “you would see things that inspired you, and you would be inspired to do it”.
Christchurch feels like it also has a longer winter, naturally creating introspection and self reflection Matthew said, which “maybe helps the songwriting process as well”.
When there's a group of people doing good work in an area, there's a flow on effect encouraging and pulling others to a similar level, they said.
The pair have a new single called Thank You coming out next month and are playing the last of their album release shows in Whanganui, Wellington and Christchurch with tickets available online.
Tom Lark
Artist Tom Lark (aka Shannon Fowler) cannot find deep fried jam wraps anywhere when he travels the North Island.
That, along with his favourite fish and chips on Hoon Hay Rd, are elements that feel like home.
The Christchurch raised artist moved to Auckland in 2012, but feels “most connected to” the Sydenham suburb of his hometown. “It’s kind of charming and rundown but always aspiring to be on the up,” he said.
The town mix of rural attitudes meeting city living meant feedback often felt “blunt” when he was coming up in the music scene regularly performing at the old Dux de Lux.
But it was a feeling Lark believes “sharpened” his songwriting skill and abilities.
Self creating and self recording had always been a big part of Lark’s journey, which was an attitude that he believed was “quite Christchurch as well”.
“Being further down the country there’s probably like an unassumed thought I might not get funding or support, so I'm just gonna learn how to do it myself… just as good.”
Lark will be releasing a new single 'Dumb Luck' next Friday and will tour the United Kingdom next month.
The Aotearoa Music Awards has returned for the first time in two years and will take place on May 30.