Thee Rum Coves have been taking their dirty rock n roll to the Auckland live scene for good while now and have built up an impressive reputation. Today they have released their first official single 'Simple Little Lie' from a their forthcoming debut album due out early next year. We caught up with frontman Jake Harding earlier this week to get the full run down on the band and forthcoming release...
Hey, how’s it going?
Very well, thank you.
How did you first get into making music?
Having brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers and uncles and aunts with amazing record collections and musical instruments strewn around the house you just find yourself just doing it. It becomes such an interest, such an obsession that there is little chance of not making music.
Clearly Rock n Roll is a huge influence for you, what drew you to this music particularly?
Rock n Roll is a great influence but so is Southern soul, punk, blues and many other musical forms. The thing that influences me most is authenticity. People who mean it. If it comes from the heart and soul of a person then it gets me. The aim of Thee Rum Coves is to hit people’s minds and their feet. We want to get people to dance. That’s our aim. For people to be moved enough to break free from the shackles of everyday existence. We definitely appeal to women as much as men.
How did Thee Rum Coves come together?
Through luck, chance and good food. The seeds were planted with myself and Dave (Taylor – Raw Nerves), who shared some mutual friends from England got together to jam through some songs we loved. We heard that Jono was looking to start a dirty garage rock band after returning from his travels and we met over noodles and spiced meats. Tomas, our Chilean Shamanic spirit guide, had an epiphany when awaking from revelatory dream where his future played out to him as being in the greatest living rock n soul band and was compelled to move to New Zealand to find his future. We found him wandering the streets with a gig guide in hand. Ryan crashed his skateboard into one of our rehearsals, liked what he heard and joined.
What other projects have/are you all been involved in?
We have all been in bands before and these created the fertile petri dish of musical bacteria from which Thee Rum Coves grew... I was in The D4 for the first three years of its existence. Jono has played in various bands in London and Auckland (SchwaB, One Million Dollars), Ryan much the same and Tomi was in a pretty successful band in Chile called Dion – another astral connection to me (Dion being the guitarist/ singer of D4).
You play live a lot – how do you find the Auckland live scene?
The scene is excellent in many ways. As always there are some amazing, creative musicians making great New Zealand music. The problem at the moment is that we are going through one of those cycles where there aren’t enough great venues around and punters don’t have enough cash to really support local bands. Audiences are watching what they want to pay for. People would rather save their money to pay $150 to see Radiohead than pay $10 to see a local band. In tough times you have to make tough decisions. In difficult times people also get creative so one of the advantages of this situation is that it’s creating another underground scene where the number of house parties and gigs held in unusual places are growing. Audiences here are always great. We aim to get people dancing and they usually do.
Who are some of your favourite bands to see live?
In New Zealand, Rackets as you’re never sure what you’re going to get! Transistors for great punk energy. A cool young psychedelic band from Bethell’s Beach called Narwhal, The Psychs are like a wonky Beatles, which I love. The Raw Nerves and their delinquent rock n roll. Delaney Davison is pretty amazing as a one man experience. There is also a very cool band from Hamilton called The Redheads who should do really well.
Internationally, well Black Lips were pretty amazing earlier this year.
What have you go in the works recording wise?
We’re releasing our single 'Simple Little Lie' at the end of November and that’ll be available at Bandcamp/Thee Rum Coves. Then we have our self-titled album out in February with the most beautiful hand drawn cover. For those who buy one of the first copies of the vinyl they’ll get a limited edition print of the cover drawn and printed by our amazing artist friend, Amber Cooksley. She also sings on one of the tracks and will blow people’s minds...honestly.
What is your writing/recording process?
In the most part, I come up with a two-thirds completed piece – like “Here’s the verse, chorus and middle bit” and then we work through that and come up with a structure and then we try and finish the thing as quickly as we can before we lose the feel for it. Unfortunately we’re a bunch of miscreant sloths so anything that takes too long gets abandoned.
What else have you got coming up?
We’re planning to get out to the provinces on a bit of a tour in Feb/March next year to take the new album to the masses, so look out for that, plus more recording. More local gigs. More of the same excellent stuff really...
The state of music in New Zealand is...eclectic and identifiably New Zealand. Just the way it should be.
