By day they’re the Supergroove horn section. By night they stalk the streets, their antique wind instruments shrieking wildly. If you’ve ever seen Supergroove perform you may have noticed the bouncing horn section of Tim Stewart and Nick Atkinson. The pair have recently formed a band called Hopetoun Brown which revolves around Tim’s big soulful voice coupled to the deep tones of Nick’s bass clarinet.
Back in their school days Nick and Tim fell in love with the unique sounds of New Orleans after seeing The Dirty Dozen Brass Band march down Queen Street. “It was the rhythms that drew you in” reflects Tim who goes on at length about the large amounts of stone-cold funk pouring from the assorted horns that fateful day. Since then they’ve worked on their chops sharpening their skills on that classic Southern repertoire, but late last year something happened that changed their sound. Tim started to sing that Big Easy classic Saint James Infirmary. When the bass clarinet picked out the bass-line Hopetoun Brown was born. “There’s such a natural balance between Tim’s voice and sound of the low clarinet” says Nick. “They’re very complementary, almost complete.”
Since then they’ve been gigging around central Auckland haunts like the Portland Public House, Golden Dawn, The Wine Cellar and the Leigh Sawmill where they were able to do an extra late session out by the briar recently. “Once we got stomping there was gravel flying everywhere” says Tim gleefully.
