Musician Lachi McBride One to Watch
In a new Rolling Stone AU/NZ series, the magazine takes a look at some rising Aotearoa artists who are looking to impress in 2023 and beyond. It may still be an uncertain time for…
Tag Archives: Rolling Stone
New Zealand’s Indy Forging Own Pop Path
Last month, a new indie pop star emerged – and she’s making the main character anthems of everyone’s dreams, according to Brittany Spanos writing for Rolling Stone. After nearly four years of writing, workshopping,…
Shining the Light on Actor Melanie Lynskey
The Yellowjackets star New Zealander Melanie Lynskey has gone from character actor to leading lady thanks to her singular ability to project simmering rage beneath a placid exterior, EJ Dickson writes for Rolling Stone. This…
Graeme James Revives Lost Art of Shipwreck Song
“It’s been a while since” anything like “a gripping seafaring-disaster song” has “come along, but to that list we can now add ‘The Voyage of the James Caird’ by New Zealand singer-songwriter Graeme James,”…
Steve Martin Awards Catherine Browness Banjo Prize
Marton-born banjo player Catherine “BB” Browness is one of five recipients of the 2020 Steve Martin Banjo Prize. Browness, who plays with the bluegrass band Mile Twelve, shared in the US$50,000 prize, which…
Death Metal Band Ulcerate Warp Time in New Track
New Zealand extreme-metal outfit Ulcerate, which formed in Auckland in 2000, “privileges atmosphere over speed in one of its grandest, most unsettling tracks to date,” Rolling Stone magazine correspondent Hank Shteamer writes. “Fifty years on…
Sarah Mary Chadwick’s Latest is Otherworldly
“The mix of New Zealand-born singer agony and the hope of the organ she’s playing makes for a compelling listen,” according to Kory Grow in a review of Chadwick’s new song,…
Rolling Stone Loves The Beths’ Future Me
This spring, Elizabeth Stokes, 27, quit her day job teaching trumpet to kids in Auckland. The reason: She was ready to tour the world with The Beths, the exuberant pop-punk band she’d started with…
Gang of Youths’ Max Dunn Talks to Rolling Stone
Founded in Sydney six years ago, Gang of Youths, which includes New Zealander Max Dunn on bass, are getting their share of attention in America after releasing two hit albums in Australia: 2015’s The…
Neil Finn to Join Fleetwood Mac
Legendary band Fleetwood Mac has announced that Neil Finn of Crowded House and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers will replace departing guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. The band’s firing of Buckingham over the group’s…
Bones Hillman On Great Circle Midnight Oil Tour
For Bones Hillman, the New Zealander who replaced Midnight Oil bassist Peter Gifford in 1987, The Great Circle “has been more than a tour. It’s reconnecting with people.” After the Oils split in 2002, Rob…
Pop’s Outsider Lorde Covers Rolling Stone
In a cover story for Rolling Stone magazine, Lorde talks about growing up in the spotlight following her hit debut Pure Heroine, and why her new Melodrama, out on 16 June, is the work…
Producer Joel Little Teams up with Ruth B in LA
Lorde’s former producer, Grammy-award winning New Zealander Joel Little, 33, is now working with Canadian singer-songwriter Ruth B on her first LP, Vine. Little became intrigued with Ruth when a friend sent a demo of…
Teeth and Tongue is So It Right Now
Teeth & Tongue, the “cheeky moniker” of New Zealand-born Jess Cornelius, is one of 10 new artists “you need to know”, according to Rolling Stone, who recommend the musician to fans of Blondie, Kate…
MAALA Rolls out Debut Album Composure
The past few years has seen Aucklander Evan Sinton, better known as MAALA, transform from New Zealand’s Got Talent star to brooding, mysterious electronic artist. With his debut album, Composure just out, Rolling Stone…
Dance Wunderkind Parris Goebel Gaining Traction
The New Yorker’s review of Justin Bieber’s latest “stellar” video, “Sorry” – perhaps “an acceptable cap to his year of penitence” – declares that, “it is impossible not to feel as if you would…
Lorde’s New Track With Disclosure
Lorde has released a new track together with Disclosure. The Kiwi singer “co-wrote the track with the electronic duo comprised of brothers Howard and Guy Lawrence” as reported in Rolling Stone Magazine. The…
Sarah Mary Chadwick Sits down at the Organ
It’s been over ten years since Sarah Mary Chadwick, 32, left New Zealand to pursue her music career, initially as the lead-singer of swamp-doom outfit, Batrider, and more recently with her own solo work….
Nielson Family Reunion Perfect Subtext for New UMO Album
“Visionary” New Zealander Ruban Nielson, frontman of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, has tightened up his songwriting, “with the added bonus of synths” on the band’s latest album Multi-Love. “Nielson’s favourite new toy is apparent from the…
Country Star Marlon Williams Takes to the Road
New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based singer-songwriter Marlon Williams will tour Australia and his home country in support of his just-released, critically acclaimed self-titled debut album. “A free-ranging complement to the assured country weirdness of last year’s Sad…
Indie Stars Dean Wareham and Luna Announce Reunion
After a decade apart, indie rockers Luna, fronted by New Zealand-born Dean Wareham, have “insouciantly” announced their reunion with a string of dates in Spain and vague hints at US dates, planned for next…
Weird Al Yankovic Rethinks Lorde’s Royals
Lorde should feel honoured, according to Billboard magazine, because on Weird Al Yankovic’s new album Mandatory Fun, Royals is the only song the professional parodist reimagines as a song about food, called Foil. “Fortunately, he…
Lorde Gives Foo-Fighter Dave Grohl Hope for Music
Music legend Dave Grohl, founder of the Foo Fighters and member of Nirvana, has told Rolling Stone magazine that Lorde gives him hope for the future of music. Dismissing most music on the radio…
Springsteen Covers Royals at Mt Smart Stadium
According to Rolling Stone, Bruce Springsteen made the most surprising cover choice of his career when he played an acoustic rendition of teenage Grammy award-winner Lorde’s song Royals during his Auckland show at Mt…
Lorde Makes the Cover of Rolling Stone
“The thrill that’ll getcha when you get your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone,” sang Dr Hook in 1972, a blatant but ultimately successful act of musical sycophancy that earned the band…
Funky Cuts for Rolling Stone
“Inventive New Zealand singer-songwriter Kimbra stopped by the Rolling Stone studio to play a few funky cuts off her experimental pop debut LP Vows.” “After impressing with her intense live looping technique, she talked…
Thinking About The Moment
New Zealand sound recordist Rob Mayes who divides his time between Christchurch and Tokyo, recently worked on the Ridley Scott-produced Don’t Think, a Chemical Brothers feature film shot at the Fuji Rock Festival,…
Foo Fighters Make Earth Move
Auckland GeoNet scientists have said that the recent Foo Fighters concert at Western Springs caused geological vibrations on par with “volcanic tremors”. The vibrations emitted “a strong low signal,” geologists at GeoNet reported. “The…
Undead and on cover
True Blood star New Zealand-born actress Anna Paquin, 28, who plays waitress Sookie Stackhouse in the hit show, features on the latest issue of Rolling Stone, bloodied and naked in the arms of co-stars,…
Sun out soon
Crowded House frontman Neil Finn has collaborated with the Smiths’ Johnny Marr, Radiohead’s Phil Selway and Ed O’Brien and new additions Wilco to produce a double-disc collection called The Sun Came Out, proceeds of…
Check one-two
Auckland five-piece The Checks featured as the Guardian’s New Band of the Day for August 22. Music critic Paul Lester: “These five New Zealanders may be teenagers, but they sound as old as the…
Good things take time
An Australian Rolling Stone feature examines the intimate and lengthy process behind the making of Everyone Is Here, the first collaborative album by Neil and Tim Finn in nearly a decade. “Hyperbole can’t…
Straight Outta Cambridge
The Datsuns made Rolling Stone‘s Critics Top Albums of 2003 list with their eponymous debut record: “This NZ four piece aped the Stooges and AC/DC and helped re-ignite the post-millennium garage, cock-rock flame.” The…
Goodshirt. Good music.
“Since blowing in from their native New Zealand last year with three hits (“Sophie”, “Blowing Dirt” and “Place to Be”), Goodshirt has emerged as one of our Antipodean cousins to watch. Unlike their countrymen…
Datsuns apply the brakes
The Datsuns made their debut appearance at Ozzfest in July – looking, in their words, like a group of “Nancy-boys” amidst a sea of metal. Rolling Stone had a more favourable outlook, describing the…
D4 dee-light North America
The D4 have unleashed their distinctive sound on the North American market, gaining thumbs-up all round. Rolling Stone: ” blitz through their blues-punk-garage-rock playbook on hyperdrive.” Chart Attack: “One of the few…
Pleasantly Rough: 7 Worlds Collide
Neil Finn’s latest album, 7 Worlds Collide brings together Pearl Jams’ Eddie Vedder, Tim Finn, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and ex-Smith’s legend Johnny Marr. BBC: “Finn is a consumate master of his craft”.
Chris Knox: Not the Hallmark variety
Rolling Stone praises Chris Knox’s latest effort: “You can always count on a rock eccentric to make you scratch your head – but touch your heart? That’s usually not the province of ordinary weirdos,…
