The Golden Age of Goldenhorse
It’s been a while since we have seen Goldenhorse playing in Australia, but they are back and about to burst into the Australian music gigging scene again as they tour with their new album and play gigs with Pinky Beecroft and the White Russians.
Kirsten Morrell took some time out from enjoying a rare June sunny day, on the eve of their first show to talk about the new album Reporter and the tour. Goldenhorse have been touring the Uk for the last few (southern hemisphere) winters; so have managed to escape the Auckland winter for a few years. This year, back in the south Goldenhorse are “setting out on a new tour and excited about the journey, meeting people and having new experiences”
Being together for 10 years Kristen, Geoff, Ben, Vincent and Nick have had some pretty funny and classic tour stories to tell. “Oh a lot of falling of stage stories…recently I was on stage and I was on a different level to the mic, I just leant in and I didn’t see it and I just fell of stage, yep crazy…rock and roll” Kirsten giggles as she recalls.
“We were Hamburg not long ago playing at a festival, and Mars Volta were going to be playing and I was like wicked, wicked we’re going to see Mars Volta and then they unfortunately couldn’t make it…so then WE replaced the Mars Volta in their slot and I was like Damn, but kinda good too…”
So what do Goldenhorse do to relax and chill after a gig? Surely something hardcore and rock and roll… “Well I watch lots of DVD’s, a lot of Mighty Boosh” Kirsten confesses.
The tour is coinciding with the release of a third album (Reporter) for Goldenhorse and they are really happy with it, declaring it contains “some of the best songs that we’ve written so far”, and all the reviews have measured up to this call too. Which is always an encouraging sign for a band that has been together longer than your average one album wonders.
Maybe there is something in the casual way they began performing, maybe not but it’s a fun story anyway… Geoff and Kirsten met through a mutual friend who was in charge of costuming on the old TV show ‘Xena Warrior Princess’. He threw a party for the show and asked Geoff and Kirsten to play some music for the party and “we just jammed together for hours, then we got a band together to play at that same friends wedding, then we met Ben and carried on the band, it was quite exciting and creative times in Auckland”.
Coming together in such a way was always going to mean coming from different backgrounds. So they also have varying array of influences, “They guys are more rock and roll and I’ve been more of the female influence, so we are pretty wide and pretty diverse I cant say there is one band that has influenced the band as a whole”.
To create a third album and after being together for so long means a lot of experience and natural energy flows through the writing and producing. The first two albums we took time out and wrote and created at home with Tim and Neil Finns recording equipment, and this one is an accumulation of the work that we’ve been doing while touring in the UK…during which time we attracted a producer called Phil Vinyl”. Phil had been doing lots of work in overseas in the US, US and Mexico, and Goldenhorse managed to charm him into his first ever trip to New Zealand so that they could record with him in their own hometown.
The song writing on the album has no formula, everyone just brings songs to the band “we all contribute and we just work well together, and Ben contributed a couple of songs to this album too, there is a nice core of songs again on this (Reporter)” Kirsten said.
With more than ten years in the music industry under her belt Kirsten offers advice to up and comers “Just keep playing your instrument, form ‘a relationship’ with your instrument, oo that’s sounds a bit weird…but tuck away the teddy bear and take your guitar or whatever. I’ve learnt piano from about the age of six and you can develop a sort of comfort zone with musical instruments”.
If Goldenhorse musical style could be packaged in food form… “We would be a dark chocolate with a violet and mint centre…I loved trying that at the chocolate shops in Australia” Kirsten said.
While on the topic of chocolate, its interesting to note that while on tour the guys are going to be enjoying plenty of it from Green and Black organic, Maya-Gold fair trade.
I also had the privilege of seeing them at their Melbourne show and can vouch that Goldenhorse have a wonderfully fresh and unique folksy sound.
