After a debilitating year, New Zealand’s music scene is starting to return to normal, but what about our Kiwi musicians who are stuck overseas? Tony Stamp catches up with six ex-pats who are experiencing a very different COVID-19.
(Clockwise) Chelsea Jade, No Romance, Luke Rowell, Isaac Aesili,, Millie Lovelock Photo: supplied
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Pop superstar Benee has just sold out Auckland's 12,000-capacity Spark Arena two nights in a row; The Beths pulled off a nationwide tour, an event so notable it got a writeup in the Washington Post; and we're tentatively looking forward to a summer of live music here in Aotearoa.
But, other countries haven’t been so lucky.
Throughout this year NZ citizens around the world have been returning home en masse as news of our low infection rates spread. But plenty of people have stuck it out in their new homes, including some expat musicians.
To learn more, I reached out to musos in Hong Kong, Thailand, Berlin, Britain, and America, and ran them through a range of topics to compare and contrast their experiences.
What’s the mood like where you are?
HONG KONG: Luke Rowell (Disasteradio/ Eyeliner)
The civic solidarity here is amazing. I wasn’t quite prepared. I think it’s because they went through SARS in the mid-2000s, and it was a bit of a sore spot for Hong Kong. This city is still running with eight million people still going to work and going out to eat, and it’s almost the opposite situation to wider New Zealand where it’s so spread out - here everyone’s crammed into this little spot.
LOS ANGELES: Chelsea Jade
The mood here is borderline complacent at this point. The mood is very fatigued. Part of the complacency is because there’s no formality and because it doesn’t feel like it has any finality or hope to it. It’s just been bungled so dramatically.
I feel like I witnessed from afar a sense of community and galvanising [in NZ] that seems like a choice that many here aren’t considering. The exceptionalism here is just so hard to dominate with good sense sometimes.
Are people wearing masks?
THAILAND: Isaac Aesili
Annually there’s a big burn-off of overgrown plants that dry out after the rainy season. When these fires have been burning the pollution levels get quite high, so by December/ January we were already starting to wear masks.
BERLIN: Joel Ivan Thomas (No Romance)
I went to an open-air gig here recently and there were security guards walking around being like ‘chuck your mask on!’
Chelsea Jade
Not wearing a mask at a time like this feels like such an aggressive way to be. Like if your server is wearing a face mask, and gloves, and a face-shield, like all servers in Los Angeles, maybe re-think things. Like do you really need to be eating that sushi roll out here?
It’s the most benign form of protection you can give to everyone around you. Didn’t everyone melt down their gold jewelry during the war? This is not that hard!
Luke Rowell
Everyone here is wearing masks.
How did the pandemic affect your musical plans?
Chelsea Jade
About three weeks before my tour was meant to happen the pandemic descended. I went into a lot of debt to be honest, touring is expensive.
To ingest songs into the world [via streaming services] takes about six weeks. I had made the decision to put out [the single ‘Superfan’] - painstakingly - before this whole thing had happened. So I was forced to put out this upbeat song at the very beginning of a f***ing pandemic.
Isaac Aesili
At the same time we went into lockdown, my new album Hidden Truths had been scheduled to be released. I was getting messages from all the venues I’d booked for the release tour saying ‘Dude, so sorry, we have to cancel’.
COVID cancelled my release tour in the middle of it.
MANCHESTER UK: Millie Lovelock (Astro Children/ Repulsive Woman)
In February I was recording an EP for Repulsive Woman in a studio in Manchester. Astro Children were supposed to release an album in June.
As late as the beginning of March I was on the phone to the record company saying ‘If we have all the mixes and masters done by May we should be good to go’, and then a few weeks later the UK went into lockdown. So that’s an EP and an album that are indefinitely on ice.
Was lockdown good for your musical inspiration?
Luke Rowell
I’ve written a new album under lockdown. I’ve been super productive because it’s like ‘what else are you going to do?’. And I’ve always used music-writing as a way to stay sane.
Isaac Aesili
I made a lot of music. I’ve been a home studio producer for my entire career, so it was just the norm for me.
Millie Lovelock
I would have thought it would be productive in a sense, but it’s not really. It’s just boring, and upsetting.
Joel Ivan Thomas
All we can do is chill in a room together and write music, so that’s what we’ve been doing.
Isaac Hickey (also in No Romance)
I’m used to always practicing for gigs, but now we can learn way more songs.
Why didn’t you come back to NZ?
Chelsea Jade
I was trying to be as low impact as possible. The thought of bringing the virus back to New Zealand or hurting my friends and family was just too much. You don’t see the severity of something and then opt to share it around, you know?
A lot of the messaging coming out of NZ was like ‘Don’t come here. Don’t ruin it for us.’
I definitely can’t afford managed isolation if I have to pay for it. I haven’t really known what the right thing to do is.
Millie Lovelock
I think we all thought it would be over in a couple of months. If I go home I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back to the UK [Millie is doing her PHD in Manchester].
If I were to go back now with the quarantine charge, I would have to stay for quite a while, under the pretense that I had no intention of leaving again, which is cruel and unusual policy in my opinion.
I think I made the right choice but it is hard knowing that it’s now unclear when I’ll be able to visit my family and friends.
Isaac Hickey
I thought about going back for a while. I was getting a lot of pressure from my family. But I think I’m just happier in general here.
I read recently that Germany is the second safest place after NZ to be, not in terms of cases, but in terms of being most prepared to deal with an outbreak. [Note: it’s actually the first].
Luke Rowell
Plane tickets are six or seven times what they should be, and there’s two weeks' quarantine coming in and out, so I might have to Zoom into my family Christmas, and find some pavlova at an international supermarket.
Isaac Aesili
I’ve found some really amazing Thai friends here, so I’ve got my Thai whānau. So it feels like home, and I don’t feel like I’m wanting to move back to Aotearoa. I’d sacrificed a lot to establish myself here [Isaac is also doing a PHD], it wasn't running through my mind that I needed to quit all that and move back home.
The world has changed, probably forever. We’re humans, so we will adapt, we’ll move forward, and I hope that things will be better going from here.