Interview: Psycho Gab

On purpose, I didn’t find out anything about Psycho Gab before hearing their performance at BurgerFuel’s Battle of the Bands back in May. The voice and sound they brought in their two song performance really impressed, so it only seemed right to find out more from lead singer Rosetta Stone.

Some of this five-piece trace their roots back to high school, but the Psycho Gab story really starts at the University of Auckland courtesy of their Popular Music course. Rosetta explains, “We all just started jamming over the past couple of years. When you start a musical collaboration and you come to a sound that none of you are doing on your own, it's like, ‘OK, maybe there's something growing here’. It’s a special thing, and we keep going.”

“We came from all sorts of different genres. Orlando and Finn have done indie rock together in the past and also a bit of free, psychedelic jazz in one of the other bands. Caleb does a lot of production for similar kind of jazz, R&B, and a bit of pop stuff as well. So we all bring different influences to the table.”

But it wasn’t until Rosetta and Caleb were writing what became ‘Messy’ that, “the thought of getting a bit of a band together started.”

“I started writing and took it to Caleb and we came up with a demo for it. That kind of sparked that initial fire. And then we were just having jams with the other guys, doing covers and stuff. We were all really into Erykah Badu and D'Angelo, and that kind of classic Jay Dilla era of Neo Soul. So I guess I kind of started with Messy and also those influences and then grew from there and the sound ever evolving.”

Growing up in a musical family, it’s no surprise that Rosetta ended up holding the mic as an adult. She points to a moment which maybe lit the fire for this future career path. “I think my first one of my first times performing on stage was I was about 6. We had a school talent show and I did Dancing Queen and I was robbed. I came second.”

After picking up a guitar and starting to write songs through, so ended up at high school overseas and grew from being exposed to a bunch of different music.

“I was listening to Erykah Badu and Amy Winehouse. Big vocal greats that I look up to. But moving back to New Zealand when I was 17 really connected me to the local scene here. And since moving up from Wellington to Tāmaki Makaurau, I've become really involved with 95bFM and all of the local amazingness.

The conversation moves on to the new EP ‘Crazy Talk’, and the process involved in making it. “Every song is quite different,” according to Rosetta. “And the process is always changing. I don't think we have a set formula and that makes it quite exciting for what our sound will become.”

“We spend a lot of time playing our songs live before they come out and that's a good test run and a trial to see what works. And then it's a fun game of what's gonna translate well to a recorded version of this song.”

“Orchid Samba the most recent release from the EP really started in a practise room. The whole band playing with a little riff and then fleshing it out from there. A lot of the recording for that was done live, which we're very lucky to be able to do. But I guess I just like having the freedom of having the guys interested in the production and having that creative control is really empowering and it gives us a lot of freedom.”

A lot of the EP was recorded at home in the band’s flats. But they also ventured into the studios thanks to Caleb being selected for a producer residency at Big Fan, and then a day with Ollie Harmer at The Lab.

“He's such a great guy and just cares so much about helping artists. We were very lucky to be able to have studio time in a big band live room like that. We wanted to get some of the live stuff for the EP, like the back end of ‘Piano Man’ when it goes to that crazy section. It felt just so amazing to be able to uphold the integrity of being a live band. Live performances are so important to us and have really shaped our sound a lot.”

Rosetta makes the point that despite starting as a live band, they learn a lot from recording in the studio. “When you have two production nerds, it's easy to get a bit carried away and just keep adding layers when you're recording. But the flip side of that is it creates a lot of possibilities for bringing some of that into the live element about performance. Like we've been playing with more percussion and textures.”

As we talk about the reaction to the release of ‘Crazy Talk’, Rosetta starts to get animated. “It's really funny when you release a song and everyone's like, wow, new song, and actually the songs really old. I'm kind of glad to have it out because I'm a little sick of hearing it!”

“We've had a lot of amazing support, the SRN (Student Radio Network) have just been so supportive. Last week we were in the charts, which was a big deal. And then we had our release show at Whammy Bar, which was the first leg of this tour. Whammy was the biggest venue that we've played so far because we've done a lot of Wine Cellar shows. Rest in peace, the Wine Cellar.”

“It’s just very wholesome. Like, we have T-shirts now and there were some people singing along at Whammy. I feel like normally I'm pretty good at having some witty little quips in that void between 2 songs in the set. But at this gig I thought I don't know if I can actually talk because it's a little bit overwhelming.”