From Castle St to Big Day Out

He might be talking on the telephone, but one can almost sense the grin on Matiu Walters' face as he describes the rise and rise of Six60, a band he formed in 2005 with a group of fellow University of Otago students.

It has been a hectic past couple of years for Six60, which played its first gig outside Dunedin only in 2009.

Now the group, comprising Walters (vocals, guitar), James Fraser (guitar), Eli Paewai (drums), Marlon Gerbes (keyboards) and Chris Mac (bass), is about to play an early evening slot (4.50pm-5.30pm) at the Big Day Out at Auckland's Mt Smart Stadium, on Friday. In fact, of the acts to follow on the venue's four main stages, only three (The Naked and Famous, Shihad and The Phoenix Foundation) are from New Zealand.

"Yeah, it's been a bit of a roller coaster ride, hasn't it?" Walters says from Auckland, where he was born, raised and to which he has recently returned.

"We are excited about the time-slot ... They are really particular about who they put on the bill, so I feel really honoured to be included."

The core of the band met while residing at Dunedin's Unicol where, for a time, the tower block halls resounded with a range of chaotically played covers.

"We'd hear each other jamming up hallways. We came together and jammed out a few New Zealand classics," Walters explains, adding that the group's name is derived from a flat (660 Castle St) in which some of the members lived during their second year of studies.

"We started playing covers from Katchafire, Kora, Trinity Roots etc and from then, for about two years after that, we just played at 21sts, house parties and bars for a beer contribution. The band has been touring for about two years.

"In the beginning we were making phone calls, trying to push gigs. For our first show out of Dunedin, we called up Al's Bar in Christchurch. They said: 'we don't know who you are, so we'll put you on a Thursday night and we'll under-staff the bar'. It turned out to be a sell-out. The same thing happened in Wellington and Auckland.

"We had a bit of pressure from friends and family to put something together. Over those few years we'd written a few of our own tracks so we decided to put out an EP, but with no real intention of it amounting to anything. We just thought it would be a good memento.

"We put the EP out in December 2008 and teed up a Facebook page and it pretty much went viral. I guess it shows the power of social media."

Working within a framework of reggae, roots and drum and bass, Six60's seven-song EP highlighted both slick playing skills and an ear for clean production that still managed to convey the live intensity for which the band has been turning a few heads.