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Kicking off their national tour in Oamaru at the Grainstore Gallery next Friday, indie folk legends The Broken Heartbreakers will play music from their long-awaited new album.
Led by songwriters Rachel Bailey and John Howell alongside drummer Paul McLennan-Kissel, the band has spent more than two decades crafting music that sits quietly but enduringly within Aotearoa’s independent songwriting tradition.
Their first album in over a decade, Imagine If We Could Keep Driving, is a beautiful and wistful melodic journey informed by life and music partners Bailey and Howell’s reflection on the world and their own personal relationships.
Their songs are emotionally incisive, shaped by folk, classic pop melody, country soul and underground guitar music.
Speaking with Oamaru Mail reporter Jules Chin, Dunedin-based vocalist and musician Bailey said after playing together for nearly 25 years, their fifth studio album was a reflection back on the last decade.
“When we looked back on the songs, there was a sense of continuation and a journey, a kind of unexpected view and twists and turns, but this importance of imagining if we just keep going and the importance of continuing to show up.”
The new album had a “bigger, fuller sound” than previous albums with more instrumentation, arrangements and production, Bailey said.
The creative partners also raised their young daughter in that time, as well as working “day jobs”.
Over 20 years, hundreds of gigs, five studio albums, a changing cast of beloved band members and multiple continents, the band’s sound has continued evolving.
“I remember when I took the song Yesterday to John and played it to him, he said ‘that’s pretty devastating’, but it’s a great song.
“It’s a moment in time that you’re feeling and writing about.
“What does long-term love feel like?
“How it changes and how we disappoint other, but that doesn’t mean it’s the end.
“I think that’s true for a lot of people,” she said.
The studio album wings its way through the tension of co-habitation to deep connection, raising family, the attitudes that come with privilege, capitalism, mid-life reflections on relationship imperfections, exploring what is after the euphoria of new love and being understood.
Soaring sweetly, and often sadly, through all these musical themes are the interchangeable lead vocals between Bailey and Howell.
“We write separately and so generally that will be who is the main singer on that song, but if we do co-write that’s usually John who creates a bit of music and the chords and then I will take it away and come up with the melody and the lyrics.
“But we’re not knee-to-knee writing together, we don’t ever do that.”
Their creative partnership began with “a great friendship” and they only became “romantic partners” four years into being in a band together, Bailey said.
Howell has a long musical history, starting out as a teenager in the band The Tin Soldiers, then Alpha Plan, Salon Kingsadore and latterly the instrumental krautrock group Die Musikband.
The Broken Heartbreakers (fondly known as the BHBs) released a debut EP Everyone’s Waiting For Their Darlin’ in 2005, followed by three critically acclaimed albums: their self-titled debut album (2007), Wintersun (2010) and How We Got to Now in 2015.
Bailey said before BHBs she had never played in bands before.
“I started to bring my songs into the band and it kinda slowly morphed from there because originally it was just John writing and then as we have gone on over the years, it’s been kind of 50/50.”
The Broken Heartbreakers’ music has been described as equal parts the sounds of Dunedin, Ireland and Auckland, and Oamaru is also likely part of that living sound the band has created.
Bailey said the North Otago town was the perfect place to launch their national tour of the album, and they had enjoyed playing there many times.
“We’re really happy to be kicking off our tour in Oamaru — it’s always been such a special place to us.
“We’re a bit nervous about playing all these new songs but I can’t think of a better place to do it and with special guest Marl (the new musical soundscape from Demarnia Lloyd ex Cloudboy) that promises to be an indie aural feast.
“The Grainstore Gallery feels like you’re playing in a dream, you’re surrounded by artwork and so to be an artist, it feels like a fourth dimension because it’s adding to the performance and it’s adding to the audience’s experience.
“What Donna has created there is an absolute asset, it really puts Oamaru on the world stage.”
Oamaruvians might also remember Lloyd from her time as the inaugural artist-in-residence at Smith’s Grainstore (now Grainstore Gallery) in 2001.
Grainstore Gallery owner and artist Donna Demente said she was “really excited” to hear the new music from both The Broken Heartbreakers and special support act Demarnia Lloyd.
The Broken Heartbreakers will play the Grainstore Gallery on September 4.