Wellington Music: The Eighth Note - Adult Friends

Who are you? Tell us a bit about your music:

Adult Friends make gothic post-hardcore/punk music. That’s how I’d describe it briefly, but if I had to describe it to my Dad… I’d probably tell him to listen to The Cure and then listen to At-The-Drive-In. Goth and hardcore are both genres that speak to outsiders, but we’ve found leaning into faster and heavier music has allowed us into a community of fun, energetic and kind people.

What have you been working on lately? Any new tracks or albums on the way?

We’ve just released our debut album, Find Me In The Inferno, so we’re mostly just playing live and working to promote that album as much as we can. We have a music video, Greyhounds, out as of a few days ago, which you’re welcome to check out here. We also recently played a live show in a great sounding industrial space which we filmed & recorded and do plan to release. Aside from that, we’re always working on new music and have many new songs in the pipeline. We’re unsure if that will take the form of another album just yet.

Where is the best place people can follow you & find your music?

We’re very active on Instagram. We’ve made that our main hub for content. You can find us at adultfriendsband. We release all our music videos and sometimes live videos to our YouTube channel. It’s just called Adult Friends. You can also find our music on all the major streaming services including Bandcamp. The best way to support us is to come along to our shows! Maybe buy a CD, tote bag or a shirt.

What were the 3 most influential albums to you growing up?

We all have pretty different music takes, so I can only really speak for myself (Jackson), but I’d have to say Nirvana - In Utero, The Cure - Pornography, and Radiohead - Kid A.

Which other Wellington musician (s) would you most like to work with?

Probably Wet Denim as we share a love of the band Interpol. We also work with the same audio engineer often (Dan Goodwin), so a collaboration would be super easy to arrange. I think we could do a pretty good cover of an Interpol track if we joined forces. I reckon we’d also make a killer track with the band Their Eyes Were Flowers. We really vibe with their post-rock/noise-rock style. We’re playing with them on the 19th this month at Valhalla!

What’s your favourite Wellington venue to play in?

That would have to be San Fran. It feels like such a luxury for us and they look after us so well. We also love working with Lachlan, the sound person there!

In your songwriting or composing (or the band’s songwriting) how do the compositions and songs take shape?

Usually one of us brings in an idea and we work on it together and let the song take shape naturally over time. Sometimes they just spontaneously come together. We’ve been playing together since high-school and are now all early to mid-20s. So there’s a long-time connection there which makes songwriting so intuitive and easy. Body language is a big part of it. We can communicate where we want the song to go often just in the way we move.

Where/when is your next gig?

We played yesterday 19th of March at Valhalla with 'Their Eyes Were Flowers' and 'Joyyce'. It was a great line-up of bands and we love a classic Valhalla outing! Our next show is coming up soon, so keep an eye on our Instagram or Facebook pages.