Christchurch-based musician Adam Hattaway refers to the music he creates with band The Haunters as "alternative rock 'n' roll".
"Someone at one point said 'you need to come up with a genre for your music' … and I just came up with alternative rock 'n' roll ‘cause it’s got an old school swagger but a modern twist on it. It’s not alternative rock or rock 'n' roll. It's alternative rock 'n' roll.”
Now, with three albums under their belt, and two more on the way, Adam Hattaway and the Haunters are settling in to the rock 'n' roll lifestyle.
When asked how it was recording their latest album, titled Woolston, Texas, Adam said “it was as rock 'n' roll as it can get at some points in the process”.
The band worked with producer Ben Edwards for this album, keen to collaborate with him after his work with Marlon Williams and Aldous Harding.
“He was pushing us. Literally pushing us. He slapped me in the face. But I like that. It made me feel wanted.”
Like the rest of the country, Hattaway was forced to spend a lot of time indoors during 2020 with changes in Covid-19 alert levels.
“I watched all of The Sopranos, I probably walked for like five hours a day and I drank way too much."
When lockdown began, Hattaway recalls feeling too much pressure to use the free time to write music.
"When you’ve got too much time on your hands I think you just end up procrastinating and doing nothing."
Eventually the band wrote two albums-worth of music in 2020, the first of which the band is currently in the process of recording.
“I think a lot of people got stuck in a bit of a rut. Probably got quite depressed and anxious and I definitely felt that coming on which probably influenced the music we were writing at the time."
Adam Hattaway and the Haunters are embarking on a seven-date tour nationwide, starting in Wellington on April 9.
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