Shaye Muir, Te Kawa Herangi, Hoeta Maxwell, Peter Riley, Baz Muir, Josiah Nolan. Absent: Marcel Martin, Faiva Junior
Brown.
Award-winning reggae-fusion band NLC is hoping to bring a Good Time to music fans and music festival goers this summer.
The talented eight-piece group from Whanganui is putting the finishing touches on its latest single, Good Time, with Friday, January 22, the date for release.
Lead singer and songwriter Baz Muir said Good Time is a song about a couple enjoying life and sharing personal backgrounds and experiences.
“It’s got a nice, upbeat reggae feel to it, a summery vibe that people will enjoy.”
Muir wrote the song which he said was inspired by the band’s invitation to perform for the first time at the Good Vibes
Summer Music Festival in Gisborne on January 30.
The band was disappointed to hear organisers made the hard decision to cancel Good Vibes Gisborne recently.
But Muir said he understood the decision and the band would press ahead with the planned release of the single on
January 22.
Instead, NLC is now focussing on performing the song live for the first time at the inaugural Sound Valley music
festival, at home in Whanganui on February 20.
NLC won the Best Roots Reggae Award at the National Waiata Māori Music Awards in 2019, for their work on the album, Know
Your Roots.
Winning the award was a turning point for the band and the performers recently secured funding from NZ On Air to promote
and produce the audio track and music video for Good Time.
Muir said achieving NZ On Air funding was a major milestone for the band and he saw it as an endorsement of its musical
direction.
The funding allowed the band to move ahead with plans for a music video for the new track, which was filmed in Whanganui
over two days by Peter Pedro Films from Auckland.
The video is also planned to be released in late January.
The music track was recorded at VIC Entertainment Studios in Auckland with Kog Studio also involved.
“We’re really excited about the song’s release but we’ve also been rehearsing well for the upcoming summer music
festivals, we’ve got a busy schedule of gigs over the coming months,” Baz said.
NLC will feature at Sound Valley in Whanganui with Kora, Tiki Taane, Kings, Ladi6 and many more also performing live at
the event.
“To be part of Sound Valley is really exciting for us. It’ll be a good opportunity to catch up, network with other
artists, to see if we could work on future music projects together.”
Aside from preparing for the summer gigs, the band has also been in the studio working on its sixth album, which will be
an EP with six tracks, called Choice is Good.
NLC planned to release it in mid-April this year.
“We’ve always enjoyed performing live but we’re also really enjoying the chance to work in the studio together, to fine
tune the production side of our music.
“It’s been a chance to develop some new ideas and come up with some new vibes.”
Muir, who also plays rhythm guitar, formed NLC about seven years ago and while the line up has changed over the years,
the core of the band has remained.
The current line up included Shaye Muir (vocals, keyboards); Te Kawa Herangi (guitar); Hoeta Maxwell (drums); Peter
Riley (bass); Josiah Nolan (vocalist); Marcel Martin (saxophone) and Faiva Junior Brown (keyboards).
Some band members had been travelling from Auckland and Wellington, to rehearse in Whanganui for the summer gig season.
Muir described the band’s music as a unique mixture of roots-reggae, lovers-roots reggae and lovers-rock reggae.
The Covid-19 alert levels in 2020 stopped live performances but Muir and the group continued to work on new material,
including releasing its single, One More Try, in June.
In November, NLC added their own special musical flavour to the classic 1985 te reo Māori protest song, Maranga Ake Ai, which was used by the Māori Party for its 2020 election campaign.
The new track, Good Time will be released January 22 and available on all major digital music platforms.