Maiden Voyages

Rip It Up, Issue 95, 1 June 1985, Page 10

Maiden Voyages

Stephen Spencer

The tendency for ambitious bands based south of Auckland has long been for them to drift towards the Big Smoke. Where the opportunities are ... Or so they say ... but with only one real regular live venue, the Windsor Castle, packin' ’em in, it can be hard for an unknown band to get the chance to break the surface, let alone make waves as Maiden China found out when they moved up from Christchurch about four months ago. “You might say we've been low profile but in Auckland it’s pretty hard to be high profile, especially if you're new,” comments singer/trumpeter Raoul Burgess. So, necessity being the mother of invention, their manager ventured out into the suburbs and the week this interview was conducted, Maiden China were to play the Mt Wellington Trust and were looking at other out-of-the-city venues. Such places usually reverberate to the sound of covers bands, but Burgess wasn’t anticipating too much difficulty in winning over the punters: “The thing is, we're not just music we’re entertainment on stage." Maiden China are lan Hammer (guitar), Lyall Jones (bass), Steve Clarke (keyboards), Brett Cowan (sax, percussion), Lloyd Morgan (drums) and Burgess. They formed to play last year’s Christchurch Battle Of the Bands (“for a laugh”)

and, with all of four weeks’ practise, won the thing. After that they spent a lot of time touring around the South Island, playing a lot. But they don’t find touring a strain quite the reverse... ‘‘Outside things can make actually getting on tour difficult," explains Jones. “But once you’re underway it's great." “The thing is when we’re touring we've got the one identity as a band, we get a lot closer," adds Burgess. "Otherwise we’re all very different people incredibly different.” Band relationships began to be strained when things didn’t go well initially in Auckland a much-counted-on support slot falling through when the national tour by German band CCCP was aborted, the inability to find decent practice space ... and came to a head with one awful weekend at the Windsor, which got any bad feelings out of the way: “And now we all love each other." The band hasn’t been completely idle, however, and two songs have been recorded at Mandrill Studios. Following record company interest, more recording will be done to make up a mini-album. They’ve been lucky to have been offered the services of bass player turned sound engineer Roland Kileen, both live and in the studio. Now that they're back to enjoying what they do, Maiden China want to get the recording wrapped up as quickly as possible (finances permitting), play a bit more round Auckland and you guessed it do lots more touring.