AAA Records are pleased to be able to introduce New Zealand band Outside In, a progressive rock group following in the trail blazed by bands like Pink Floyd, A Perfect Circle, Karnivool, Porcupine Tree and Radiohead. We believe this band, from their humble Auckland base, are going to make a major impact on the progressive rock scene when their debut album “Karmatrain” is released on May 29th 2020.
Singer Mikey Brown and guitarist Jonnie Barnard first met at an Auckland music venue about a dozen years ago and were soon swapping ideas. It didn’t take long for Jonnie to audition for Mikey’s band, Crash-Test for Favourite Things, and this gradually morphed into Outside In. An EP was released in 2015, with Mikey, Jonnie and drummer Adam Tobeck all involved, but not long after that Jonnie departed as the working relationship had become somewhat strained. Mikey says: “We needed to reset our boundaries and grow back some mutual respect for each other. I wrote the demo for “Bridges” during this time. A song about accepting when something has run its course. A song about starting again and being unafraid to start again from scratch.”
The band continued for a few more years, with different bassists and guitarists coming and going, but nothing was working well. Eventually, Mikey reached out to Jonnie with a demo (“The Garden of Light”), and Jonnie came back with an idea for guitars for the track which showed the chemistry was still there. After a discussion with Adam, they agreed to ask Jonnie to come back, and this was the starting point of the ‘Karmatrain’. Soon afterwards the band found Elliot on bass who in turn suggested Joe as a second guitarist.
When going through a collection of potential songs for the album, Mikey realised a few were lyrically influenced by a novel he’d read while on holiday in Nice about ten years ago, Hermann Hesse’s ‘Siddhartha’. The themes being fairly universal he decided to incorporate more of the book’s influence into the writing process, until eventually it was obvious that this was becoming a concept album. The album has ended up with each of the 12 songs representing one of the 12 chapters from the book. Each song has a story that relates to that chapter, but also has a parallel story from his own experiences. It just gradually became a more conceptual thing which provided a framework to pin ideas against.
A close friend of Mikey’s, photographer James Fyfe, and he discovered there were parallels between his current photography project and the album, which they were both working on at the same time. They supported each other through the process and the result is a set of postcards that will be released with the album which contain one photo for each song, plus the lyrics. The song “Ferryman” is about Mikey’s friendship with him, and in the book the Ferryman represents the link between the physical and spiritual world.
Track list:
1. Let Me Go
2. Blue Dragon
3. Echoes and Stepping Stones
4. Bridges
5. Morning Warning
6. The Lake
7. The Garden of Light
8. Mushrooms
9. The Ferryman
10. Pass On The Flag
11. Om
12. I Am Not The One
Line up:
Mikey Brown: Vocals, Synth, Keys, Guitars
Jonnie Barnard: Guitars
Adam Tobeck: Drums
Elliott Seung Il Park: Bass
Joe Park: Guitars
with:
Graham Bell: Guitars
Links:
https://www.facebook.com/outsideinnz
https://www.aaarecords.com
