A conversation with Singer Songwriter Tom Cunliffe
A conversation with the Singer Songwriter Tom Cunliffe about pasta, his love affair with Wine Cellar and performing in a bunker in Barcelona
Tea or coffee?
Tea! English breakfast or Yorkshire tea - good old fashioned
Favourite TV Show?
The Wire
Favourite Movie?
Lost in Translation
If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life what would it be?
One of the Roman pasta dishes; cacio e pepe or carbonara, but I think I’m going to have to go with the carbonara
Do you have any fond memories of Karangahape area?
I came up from Wellington, and at the time I didn’t really know anyone. I was a really big music fan, so the Wine Cellar quickly became my second home. It’s where I met all of my musical friends - and I still play music with lots of them to this day! - So yeah, the Wine Cellar has always been there for me.
I was there the other night for the Dianne Swann’s show and I was thinking like I haven’t been here for a few months, and there was a time when I first came here that every weekend I would go there and I kind of felt bad.
Hey now, are you cheating on Wine Cellar?!
Yeah like who I am cheating on Wine Cellar with…
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
All sorts of things, when I was 9 I wanted to be an architect, however, I think my Grandad just wanted me to be one... Then when I was at High School I wanted to be a painter and a designer. I was going down that creative path and I ended up working in advertising. Eventually, I got into song writing, and now that’s become the most important thing - so it’s been a weird journey to music!
How would you describe your sound?
Well it's changed a lot, it started off being quite country folk, then the last record was quite folk rock jangly 60’s kind of thing… with a bit of 80’s thrown in there - why not.
Now I'm singing lower and kind of slower, I guess it's still folky - acoustic, classical with lots of piano and strings, I don’t know how I would describe it. Dark and warm? Can you have that?
Yeah, I feel like that sounds like a good beer or something, that could work! Do you have any inspirations or muses?
There are people that I will always love; Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen. I’m always amazed at Leonard Cohen songs - I hear a new lyric and I’m always blown away. Joni Mitchell’s and other artists from the 60’s are always touch points and people who continue to inspire me
How was your 2019 European tour?
It was so good, I mean just to travel around Europe playing songs to strangers! There's a really good vibe over there, people are interested in going to tiny shows by a New Zealand artist they’ve never heard of.
Even the bad shows are good there - I played in Innsbruck which is this place in Austria where they have the X games and it's full of party students, kind of like Dunedin… people had come to party and I was playing really quite folk songs, I was killing their buzz massively. But you fight through it and you just strum harder. But then afterwards you have awesome chats at the bar and meet strange people and then you’d get in the car and drive to the next town and have a completely different experience.
Did you have a favourite place to tour?
The best show might be the one in London where I opened for Delaney Davidson. It was in this tiny little pub called Hope and Anchor it’s where Joy Division played in London for the first time! It was packed full of expat kiwis, and my family and friends came along - that was a really good show.
Another favourite spot was one of the last shows I did in Barcelona, it was in this old bunker on top of a hill where they used to store munitions from the war, they put all the munitions up on the hill so that if it went off it wouldn’t destroy the city, they have since converted it into a theatre space!
Any New Zealand music recommendations?
I got Jazmine Mary’s new record on vinyl. I always listen to Tiny Ruins, they are one of my favourite artists - not just in New Zealand but in the whole world!
Reb fountain; she's a mate, I listen to her music alot and Louisa Nicklin is releasing a new album soon and I’ve been listening to that… there's so much good New Zealand music!
What's next for you?
I’ve got a bunch of shows that I’m trying to put together hopefully leading up to an album release later in October/November - apart from that I’m learning Italian!
Ah perhaps a potential Italian album in the works?
Maybe when I’m 60 or something, because Italian sounds great in song!
It’s definitely really interesting to hear music from other languages because you don’t know what they’re saying but it sounds so beautiful - sometimes googling the meaning of the lyrics will surprise you!
Yeah It's interesting how different languages change the music completely, like this is pop music but the flow of the Italian language makes it so beautiful. Alien Weaponry sing in Te Reo and that changes metal for me, massively. It’s very interesting.
Advice for people who want to get into the music industry?
Just do it, if you want to make music, make music!
Book shows and go play them, and you really should because we need more music and everyone’s got a different take on it, and the more there is the better.
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