Fat Freddy’s Drop Can’t Seem to Tour Enough

Arguably New Zealand’s most famous band, Fat Freddy’s Drop has just played another sold out show in Amsterdam. Communications strategist New Zealander Lucy von Sturmer talked with the band in the Netherlands’ capital where she lives.

Fat Freddy’s started in 1992 as friends jamming in Wellington, and they did it, as the hit line in their now infamous track Roady says “for the love of music.” They did it alongside jobs, other bands, and officially formed at the mature age of, around 30, and have stayed together ever since. “We’re now all between 40 and 50,” Iain Gordan (aka Kuku Blaze) says. “I think if we’d started any earlier, we would have killed each other fighting.”

The legacy of Fat Freddy’s Drop is truly impressive. This year they sold out to their largest audience in New Zealand, played to a crowd of 10,000 in June in the UK, and are touring the world twice, sometimes three times a year. Their European tour manager Alex Bienkov says, “we just can’t seem to tour enough.”

The show von Sturmer scored tickets to sold out in eight minutes. Apparently, this is normal across Europe. What’s the secret? “It’s a party,” Bienkov says. “I work full time touring with bands, and with these boys, it’s pure entertainment; it’s a winner.” Blaze agrees. “Many bands wear the clothing they arrive in, but we like to dress up,” he says. “We’re old school in that way; we know that for our audience, it’s a real night out too.”

On stage, Fat Freddy’s remind people to have fun and not take life too seriously.

Fat Freddy’s Drop will play as part of the line-up at the Salmonella Dub 25th Anniversary concert in Christchurch on 13 January 2018.

Original article by Lucy von Sturmer, The Huffington Post, June 15, 2017.

Photo by Gordon Armstrong.