There’s a lot of discussion at the moment about how musicians are being ripped off by streaming platforms like Spotify. The argument is simple: artists aren’t being paid fairly for their music. It’s a conversation worth having however, I find myself stepping back and asking a different question....
Every now and then someone asks why we us an odd “O” as a band symbol. It isn’t a random design choice. It isn’t there to make the logo stand out or look clever. It has a story behind it, and it’s one that’s quite personal to me....
People often ask what my favourite album is, but that’s actually a difficult question to answer. Musical tastes change over the years, and different albums become important for different reasons. But if you asked me which three records I’d struggle to part with, the answer comes much more...
Welcome to Studio 109 – home of OLDER. People often imagine that recording an album requires a huge commercial studio packed with expensive gear. The reality can be quite different. Our studio is simply a spare bedroom that’s evolved over the years into a comfortable place to write,...
If you’ve ever seen photos of professional recording studios covered in acoustic panels, bass traps and foam wedges, it’s easy to assume that every studio has to be a perfectly treated room. The reality can be a little different. I’ve had the opportunity to spend time in an...
One of the biggest culture shocks I experienced after moving from the UK to New Zealand had nothing to do with the weather, the food, or even the accent. It was the music scene. When I first started playing in bands in the UK, we wrote original songs....
Bands don’t always fail because of lack of commercial success. They sometimes fail because nobody had the conversation… People often assume the hardest part about being in a band is writing great songs. It isn’t. The hardest part is finding three, four, five or six people who can...
When people walk into my studio, they often notice the microphones, speakers, guitars and racks of equipment. But surprisingly, one of the things they comment on most isn’t the gear at all. It’s the furniture. The studio furniture behind me wasn’t bought from a specialist manufacturer. I built...
Great songs don’t need expensive studios. If you’ve ever caught yourself thinking, “I’d write better songs if I had better gear,” you’re not alone – most musicians have been there. We scroll through endless studio photos full of vintage microphones, boutique compressors, racks of outboard gear, and expensive...
Every musician runs into writer’s block sooner or later. Sometimes it’s right at the beginning. You pick up the guitar, sit at the piano, or open your DAW, and… nothing. Other times you’ve got 90% of a song finished but can’t work out the next lyric, the bridge,...
For years we’ve wrestled with genres. Every time we release an album, we’re asked to squeeze it into a neat little box. The distributors, reviewers and radio stations want a genre. Potential listeners ask what genre we are before they’ve even heard a note. The trouble is, I...
Every musician can think of at least one piece of gear they sold years ago, convinced they’d never need it again. Then, years later, they find themselves thinking, “Why on earth did I get rid of that?” I’ve got a few. The first was a cheap Japanese copy...
Every now and then you’ll finish a mix and find yourself in a frustrating place. It’s 99% there. The performance is good, the recording is solid, the balance works and nothing sounds obviously wrong. But somehow the track is missing… something. The temptation at this point is to...
Does your band really need a website? Every now and then I hear someone say, “Websites are dead. You only need social media.” I couldn’t disagree more, though perhaps I’m a little biased. I’ve been building websites for over 25 years. In fact, the very first website I...
People often ask me why I’m not particularly enthusiastic about vinyl or cassette releases. That usually surprises them because, these days, vinyl especially has become almost sacred. Some people swear it’s the only “true” way to experience music. Others argue for CDs. Personally, I don’t think any of...
People who are starting out in music production often ask whether they need to take a course or get a qualification before they can build a studio and make professional-sounding music. The short answer is no. Can formal training help? Absolutely. But is it essential? Not at all....
If you’ve spent any time around bass players, you’ve probably heard someone proudly announce that their Rickenbacker is a stereo bass. It’s one of those statements that has been repeated so many times that most people just accept it as fact. The trouble is, it isn’t actually true....
One of the questions I get asked quite often is, “How long does it take to learn all this?” Usually, the question comes while someone is looking around the studio, staring at the screens, microphones, speakers, cables, software, and blinking lights. The answer? Years. Not weeks, not months,...
Famous musicians aren’t always mysterious. Living in New Zealand, famous musicians can seem a bit mythical. We all know who they are, but they generally live somewhere else – overseas. They appear on television, pop up on social media, release albums, do interviews, then disappear back into some...
The best mix isn’t always the perfect mix … I saw an incredible photo on Facebook the other day. A farmer is sitting on a tractor, casually looking over his shoulder, while in the background a fighter jet is moments away from hitting the ground. The pilot had...
The Rickenbacker bass problem nobody mentions! I love Rickenbacker basses – they’re iconic, they look fantastic and they sound fantastic. If you’re chasing that distinctive growl heard on countless classic rock records, there’s really nothing quite like a Ricky. But they do have a big drawback – you...
Ahhh, the sound of nostalgia. Every now and then I stumble across something that instantly transports me back in time. Cassette tapes do just that! Now before the vinyl enthusiasts come after me, let me make a confession – I’ve never really been a fan of records. I...
Here’s a slightly sideways topic, but one that might help someone who finds themselves in the same confusing situation I did. Most of us know what a migraine is. We picture someone lying in a dark room with a pounding headache, sensitivity to light, perhaps seeing flashing lights...
Ever find yourself labouring over a mix that just isn’t working? You’ve tweaked the EQ, adjusted the compression, moved instruments around the stereo field, turned things up, turned things down. Yet somehow the mix still feels wrong. This has happened often to me mixing OLDER’s songs and other...
There’s a lot of discussion these days about editing recordings to perfection. With modern software, it’s possible to tighten performances, remove noises, correct timing, and tune vocals until everything is technically flawless. The question is: should you? For me, the answer depends entirely on what instrument I’m working...
There is a lot of discussion these days about imperfections in music and the importance of the human element. Personally, I think we can sometimes spend far too much time trying to perfect things that don’t actually need perfecting. When I’m recording and mixing music, particularly with OLDER’s...
This might be a controversial one. Records are having a huge resurgence – people get genuinely excited about them. They talk about the warmth, the sound, the ritual, the experience. Record stores are thriving again. New albums are being released on vinyl and some people seem convinced it’s...
This is how we started in the early ’90s. Back then, we knew we’d really made it when we managed to buy a secondhand eight-track recorder. An old Fostex A80, I think it was. To us, it felt like a professional studio. This little reel of quarter-inch tape...
If you’re building a studio, buy good speakers, or they are better known near-field studio monitors, first. I’ve got a pair of cheap speakers in the studio that I refuse to get rid of. They’re not here because they sound amazing, they’re here because they look cool. I...
Microphones are funny things. This one sitting in front of me is about 25 years old. It’s an original Rode NT1 and, from memory, it cost around $500 when I bought it. Back then, that felt like a serious investment. Newer versions of the NT1 are a similar...
My hearing is shot, so how do I still mix music? My hearing isn’t great. Years of making music, standing near loud things, and congenital degradation have all taken their toll. There are frequencies I don’t hear particularly well anymore, and if I sat down and really thought...
In the age of streaming, where musicians get paid bugger all for a play, I thought it might be worth talking about royalties. I don’t know the exact figure these days, but it feels like something ridiculous — three-tenths of a thousandth of a cent per stream. Whatever...
People occasionally ask musicians about their best gigs. That’s easy enough – the packed venues, the great audiences, the nights when everything clicks and you walk off stage thinking, “Yes, that’s why we do this.” The more interesting question is this: What’s the worst gig you’ve ever done?...
People can get surprisingly passionate about guitars. The wood, pickups, brand, country it was made in, year it was built, shape of the headstock, its pedigree – the list seems endless. Me? I own two. One is a Yamaha Pacifica that cost me about $700. I’ve had it...
I saw an interesting post recently from a musician who had spent the best part of 30 years making music independently. They started out as DIY and, decades later, still proudly described themselves that way. It got me thinking… Technically, I’m a professional musician. Over the years I’ve...
One of my absolute favourite parts of being in OLDER is playing bass, which ought to be the case as I am primarily a bass player! Not writing songs, not mixing, not even releasing the album. There’s something about finally plugging the Rickenbacker in after months of ideas...
There’s a funny thing about instruments. Sometimes the one that’s technically better for you isn’t the one your heart chooses. I’m a bass player and I love basses. Over the years I’ve owned a few, played plenty more, and admired even more from afar at music shops, in...
One of the things I love most about being in OLDER is Julie’s vocals. Not just the lead vocals, which are fantastic in themselves, but her ability to harmonise. The layers, textures and emotion that is created once those extra voices start weaving into the song is pure...
35 years of songs finally escaping the hard drive… Selfie, released in 2025, was a very different kind of OLDER album. Unlike Human+ or Unmasked, which both had very clear themes and concepts running through them, Selfie was more like opening every cupboard, drawer and dusty old hard...
Unmasked was our third OLDER album, released in 2024, and like our previous album HUMAN+, it was written with theme in mind. Before writing it, we had both been diagnosed with adult ADHD in our 50s, and suddenly our entire lives were viewed through a completely different lens....
There comes a point in recording vocals where excitement can actually become a bit dangerous. You finish the mix, chuck the headphones on, turn it up loud and think, “Yes. That’s it, brilliant – release it now!” And sometimes it is ready. But more often than not, I’ve...
I was talking to a fella once about music and he was telling me about this fairly famous local band he absolutely loved – the sort of band he’d follow from one end of the country to the other. You could tell he was genuinely passionate about them...
When you meet new people around our age the conversation eventually gets to the standard question: “So, what do you do?” When we say, “We’re musicians,” the conversation almost always just… ends. “Oh.” And then silence. No one really asks anything further. No one says, “Would I know...
Human+ was our second OLDER album, released in 2021, and looking back now it feels tied to one of the strangest periods most of us have lived through. When we started writing it, the world hadn’t fully tipped upside down yet. The album wasn’t intended as a “lock-down...
This is the record equivalent of a ‘shelfie’. There’s probably three or four hundred albums sitting there – vinyl, proper vinyl. It’s having a bit of a revival these days, a bit of a comeback. Many moons ago we bought 500 records for $500 as a random job-lot....
There’s always that one piece of gear, isn’t there? The one that sits in the back of your mind for years… a bit of a dream. For me, it was a Rickenbacker bass. I’ve been playing bass for a long time now. Forty-five years, give or take. Started...
Sometimes, just sometimes, a song taps me on the shoulder early and goes, “Yep, it’s me.” That’s exactly what’s happened with track number 4 on our current album-in-progress unofficially known as Skip Ad. I appreciate Track #4 isn’t exactly a chart-topping title just yet, but… to be fair,...
There’s a part of making music that almost no one sees. Not the polished version, not the final mix, not the one that lands on an album or gets played live. I’m talking about that in-between space, the stage where something exists… but doesn’t quite know what it...
It’s a bit surreal about looking back and realising just how much time has passed without you really noticing it happening. Nearly ten years ago, we filmed a little video called At Home With OLDER. At the time, we were sitting there talking about songs we were writing...
There’s something about old gear that sneaks up on you. You don’t think about it for years, then one day you’re standing there wondering what’s the oldest bit of musical kit I still own? For me, it turns out to be this bass. It’s a 1980s Japanese bass...
I’m as passionate about making music now as I was 40 years ago. That hasn’t changed. And I think that’s the bit that matters. Because you see it all the time. Brilliant musicians, far better than me, just… stop. Lose interest. Move on. And that’s fine. Nothing wrong...
I’m Julie, the singer in OLDER, which still makes me laugh a bit because if you’d told me years ago this is where I’d land, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. But here I’m, still doing it and still loving it! I take the lead on vocals, but...
This little self-filmed piece, At Home with OLDER, goes right back to 2017 before our debut SILENCE album officially landed in 2019. Because this is us. Jel and Julie. Married, otherwise not related. Still very happily married (just for the records) nine years later as this video resurfaces....