An Interview with Pocket Money - INTERVIEW

Pocket Money are gearing up to take over the stage at Forage Fest 21-23 November. We discuss their new single, their upcoming tour and how to fix Auckland's siloed culture.

Hot off the release of their latest single, Go Outside, Pocket Money are hopping in the van, ready to go on tour. Made up of Chris Marshall, Kat Tomacruz and Chris Townsend, the group will be jumping on stage at Forage Fest, a new music festival that champions the young, new and emerging artists of Tāmaki’s underground, and is completely free to attend. I sat down with Chris Marshall to discuss all the exciting things on the horizon for Pocket Money and the local scene.

A. Tell me about Pocket Money.

C. Pocket Money is a three-piece indie rock band. We met at uni. All of us studied jazz performance.

A. At Auckland Uni?

C. At Auckland Uni, yep! We definitely no longer play jazz. It's quite the opposite. We don't make it up as we go along, but it's a really fun, loud-soft, both ends of the spectrum kind of band. Bob Frisbee, who is a bit of an iconic sound guy in Auckland, he dubbed us as being a power pop band, which I'd never heard of until then, but it's like Weezer. I'm also very heavily influenced by the Mint Chicks and by Radiohead. So mixing all of those elements of the nice catchy rock with more eclectic styles is the vibe.

A. Did you form Pocket Money while you were still at uni?

C. No, no, we didn't. It was kind of born like pretty much everything at the moment, through the Covid lockdown. I had a collection of songs which I was working on, and another band that I was in had just ended, so I was using these songs to make an album. It was kind of my lockdown project, really. I sunk my teeth in and kind of hyper focused, got obsessed about it. And Chris Townsend, who plays the drums, and was in the previous band, helped finish the album. He recorded all the drum tracks on our first album, and Kat jumped in around the same time. So yeah, it was born through that.

A. How did you decide on the sound of Pocket Money?

C. I don't think we decided on the sound. Yeah, it's just what came out naturally. I like playing rock music a lot. I like all styles of music, but I find that rock music is the kind of music that I tend to write most of the time, and especially our new stuff is just an evolution of what tends to come out. It's not really planned. It's just what we like to play.

A. Do you find that jazz school has still influenced your music in some way?

C. I'd say it has, yeah. It helps give you the ears to know what choices to make when you're writing. You know what the obvious choices will sound like, so it kind of pushes you to make weirder decisions that you can see in your head. I won't get into music theory right now, I can talk about music theory for hours, but instead of making obvious choices, you try and push yourself away from that. The other thing is, you get really good at communicating with each other in a musical way. You don't have to use vague terms. You can just spell it out very exactly, so it helps us work a lot faster as a band as well.

A. And you have a new song that’s just come out - tell me about that.

C. We have a song called Go Outside, which is a lot of fun. That one came about very quickly. We wrote it probably in July this year. We rehearsed it once or twice, and then we recorded it and made a music video. So it was one of those songs that just popped out and was already ready, which is a nice change… It's a nice change from the normal grind. I've had songs that take like, two or three years to finish, so it was good to have something different. I really like it — it's a good song.

A. What's it about?

C. It's literally just about going outside. When I was thinking about what lyrics to write, I was thinking, it would be cool to write a song about something I like… I like cycling, so maybe about going on my bike. And then it kind of broadened out from there. I'm more like — Hey everybody, let's just go outside. When it’s compared to the rest of our songs, it's probably got the most simple themes.

A. Because listening to it, it has that almost “go touch grass” kind of feel.

C. Yeah. And it's only two minutes. I wanted it to be one of those songs that finishes and you're like, damn, I want to hear it again. So I feel like it's got that tension. There's a really good song like that, which was in mind, Fell In Love With A Girl by the White Stripes. Every time I listen to that song, I want to play it again immediately afterwards, because it's just not long enough. It doesn't give you the full satisfaction. So I kind of also wanted to push it that way a little bit.

A. It's also good for the TikTok generation.

C. We just need to start making 22-second songs.

A. And you are going on tour soon?

C. Yes, actually, we're planning to go on tour around Forage Fest. It's in support of the single that we've just released. We also released a single month or two ago called Anxious Brain. So it's just to kind of celebrate that really. We're gonna go to Hamilton/Kirikiriroa, we're going to Ōtepoti, and Ōtautahi as well. We've played in Christchurch once before — very excited to go back. I like going out to the South Island. Such a different vibe to Tāmaki. And then we're playing at Forage Fest. And we're going to Raglan as well, which we’ll be playing with our friends Skilaa.

A. That sounds really fun. Have you guys toured before?

C. We have a bit. It's all been very low key. In the early days, we tried to go big. We went to Nelson, Christchurch, Wellington. But then in more recent times, we've been taking it easy, trying to just get to know the cities that are close to us. Like up to Whangārei and to Hamilton. We played in Thames on a tour once. Playing close to Tāmaki is a good time — it's a lot more manageable for us, and people appreciate it when you go to the smaller towns. We played in Whangārei earlier this year, and everyone was so stoked that came up. It's a good feeling building community like that. It's kind of one of the purposes of our band — to try and build community and help everyone have a good time, which sounds a bit cliche, but there's not really enough of it nowadays, and I especially feel that in Tāmaki — everyone's kind of so distant and on their phones. And I find that I'm in the same city as my friends, but I'll never see them, so it's nice to try and break out of that a little bit.

A. Acknowledging that in Auckland, people tend to be quite siloed — how do you think we could break that down as a music community?

C. Queen Street — there's so many empty shops right now. It would be so cool if it was full of community run venues. I remember when I was younger, there used to be a venue on High Street called Snake Pit. It was this two-storey, derelict building where you'd go to big all ages gigs. Like ten years ago, there were so many gigs in random places, all over the show, and I think bringing a bit of that back would be cool. It's just difficult nowadays because the costs are so high. The venues are difficult to run, and so people don't really want to get into it. We don't have the infrastructure. People don't seem to want to go out. And so we all kind of collectively just want to stay at home. And breaking that down is a difficult one, but I think just by making it more accessible, making it so that shows are really cheap — we're competing with Taylor Swift charging $400 a show, you know.

C. I realised something at one of our last shows… I always thought Aucklanders were kind of like standoffish. Everyone's just standing there, kind of too cool, with their arms crossed. And it always bothered me… Until our last show, where I realised everyone's actually just too shy. Everyone feels like we're being judged. And to compare it to that show in Whangārei that I mentioned, there was a guy in the audience there who, when one of the opening bands was playing, saw me and came up to me. He's like — “Come on, move your arms around. What are you doing, standing like that?” And so we just need a bit less of the embarrassment. Be a bit less shy as a community… I have no idea how to fix that.

A. Do you find that it's shyness from the performers or more from the audience?

C. From the audience. Performers are always giving everything, you know, but the audience doesn't realise that they're in the room as well. Sometimes they don't realise that they're also just as responsible for creating a vibe. It takes two to tango.

A. So then what would your ideal audience response be?

C. Oh man, just people moving. People doing more than just bobbing their heads all the time. I see people bobbing their heads for the whole gig, and they'll come up to me afterwards and say “Man, that was awesome.” But, yeah, just like move around more. That's all I want. But… I'm also one of those people who stands at the back of a gig, with my arms crossed, melting into the wall.

A. Acknowledging that you’ve been on the scene for a while now, what do you think has changed over the last ten years?

C. I think we've lost a chunk of all ages spaces, and people are a bit more tired of putting on shows. There aren't really those people who are making gigs happen in weird spaces at the moment, and I'm not sure why — I mean, I definitely think Covid had an awful impact. Lots of bands and venues seem to have just dropped off a bit. And there's a chunk of people missing who were young and hungry for playing shows, they’re kind of being stifled a bit. So maybe there's a bit of a link missing where people didn't get to go to those shows for a while, so they don't know what we're all capable of doing here. And maybe it's also just that people are moving away — like as soon as the borders opened, everyone's just gapped from New Zealand. There's not really as much going on here as there is in other places. So instead of wanting to make stuff happen, they just jump ship, which I totally understand. So I think it's a lot of stuff, but I think all ages venues is something I really push. I think they are important. And having some spaces that aren't council run venues would be really, really beneficial.

A. I'm gonna go back to your point where you said we're competing with international acts. I want to know what that says about where New Zealand culture is at the moment. For example, Travis Scott was on Eden Park the other day, and drew huge crowds. As local artists, when we see that, how we can stake our claim?

C. You know, that's a good question. That's a really good question. Well, international artists coming here have a really high ticket price. So the average person is definitely gonna go see Taylor Swift or Rihanna or whoever their favourite artist is at the time, because they're famous. It's a really high production show, and you're going to have a really good time. So that $300 they spend on a ticket means they don't really want to go and spend money on other shows. They’re saving up for this big one. And that's happening all over the place. I was speaking to a booking agent in Australia — she was saying that the same thing is happening over there. So I don't think it's specifically New Zealand focused. I think it's just that big artists are just looking after themselves and trying to make as much as they can in an economy that's not really serving anybody. In terms of New Zealand culture, it's difficult to say, because I wasn't there for some of those iconic bands, like Crowded House or Split Enz, or all of those 80s bands. I was never there, I’m far too young, but there is a lot of national pride in those acts, and I wonder where it is at the moment. People love more of the local pop acts, but they're not really pushing for the rock bands or the independent bands as much as I feel like we might have used to. I'm not really sure why that is. Maybe it's just that we have more access to the outside world online now, or we aren't as likely to go out, so we aren't discovering new acts, or some other reason that none of us could think of.

A. Who are the local artists who are really standing out to you right now?

C. I really think Skilaa is killing it. They always have been killing it. Their recent album is great. And they're such lovely human beings. I am a big fan of Erny Belle. She came out of nowhere and her first album slaps — it's so cool. And there's so many young bands who I think do really cool stuff, like we did a couple gigs with a band called Slow Rage, who are really cool! Very nice guys! Yeah, it's just nice to see that there's lots of new bands coming through, because for a minute there last year, or the year before, it felt like there were just all of these bands who had been around for at least seven years. So it's nice to see new acts, that's for sure!

A. What gets you excited about Forage Fest?

C. Oh, I'm so stoked to be playing at Basement. I love this theatre. It's such a wholesome community — I love it when I get to be a part of the community here. I think it's awesome that it's free. That's not enough of a thing. Like, when do you get to go to a free festival? That's so awesome. And by being in a theatre as well, it means you know that there's going to be a good light show — theatre techs are all lighting techs, and they're all really good at it!

A. Do you have anything else in the works?

C. We've got an album coming out in February. We've just finished it. It's getting mastered right now, so that's really exciting.

C. I also want to say that I'm very excited to play alongside the other acts who are going to be on the same night as us. We've played shows with Club Ruby. They're really cool. And Napoleon Baby — we've narrowly missed playing shows with them, like two or three times now. So I'm excited to see these people who I’ve only seen or met online, in real life.

See Pocket Money at Forage Fest, 21-23 November, at Basement Theatre.