Fever Party Photo: supplied
Name of project: Fever Party
Real names: Gareth Shute and Jay Purkiss
Age (of project): 2 months
Hometown: Auckland
Sounds like: Garage rock but more catchy. Indie pop, but with just a fuzzy guitar and pounding drums.
Associated acts: Gareth Shute used to play/write songs in The Conjurors and has toured overseas as part of The Ruby Suns and The Brunettes (plus Shute will be re-joining his Tokey Tones bandmate, Scott Mannion, for a slot at Auckland City Limits). Purkiss previously played in The Lurch and Liberty Bells (in Scotland). The pair have played in a dozen bands between them, so let’s not list them all…
Musical guilty pleasure: Jay’s guilty pleasure is ‘Love Shack’ (and the entire B52s back catalogue), while Gareth believes 90s NZ R’n’B act, Moizna, should’ve been world famous.
Formative musical experience: Jay says it was ‘the drumkit I unwrapped Xmas 95’ while for Gareth it was seeing Bo Diddley play the Mt Smart Supertop as a child (one of the Fever Party songs even incoporates a Bo Diddley beat) - plus Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and the Everly Brothers also played that show.
