BAND YOU SHOULD KNOW: AVALANCHE CITY

Avalanche City is a folk music band from Auckland, New Zealand started as a solo project of Dave Baxter. Although, after he released his first album ‘Our New Life Above The Ground’ he assembled a group of musicians, namely Ben Duncan on drums; Johnny Brock on bass; Ben Tolich on keyboards and manjo; Strahan Cole on electric guitar, manjo, ukulele and backing vocals and Romelli Rodriguez on violin, glockenspiel, piano accordion and percussion.

When he completed his album and then made it available for free download on the internet, expecting only a few hundred copies to be downloaded and then it received more than 10,000, he soon took it offline and began to market it.

Despite little radio play, his first single ‘Love Love Love’ debuted at number one on the New Zealand charts (becoming the fastest selling debut #1 for a NZ group in the digital era), used as a theme song for a television show, and then the song achieved Gold recognition within the first 4 weeks on the charts.

For ‘Our New Life Above The Ground’  Baxter got some inspiration from The Rocket Summer’s DIY approach to create and record an album where he writes, produces, plays, and records everything; also getting inspiration from some of the great raw sounding musicians such as; Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and Ben Gibbard.

 

When he was in high school he started a hardcore band, One Must Fall, which made an impression on the local hardcore scene and got them to open for notable acts such as; Hatebreed, Parkway Drive and Sick Of It All.

After exploring some new musical avenues, in late 2009, and experimenting with vocal melodies and lyrics for the first time in his life, he began to write songs. The positive feedback he received from his close friends made an essential assurance to the birth of Avalanche City. He then played some solo acoustic shows, touring with Bradley Hathaway and The Paper Kites, and then decided to record an album.

‘Our New Life Above The Ground’ debuted at #1 on the iTunes album chart, reached #4 on the national album chart and climbed to gold status.

Songs to listen to: You and I, Love Love Love, The Silence

Go pick up 'Our New Life Above The Ground’ here and 'Love Love Love' EP which was relased the the U.S. on 3/22 here.