New Zealand rockers Ekko Park are riding high on a wave in the wake of their successful 2015 sophomore LP ‘Know Hope’, and will cross the ditch for a one-off performance in Brisbane.
Vocalist and guitarist Joe Walsh says that while Ekko Park have always been a live band, the opportunity to work with a world-class producer and mixer for the album meant refocussing their energies in the studio. “That’s what we are, is a live band and we’re always striving to play gigs,” he says.
“The first album, ‘Tomorrow Tomorrow Today’ (2013) especially, we used it as a vehicle and we’ve used recording as a vehicle to play live rather than the other way around. We’ve never spent a huge amount of time in the studio more than we needed to really.
“But for ‘Know Hope’ the chance to work with a really, really good producer, Greg Haver and mixer Adrian Hall, and just because of gigs we’ve done overseas in Europe, these chances arose to work with these guys. So we put a lot more recording time and effort into the second album and it’s really paid off for us.”
Later this month Ekko Park will play a one-off show at The Bearded Lady, where Joe says the band is looking forward to playing the new album as well as getting to see support act Bear Hunt. “We’ve got some ties to Brisbane, and I heard the Bear Hunt album and really loved it,” Joe says.
“We did a tour here [in New Zealand] with Dead Letter Circus and we decided we wanted to get over and do a bit of a show in Australia and play some of the new songs over there.
“We teed up this one and we’re looking forward to getting over to Brissie and having a good night with it. With it being [the] ANZAC weekend we’ll channel our energy into one show now and hopefully that’ll set us up for coming back in maybe August or September.”
The second single from the latest record, ‘Probable Cause’, has proved immensely popular, especially in Italy where it has received massive amounts of airplay through Virgin Radio, entering their station listener charts at number three.
As a result, Joe says the band haven’t had a chance to work on material for a new album yet, instead deciding to focus on the present and putting their energy into their live performances. “That time period was so quick and so intense leading up to the ‘Know Hope’ album that we haven’t really thought about anything else really apart from this album,” he says.
“Because we released ‘Probable Cause’ here [New Zealand] just before Christmas, it’s had its lifespan here but then coming to the end of its lifespan here it got released in Europe.”
Joining Ekko Park and Bear Hunt is Joe’s friend, Brisbane singer-songwriter Scott Connors (sometimes known as Keepsake) who’ll be opening the night. Ahead of the Brisbane show, Joe has one final message to impart to his fans. “Just come on down, have a good time,” he says.
“We pride ourselves on playing a good rock and roll show, so we hope people come in, have some fun and get to hang out and [we’ll] show Brisbane what we can do.”
Ekko Park play The Bearded Lady 23 April.
