Goodnight Nurse

Let’s remind ourselves of the Goodnight Nurse facts:

Goodnight Nurse have had a Top 40 single in New Zealand 7 times. Their debut album Always And Never debuted at #5 on the NZ charts and went gold in its first week. The album included the hit singles Loner, My Only, Death Goes To Disco, Our Song and All For You.

Goodnight Nurse won the 2007 MTV Australia Video Music Award for NZ Viewers Choice. This sits proudly alongside their Juice TV Best Breakthrough Video and Best Rock Video Awards.

Their website won the Hitwise Online Performance Award in 2006 for the most visited Band/Artist website in NZ.

Goodnight Nurse have supported Fall Out Boy, Story Of The Year and the Living End amongst others, and have played hundreds of shows across New Zealand and Australia.

So, when faced with bass player Paul Taite’s departure in January 2007 – announced the day after playing the Big Day Out main stage for the first time – Joel Little and Jaden Parkes took the opportunity as a catalyst for taking Goodnight Nurse to the next level.

As lead singer and guitarist Joel Little explains:

“It was a really hard time, but in a strange way it was an exciting time too. We didn’t know what was going to happen next, but Jaden and I knew that we wanted to do things bigger and better than before, both in terms of the songs that we wrote and our live show. So it became a challenge to ourselves to prove we could do it, and really push our own boundaries.”

Sam McCarthy joined Goodnight Nurse on guitar from Auckland group CapGunHero, and long time friend Rowan Crowe, who had previously toured the USA as a stage tech on the Vans Warped Tour, joined on bass.

The new Goodnight Nurse gelled instantly. “Before Sam and Rowan joined we’d already demoed a whole album’s worth of material, but with everything they brought to the band – both on stage and in the studio – we found a new sense of enthusiasm and freshness and songs just started pouring out of us. We trashed most of the original demos and just kept writing until we had an album we were all completely proud of. 40 or so demos later we were finally ready.”

In August 2007 the band headed to Melbourne and spent 5 weeks living in each other’s pockets at Birdland Studios with Lindsay Gravina (who’s production credits include Shihad, Thirsty Merc, & The Living End). “Lindsay really encouraged and pushed us to record ‘live’ way more than we ever have done before, not to worry about being too polished, and just cement the sound of the new band live – if it’s warts and all, then whatever…that’s how it should be.”

The album then went to New York to get mastered by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound (who’s credits include mastering for Metallica, My Chemical Romance and Kings Of Leon). The resulting album – Keep Me On Your Side – fires into action on all cylinders with Serpent Queen Pt 2, a song that interlinks the new album with All Hail The Serpent Queen Pt 1 from the band’s debut album Always And Never. Keep Me On Your Side also features the anthemic power of first single The Night – celebrating the nocturnal habits of being in a band.

Says Joel: “I’m so proud of the album we’ve made! The final 12 songs came together better than we’d ever hoped. With the bands transformation since we last toured, we’re really now just looking forward to getting out there and playing the songs live, and hopefully spreading some of the incredible energy that the band are feeling right now.”

Goodnight Nurse are currently on hiatus.