MNZ Interview: CoffeeBar Kid Cuts S02 / E03 – Neive Strang

On 4 April Ōtepoti based indie singer/songwriter and member of the Dimmer touring band, Neive Strang will release her first long player since 2020’s Moon Life.

The new album, Find Me In The Rabbit Hole, out on her own independent label, Polly B Records, has already tempted us with the singles A Sweet Dive and Gather Round.

Tim Gruar put in a call to find out more about the new album and working with the album’s producer Sean Donnelly (SJD).

Themes of social ‘isolation’ and digital ‘rabbit holes’ were on my mind when I called up Neive Strang. I asked her if she was aware that it was five years, to the day, that the whole of Aotearoa went into Lockdown as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic creeping across our borders and threatening our health care system.

“Wow”, she says, “I wasn’t aware of that. That’s come around so fast.” Indeed, we have moved on so fast from a time when being isolated and insular was an imposed luxury. In the ‘new normal’ we had permission to duvet dive whenever things got too much. Something that would have been frowned on way more prior to that Lockdown time.

Given all the songs on her new album were written between 2021- 24 it would be easy enough to assume that they reflected the insular mood of that time or its ongoing impacts. But Strang says it wasn’t really what was on her mind at the time. She says it was more about her own journey.

Strang has talked about the song Gather Round and other works on the new album as an exploration of two primary themes: “self-reflection and the tension between personal comfort and social pressures.”

“I guess what kick started these songs was what happened just prior, when I got out of a bad break up. This time period (when I was writing those songs) was about me finding myself. I (also) suffer from bad migraines and the song Gather Round touches on that a little bit (as in looking for comfort). It also touches base with feeling of anxiety. It’s about just wanting to curl up in bed. Not wanting to engage with the outside world.”

“The other songs on the album were just things that went on in that time, while I was on that journey. I guess these songs are me figuring out what the heck I (really) wanted. Ha ha”

In her publicity she puts it even more succinctly: “The growth and healing I hear in these songs takes me from start to end every time. It has captured some of the most transformative years of my life, which can now be reflected on forever.”

Gather Round begins has a gentle guitar strum and a soft pillow of music for Strang’s fabulous alto timbred vocals, as she struggles with the temptation to disengage from society in favour of solitude and an escapist dream state. The video was directed by Donnelly, with a one shot intimate close up of Strang all snuggled up in her own personal featherdown fortress.

Perhaps there’s a backstory of how she came to be there. But “No”, she says, “No story. Don’t read too much into that. It’s really just to show me in a place of comfort”.

Strang has supported a number of bands over the years, played in the live incarnation of Shayne Carter’s Dimmer band, and performed on her own mini-tour of the Motu. All good opportunities to hone her skills and to try out the new material before getting into the studio.

She’s currently doing a bit live mahi, too, she says. “Recently we (that’s her band Joel Field, Seddie Hewitson and Andrew Harray) opened for the Veils and will again in April in Dunedin. Also, I’m opening in Auckland for Tom Lark. And we’re a live music session with RNZ for Music 101.” So, that’s exciting.

For this record Strang is working again with Sean Donnelly. That relationship first came about after a suggestion from by her manager Natasha Griffiths, when making the song Living In Two (2023), and then subsequent recordings have gone from there.

“We’re good friends. He’s great to work with. Really good ideas. And all the videos are his ideas as well. I will write a song and send it to him. And he’ll give me feedback and suggestions.”

She says the working relationship was at its most fervent when Donnelly was down south, near her. “It was great when he was down in Dunedin (Ōtepoti) because I could just go around to his wee home studio. We could put a home demo together. Try things out, and that’s when songs came together quickly. It’s a bit different now he’s up in Auckland. I’ll still send him a song every now and then.” But she says that good relationship remains strong, despite the distance. “Working with him felt really natural.”

I note that Donnelly, as SJD, is known for his production skills, adding digital enhancements and unexpected sounds of all kinds into songs. Strang was very cognisant of the shape of her music when recording with Donnelly and tried out different ways of performing them.

“I wrote most of the songs on guitar,” says Strang. “Originally, I wrote them on piano but I thought they sounded too sad – ha ha. Sometimes that’s what happens. I wrote them over a long-time, but we ended up recorded them all in one go. Most were done at Sean’s (studio), except Space Invader and Old Friend (which were written after the original sessions). (For those) we did the vocals and guitar at South Link Studios with Nick Roughan. Sean added the drums and bass at his studio.”

Donnelly played a pivotal part in the making of this album playing instruments along with Strang and drummer Chris O’Connor (The Phoenix Foundation, The Veils). O’Connor’s contribution pops up in a few surprising places. Like on the single A Sweet Dive, which has a rather delicious rattling snare effect that makes the track just a little unsettling. “Yeah, I love the way Chris approaches his drumming”. Attention to those little details steps up the songs impact, she thinks.

Strang is very proud of the new album and looking forward to releasing it to a wider set of ears. She says that, for her, it’s a very honest and raw album and Donnelly handled the production ‘beautifully’. Listening to the two released tracks they certainly have a warm ambience and a genuine honesty about them that respects their true intentions.

There are eleven songs on the album, with the final one inspiring the album’s title.

“Yes, that’s called ‘Find You In The Rabbit Hole’. That’s where the album title comes from. It’s (message) is basically this: ‘I’ll find you and you’ll find me’.”

I ask if the theme has anything to do with socially or digitally going down ‘rabbit holes’. She acknowledges that, given the current social and political environment that you could think that. But, this time, she was thinking of how we get caught up in a relationship and that’s where we are led.

“Not so much that you’ve gone down a digital rabbit hole. It’s more like in life. That you’ve gone off on a tangent. You’ve gone off track. Lost your way.”

She means like in a relationship, when you follow somebody and eventually realise you end up miles from where you started. There’s a need to find your way back. “Like, I’ll find you again. I’ll meet you in the middle.”

She also says that that the song itself in not a ‘relationship song’ or about her, specifically. It’s an observation about another person she knows – a personal observation but it also has a universal theme.

As we finish up Strang also mentions that she has her own record label. I ask if that’s been a challenge, given she’s had to self-fund her own album. Strang says that so far, it’s gone well, mainly because of the great support from her manager. “She’s been really wonderful, made everything (like promotion, social media, etc) run really smoothly. (She works hard) and gave me the impression that everything is really easy”.

While some funding for the single came from NZ On Air, there was no other middleman involved in putting the album out and that was intentional, Strang says. “Releasing the vinyl myself rather than through someone else means I have control over any profits. She has ambitions to do more touring and to go overseas, she said.

She’s super excited about the vinyl of Find Me in the Rabbit Hole. You can put in your order via Ōtepoti’s Relics.

The album will be available from 4 April on all the usual platforms

In the meantime, you can catch her and her band opening for the Veils on 4 April, in Ōtepoti and in Auckland for Tom Lark, on 10 April 2025.