Avantdale Bowling Club - TREES

Jazz Hip-Hop heavyweights Avantdale Bowling Club released TREES, the follow up to their 2018 Taite Music Prize winning debut in september. They are currently touring the four-years-in-the-making album. 

Tom Scott picks up the phone on the way to pick up his son from school. It seems fitting, given that much of TREES, the second release from Avantdale Bowling Club, negotiates Scott’s journey of growth into fatherhood. Becoming a parent isn’t an easy transition to make, and the financial and personal uncertainty that Scott shares with many parents is integral to this album. TREES, like much of his work, uses intimate recounts of personal experience to paint broader political and social commentary.

“I guess the old clichés of “personal is universal”, and “everything is political” come to mind. I’d say politics is all throughout our day, but it’s presented to us on TV as Parliament TV or some politician smiling on a billboard to get your vote. That’s not really what politics is about, right, politics is the people. 

I would by no means be volunteering to sign up to a political rapper, but I do think it’s more so my duty to present my life and my personal struggles or wins, and let them speak and effect change via the people who are listening to them and relating to my experiences.”

Tales of the liquor shop, climbing rents, and growing trees (see: cannabis) to pay the bills aren’t all new topics for Scott. However, the approach on this album is the most mature and considered to date. It’s the work of someone who has had the time to contemplate where he stands in the world.

“It’s something I sit down and think about a lot. I think we all want to make change and do good in the world. The first thing we think sometimes is being a big, ego-centric politician. That’s what being a leader is presented as. I think I had to battle with that and find my place in the world where I feel comfortable as myself and as a vehicle for some sort of change. Over the years I’ve come to realise I’m just one man. I don’t want to be a big leader, I don’t want to act like I have that kind of power, but I do want to share my experience.”

Avantdale Bowling Club - TREES Tour remaining dates:

Friday 18th November - Glenroy Auditorium, Dunedin

Saturday 19th November - James Hay Theatre, Christchurch

Friday 25th November - Auckland Town Hall, Auckland

Friday 2nd December - St. James Theatre, Wellington

Tickets via https://linktr.ee/avantdalebowlingclub