Difference between revisions of "Waters"

Revision as of 17:40, 6 July 2007

Formed in 1992 by Dave Jones (bass, vocals, keyboards, programming) and Derek Shaw (guitars, keyboards, bass) Waters started life as a song-writing/recording project mixing ambient song-scapes and progressive rock elements, compared to Pink Floyd, Radiohead and early Dire Straits. The song What I Got (produced by Dave Whitehead) received a lot of local airplay in 1993 on Contact 89FM and the Rock network nationwide.

A live band was formed with ex-Nösferätu guitarist Matt J Nicholls and a drummer called Ivan (surname?). In 1994 the band entered into some dodgy "guaranteed airplay" recording deals with local corporate rock companies and got suckered into pouring thousands of dollars and months of work into ridiculously overblown arrangements of songs that they lost creative control over, and which by the end of the recordings bore virtually no resemblence to the original Waters sound. Having sucked the band dry Hole In The Sky and Wild Woman were then released to radio with a bare minimum of airplay before the band was dropped, ironically, because they'd failed to live up to the promise of What I Got.

They toured the pub circuit of the upper North Island heavily during the mid '90s and made a decent living for a while before relocating to Australia, but main songwriter Dave became disillusioned with playing mainstream rock and covers, and quit. He also helped to establish Disjecta Membra as a founding member between 1993 - 1995. Derek, Matt and Ivan are thought to have carried on playing together in other "heavy rock" type bands.