Greg Broadmore
Born in Whakatane in 1972, Greg Broadmore has on various occasions publicly expressed a lifelong fascination with Tanks, Robots, Monsters, Dinosaurs, Videogames, Rayguns, Kung Fu and Anatomically Incorrect Women (although he has not verbally articulated the latter); themes that have dominated much of his creative output through a variety of media including music and sound production, graphic design and illustration, children's books, comics, streetwear, sculpting and within film.
He first achieved some underground notoriety as a founding member of Hamilton industrial-deathmetal crossover band Lungfeast (bass, vocals, programming etc) in 1991, although he may have earlier played in one or two un-documented "metal" bands as well (based on passing comments made in Lungfeast interviews). Lungfeast moved to Auckland, underwent a lineup change, became increasingly experimental and released a cassette Inside in 1992, before splitting in around '93.
Broadmore returned to Hamilton where his next musical project during the mid '90s was Nihil, who won the Battle of the Bands 1995 and produced the album Nil with the proceeds. The album featured individually printed card packaging that is also noteworthy as an early published example of Broadmore's now sought after illustration and design work. Musically, Nihil were in a similar 'ambient-industrial/experimental-metal' vein as Lungfeast, but took the experimental ambient, electronic, dub and slow, grinding industrial "Doom Metal" aspects further still. They were also noted at the time for their production and sound design both in the studio and as a live unit.
At around the same time and shortly afterwards he was the bassist in punk/grindcore trio Ghidrah. Named after a monster in Japanese movies of the Godzilla family, the band was united in their love of Sci Fi, Horror and Kung Fu movies. The band made liberal use of samples from all of the above, unorthodox key signatures, and produced short sharp blasts of obnoxious, grinding noise; sufficient to fit over 20 songs on a disc without producing unusually long albums. They released the cassette album Ghidrah vs Armour of God (1996 - Armour of God being a Jackie Chan movie and was also the bands former name) followed quickly by the CDs Invincible Deluxe (late '96) and The Doctrine of Velocity in 1997, coinciding with the band's split. The latter album was reissued with a completely different tracklist in 1998. Like most of their songs Ghidrah made a lot of noise and ended quickly, leaving most people wondering what the fuck had just happened.
Greg Broadmore and former Ghidrah drummer Christian Pearce both went on to work in graphic media, starting with Comic Books in particular. Based in Wellington by 2000, Broadmore's first published comic was Killer Robots Will Smash The World through Wellington's Urbanist Publications in 2002, and he also collaborated with Pearce to produce Dino Slayer. He has illustrated over 30 children's books and school journals for Learning Media Ltd, and has been a long-time designer for Illicit Streetwear. Broadmore's work has been exhibited at various large Comic Book and Science Fiction exhibitions and conventions, and has also appeared at prestigious galleries including Te Papa. Meanwhile his illustrations have been a regular feature of Wellington's widely read city/events guide The Package.
Since 2004, Broadmore and Pearce have both worked as designers and sculptors for Wellington's Weta Workshops, working on such films as King Kong and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, among others. For Weta, Broadmore has also produced a number of collectible items including his prized Raygun Collection and was an illustrator and concept writer for Weta's first published book, The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island. Between 2004 and 2005 Greg Broadmore co-designed and oversaw the art-direction for the installation of a six-metre tall "Robot of Doom" in Wellington's Courtenay Place, and the tribute statue to Richard O'Brien as Riff Raff on Victoria Street, Hamilton. Broadmore, Pearce and fellow Weta Workshop designers Warren Mahy and Ben Wootten in 2005 set up The Battery, their own independent company for their work in illustration, design, sculpture and other graphic media. Broadmore was responsible for the design of the cieling of Wellington's Roxy Cinema, following its reopening in 2011.
In 2006 Ghidrah reissued their two most sought after albums via MySpace.
Published Articles
- Monsters Inc', Sunday Star Times, 15 May 2001, p F7
