Waters
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 drummer Ivan Krippner. In 1994 the band entered into several "guaranteed airplay" recording deals with local corporate rock companies into which they invested thousands of dollars and months of work. Ultimately, the band believed this deal lost them creative control over their songs, and that the resulting recordings bore little resemblence to the original Waters sound. Two songs, Hole In The Sky and Wild Woman, were released to radio but recieved little 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 1990s and made a decent living for a while before relocating to Australia. However, main songwriter Dave became disillusioned with playing mainstream rock and covers, and quit. He helped to establish Disjecta Membra as a founding member between 1993 - 1995. Ivan Krippner formed Jel following this band.
