Issue 15 | July 09, 2012 | critic.co.nz

MUSIC
Nadia Reid and
Ivy Rossiter (a.k.a. Luckless)
Interview
BY BRITTANY MANN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Vanessa GERRIE
Nadia Reid and Ivy Rossiter (a.k.a Luckless) recently performed at the iconic and allegedly
haunted Chicks Hotel in Port Chalmers as part of their Ballads and Badlands national tour.
Brittany Mann went along for the whiskey and good times.
The girls
Ballads and Badlands is Nadia Reid and
Ivy Rossiter’s first major collaboration.
Described by Reid as an exercise in “abrasive
folk,” the Badlands tour was conceived of at the
beginning of 2013 but was only put into motion
a couple of months ago. “What we’re doing – it’s
not overly lighthearted,” says Rossiter. “It’s not
flossy and pretty, necessarily – it’s got some
kind of substance to it. The idea of travelling
through the badlands … it can be real badlands,
like a desert road or the Linders Pass, or it can
also be the badlands of your soul.”
For Reid and Rossiter, life on the road is a
something of a “suspension of reality.” Rossiter
explains: “In real life, there’s all of these very
complicated problems that need solving all the
time. But when you’re on tour, everything is
completely immediate and you get to do what
you love doing every day.” The girls’ appreciation
for their rapidly-expanding fanbase is deep.
“That people would actually show up to see us
play is totally insane,” says Rossiter. “They’ve got
fireplaces and cats and kitchens and books and
all of these other things competing for their attention
and yet, they come out and they see us.”
Reid and Rossiter have been playing live shows
since they were in their mid-teens and early
twenties, respectively, and have each released an
EP (Letters I Wrote and Never Sent and Luckless).
Reid is about to drop her second record. “I’m
definitely feeling like I’m starting to find my
groove in the last year or so,” she says. “I’m really
excited about [the EP]. I totally have a clear idea
of what I want and where I want to go.”
The girls first met through mutual, musically
minded friends in Auckland; Reid has been
based there since late 2010, whilst Rossiter has
recently escaped to become a “musical nomad”
on tour for the foreseeable future. While both
artists tend towards “introspective music with
a slightly darker side to it,” the girls’ musical
styles differ markedly, occasioning a curiously
arresting crossover of genres that, according to
Reid, is “a good point of difference for this tour.”
The Chicks show was the girls’ fourth on their
15-venue national tour. “Once we did it last
night, we knew we could do it,” said Reid,
originally from Port Chalmers. “I like coming
back to Chicks because I like seeing familiar
faces, bringing some new songs and some new
vibes. Every time I come here, I feel like it’s a
real stepping-stone. Tonight, it’s on different
grounds – we’ve never done this before.”
The gig
Dunedin local Bill Morris, whom Luckless first
met on the Interislander, opened the gig,
which transpired to be more a troika of sets than
a true collaborative effort. Morris accompanied
himself on both the guitar and the harmonica
and, according to a friend I had taken along,
“clearly had a lot of feelings.” A bluesy, Kiwi
Bruce Springsteen in lyrics if not style, Morris endearingly
laboured under the misapprehension
that experience equals wisdom for the entirety
of his set. Singing passionately of working-class
melancholia, Morris had relatable song lyrics
that referenced things like the “Rotovegas
Warehouse car park.” Indeed, my group concurred
that what Morris lacked in metaphor,
he made up for with raw poignancy. A friend
had the shrewd revelation that, “Give a prole a
harmonica, and you get that guy.”
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