When did you begin making music, and did you ever ponder a different career?
PJ: When I was 13 my uncle gave me a beat up old guitar and that was it, love at first G chord. I was actually a hairdresser for about 5 years but the band I was in at the time out grew my job which was good for everyone because I was a terrible hairdresser.
How would you describe your music?
PJ: Well, growing up I fell in love with the passion and authenticity of grunge music, I then found myself in a Christian pop/rock band and then went on to be a singer song writer, so Zealand pulls on all of those eras to create who we are and how we sound. I guess that makes us grungy Jesus people who like strong melodies, good grooves and quality instruments played by real people.
What have you been up to so far and what can we expect over the coming months?
PJ: Ha, where do we start? I don’t want to bore you so I’ll just go back a couple of years to when we released our first EP back in 2015. After that it took us two years to get our next project right. It was a wrestle because we didn’t want to do what everyone was telling us we should do and it was a struggle to stay true to what we felt called to do and keep going. I seriously thought about quitting it all but somehow we got through and made an album we’re super proud of. We’re touring at the moment and have another 90 cities this year. It’s a really big year for us.
If you could duet with anybody who would it be and why?
PJ: I think a collaboration with Lorde would be cool. She’s amazing and it doesn’t hurt that she’s a fellow Kiwi.
What’s your desert island disc and why would you take this one album?
PJ: Besides Encyclopedia Brittanica’s guide to boat building on cd, id have to go with Snow Patrol’s Eyes Open. I think it might be a near perfect album. They killed it with that record and it never gets old to me.
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