The band, however, are continually surprised by the sheer impact their albums and tunes have had on fans across their career, and their subsequent success. “Yeah, but we’ve been working hard so it’s kind of been our goal for us to get to where we’re at,” explains the band’s Jamey Ferguson. “It’s been quite a journey we’ve been on and we’re not quite ‘there’ yet, but we’re getting there.”
As their way of giving back to their fans, a percentage of profits from the band’s tour of Australia – where they’ve also proven to be quite popular – will go towards rebuilding Christchurch, which was devastated by an earthquake earlier this year. To the members of Katchafire, it’s simply a matter of helping their NZ brothers.
“We definitely feel love and respect for our brothers and sisters in Christchurch and will always do anything we can to help them rebuild their lives,” explains Ferguson. Which begs the question of where the band were at the time when the earthquake struck – and indeed, what were their thoughts when they all heard what was going on? “We were all thankful to be at home with our families,” Ferguson replies. “I could not believe my eyes. [It was a sense of] just shock and disbelief that little old New Zealand was getting hit.”
The aptly titled On The Road Again marks the first record written by the band as a whole, rather than simply as a collaboration between their two lead writers, which up until now had been Ferguson and bandmate Logan Bell. No doubt Katchafire will be interested to see if their new democratically-written material gets the same nod of approval from Australians as it has from New Zealand.
That change in tact, according to Ferguson, simply came from “The desire to show the public a more accurate showcase of what we have to offer as a band,” he reflects.
“It was always part of the plan. Continual growth; soon our children will be onstage jamming with us…” he laughs. “We just knew the boys voices had developed. We have a lot of harmony in our live performance.
“We thought; ‘let’s do it all together and show people who we all are’.”
The band also found that working this way made the album very different to produce than their attempts in the past. “We all wrote two songs each and worked on them in our own home studios,” Ferguson explains. “That’s something I guess has developed over the years from touring, having home studios.
“We then took them and worked on them together at my garage here at home and did a lot of practise before we actually went into a studio and put it down.
“We put the tracks down live in the studio,” he continues. “All up, [it was] probably about five to six weeks under the ever watchful eye of Nick Manders (engineer and co-producer) the genius”
Katchafire are also now looking forward to catching up with some much loved friends during this Australian tour. A few of which, as it turns out, will be also playing alongside them. “It’s a pleasant surprise to see that Maisey Rika is joining us in Melbourne. At the moment I think that she is definitely in the top realm of the NZ female vocalists,” he explains.
“This Version from Sydney are pretty much family and I mean that literally!” he adds with a laugh. “Hani’s brother plays the bass, so we have jammed with them both during and after a gig a few times before and have also enjoyed jamming on the Gold Coast with Darky Roots once before. I haven’t experienced the other groups yet but look forward to feeling their vibes too.”
