bandstanding: music in the west with susannah bridges
Inspired by love, life, people and nature to my neighbour and remarked how Andrew White – self-described delicious the Pacific pale ale was. It troubador – arrived on our shores turned out I was talking to the owner at the age of 16 with a bag full of of the BBC brewery and bar, Steve dreams. He’d been teaching himself Simms. We had a lively conversation finger-style guitar for the previous about beer and he let slip that he had three years so he entered a guitar a new brew but no idea what to call competition hosted by Kevin Black at it. I think I was onto my third Pacific the Auckland Boat Show. pale ale and as sometimes happens, “I won $50, two tickets to see Bo my brain erupted with a very cunning Diddly at the Town Hall, and two plan. I said, well I know what you dozen bottles of Coca-Cola. This was should call it … Beautiful Trouble!” a watershed moment as I felt that this “Steve was silent for a short while. could be a very cool way of making Long story short, he pitched the idea a living.” So naturally, when The to US microbrewery Ninkasi. A few Fringe caught up with Andrew he was weeks later while I was in South Africa poolside in Phuket “with my guitar Andrew White: inspired by love, life, people and nature. and a much worn and battered bag of dreams beside me. I’m still living on a blind date, I had an email saying that they loved the idea and when my dream. I’ve spent my life travelling and falling in and out of love, just could I come back to discuss it. We reached an arrangement and now travelling and writing songs about it all. So I’m still doing it, still loving every bottle of Beautiful Trouble has a QR code where a scan will take you to a page about the beer that also has my website on it where you it, still falling in and out of love, just not as much and not so hard.” Music came to Andrew at an early age, when he found refuge in the can purchase my album. This is now available in 15 states in America!” The next step with Beautiful Trouble is for Andrew to take it on the piano rooms at boarding school in England. “It was there I learnt to love both music and meditation,” he explains. “I would press the pedals road and to the world. He’s already written his next album, which he with my feet quite aggressively, which made the whole of the piano plans to start recording as soon as possible. Andrew has played with some of the big names in the business too. board resonate. I would then close my eyes and allow myself to follow this resonance into infinity and beyond. This was my happy place, in a “In the early days I was rather brash and fearless. I was always out and about networking, and never afraid to ask for a gig. I was never afraid place that was otherwise not at all happy.” At age 13 Andrew fell in love with the acoustic guitar, and the music to go up to famous people and ask them to take me on tour with them. of Ralph McTell, Bert Janch, Paul Simon and John Martyn. “I would Many of them laughed, but some of them said yes. One day I phoned describe my guitar style as essentially finger-style acoustic folk-rock- Jerry Harrison from Talking Heads and asked if he would fly to New pop. However I have also developed my own style of playing which I Zealand to open my friend’s night club in Auckland. I’d met him while recording in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We used to go drinking together like to call the effortless bliss guitar technique.” And it’s serving him well. Andrew has just released his 16th album, and had played the odd round of golf with Brian Ritchie of the Violent Beautiful Trouble. This is his favourite album so far. “And it got me out Femmes. He said yes! And once I managed to get hold of Jim Kerr from of a deep funk that probably lasted some years. My wife – 23 years Simple Minds and I asked him to come over and do a gig with me in younger than myself – had run off with a very good-looking, smooth- New Zealand but when he found out I wasn’t a big promoter he hung talking Italian chap. I mean it was obviously going to happen at some up. You have to have some balls, and in the early days I had big ones.” Right now Andrew’s immediate plan is to stay in Phuket. “I’m trying point, but love is blind!” Fortunately there’s also a Beautiful Trouble beer in which one could to secure a contract to stay here by the swimming pool and play guitar drown one’s sorrows. “I was having a beer on a Friday at the BBC bar music overlooking the beach for the duration of New Zealand’s winter. Continued on page 21 >> in Birkenhead and while my drinking partner was in the loo, I turned
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The Fringe JUNE 2018
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