Auckland, Oct 17 NZPA - Even with money blowing away from their guitar cases, Evermore felt much happier about their second attempt at busking than their first.
Back from their Sydney base for the New Zealand Music Awards tomorrow night, the Feilding brothers played four songs in front of about 250 people in Auckland’s Queen Elizabeth Square to help the Oxjam campaign for fair trade with developing nations.
“I think we’ve only once busked before and we didn’t get any money,” band member Peter Hume told NZPA.
“I was like 11 and we were a blues band at that point and there was a saxophone player who complained about the noise and we actually lost stuff, so it didn’t work very well.”
At first it didn’t look good for Evermore today when wind blew a $5 note away from them, prompting the band at one stage to ask for coins.
But they at least avoided rain, and Hume said the band was delighted to help out Oxjam, a month-long series of music events run by Oxfam to promote fair trade.
“On our last tour we did some advertising for them. It’s one of the cool things that you can do with some of the media coverage you get you can use it for some good, to get some awareness.”
“We often think these are things overseas which don’t affect us but the way that we buy and the way that our country does business is actually reflective in us. We’re all part of it so we need to be proactive.”
He said Pacific countries were among those which weren’t getting a fair deal through unfair trade rules.
Hume says he tries to buy fair trade goods — commodities which are guaranteed to have given their producers in third world countries a fair price — as often as possible and urged Evermore fans to do the same, though he admitted it wasn’t always easy.
“I get my fair trade coffee and my fair trade chocolate, and all of our merchandise is non-sweatshop. But it can be very hard.”
Evermore are up for five Tuis tomorrow night — best album, best rock album, best single, best band and the people’s choice award — and play another gig for Oxjam in Gisborne on Sunday, this time not a busking gig.
The band has now finished 18 months of touring to promote their second album Real Life and are next looking at putting together a third album and possibly look more at markets outside Australia and New Zealand.
Other performers playing Oxjam gigs this month include Hollie Smith, The Black Seeds, Little Bushman, George & Queen, Shihad and Crowded House.