An Interview With The Rising New Zealand Band, DRAX PROJECT!

Photo Credit- Jory Lee Cordy

Get to know New Zealand’s most exciting new act called Drax Project! The group recently put out the Sam Feldt Remix to their hit song, “Woke Up Late ft. Hailee Steinfeld.” The video stars Liza Koshy as she shimmies down the streets of Los Angeles. It has over 11 million views! Check it out HERE. “Woke Up Late” was handpicked as Zane Lowe’s World Record + Amazon’s Song Of The Day, debuted on Billboard’s Pop Songs Chart, and won “Single Of The Year” in the 2018 VNZMAs, where Drax Project was also awarded “Breakthrough Artist”.

Listen to the remix HERE. 

Drax Project have released one EP called NOON. In between putting out music, Drax Project have toured with Camila Cabello and opened for the likes of Lorde and Ed Sheeran. They also played Rolling Stone’s Coachella Party!

Drax Project are an exquisite marriage of stellar musicianship and killer songs. This combination, coupled with their incendiary live show has led them on a two year run of sold out venues as both headliners and openers. The group gained a following after re-working vocal hooks of famous pop songs into saxophone licks. Their cover of Kimbra’s track, “Goldmine”, went viral and caught the attention of an influential producer and soon they were signed to a major label.  With a new body of work underway, Drax Project is currently in the studio and gearing up to the take the world by storm.

Learn more about Drax Project in the following All Access interview:

Thanks for your time! What is on tap for the rest of your day?

– Hey no worries! We’re in Paris about to head to soundcheck for our 2nd ever performance in this beautiful city

Now that we are into the 6th month of the year, how would you say that 2019 is treating the band so far? What have been some goals this group has had this year? How close are you to reaching them? 

– We’re nearly halfway through the year! What!? 2019 has been very good to us so far. We’ve spent a lot of time overseas through music and met so many amazing new people. Our main goal is to finish our debut album and we are SO close to achieving that. Super excited

Can you recall the moment when you thought you could be in this group together? Was it hard to think of a name that you could agree on? Has anything surprised you about this musical journey so far?

– The moment we became a band was the moment we made our band name. At the very beginning we were just buskers (street performers) in Wellington. Matt was playing the drums and Shaan was playing the Sax. We needed a name because people wanted to upload videos of us online, Drum + Sax = Drax. Luckily it stuck even after adding Sam on bass and Ben on guitar. The most surprising thing is that people from all over the world are starting to hear our music, we didn’t imagine that could happen when were buskers

How do you think your hometowns have influenced the sound and how you all carry yourselves in this group? If not, what do you think does influence this group?

– Our hometown has influenced us because there is a strong music scene in Wellington that supports musicians and we were able to play many shows there and gain fans over a few years of playing live. Aside from that, we are influenced by music from all over the world

I always like to ask bands if you all hang out socially apart from the music? In other words, when you aren’t working on music, do you guys enjoy hanging out for fun?

– We love playing table tennis and going bowling as a group. We hang out a lot so we always find time to wind down and do something that isn’t music

Let’s talk about your recently released EP, “NOON.” What was it like putting this collection together? Did anything surprise you about the process?

Noon was a lot of fun, the songs all fit together and have a theme of ‘new beginnings’ which we were experiencing at the time of writing it. We released a week into the Camila Cabello Tour that we were supporting around Europe. It was amazing to see some people knew the songs!

What was it like working on your track “Woke Up Late” with Hailee Steinfeld? What was the inspiration for this song? How would you say that it compares to the rest of your “NOON” EP?

It was amazing when she sent her vocals to us! We are big fans of her music so we freaked out when she wanted to record it. The song was written quite naturally once we started focusing on it, it began with the guitar line and chorus melody and everything flowed from there. It’s similar to other songs on NOON because it’s light and bouncy! Dancing is encouraged

Why did you decide to put out a Sam Feldt remix to “Woke Up Late”?

– We love his music style and thought he would do a great job. He gave it some spicy energy and we’re very grateful to Sam!

What are you working on now? When can fans expect new music from you?

Debut album! New music in 2019 for sure

Generally, how do you go about writing your music? Do you write together or separately?

– We write everything together and most songs start with a little guitar/melody/lyric idea that we develop as a group from there! Everyone has equal input and we try every idea that gets put forward

How has your sound grown or changed over the years? What has remained the same?

– It feels like our sound hasn’t really changed a lot. We still want people to dance and feel something when they listen to us. We still play some versions of songs at our live shows that we played when were busking

Where do you think you are all happiest- in the studio recording new music, on stage performing or elsewhere?

– We have so many happy moments but some that standout are: Listening to a new song that is fully finished, playing live and the whole room is going nuts and visiting a new city.

Where can fans see you perform next? What do you think makes for an ideal show for this group?

– We are playing a few shows around the US over the northern hemisphere summer. We just finished a little UK tour and are looking forward to some shows back home in NZ later on in the year. An ideal show is any show where we have enough room to dance around

How has social media impacted this band? How often are you all on your different sites interacting with fans?

– We are constantly on social media because it’s important to be interactive and present with our friends and people who like our music. It’s been cool to be band in this generation and share our journey with everyone.

We are currently living through a very trying and politically charged time right now so I am curious to know how you all think being musicians and in this band still gives you the most joy in life today? Do you find that your music is an escape to all the current events?

– For us, we just focus on writing the best music we can and if that gives people a little bit of joy, then that is a real privilege. Our shows are all inclusive and we love seeing so many different faces in the crowd

What musicians would you love to work with in the future? What artists have really been inspiring this group and your music since day 1?

– Some of our all-time favourites are Justin Timberlake, Ariana Grande, John Mayer, Radiohead and Beyoncè. If we could collaborate with any of them we would probably faint.

What do you hope is the message of your music? What do you hope people continue to take away from your songs?

– After to listening to a song, we hope people feel better than they did before hearing it. We get so much joy from people singing lyrics back to us or sending videos of them dancing and having fun to our music

Is there anything else that you would like to share with our readers about this group?

– We’ve got an album coming this year and it has our favourite songs we’ve ever written on there. We can’t wait for you to hear it! Much love