Graeme James

Graeme James is a multi-instrumentalist from New Zealand. He started out playing violin as a 7 year old and from a young age wanted to be a classical concert violinist. He pursued this goal throughout high school as well as branching out into folk and celtic music, playing fiddle and singing in his family’s folk band that played local festivals and events. After years of playing in local and national youth orchestras he gave up the dream of being a professional musician due to shoulder problems and left secondary school to study to be a Primary School Teacher. It was while he was at university in Palmerston North that he put down the violin and started learning other instruments, the most significant of which being the acoustic guitar which enabled him to start writing and playing his own songs. However, it wasn’t until he bought a loop pedal in 2010 that everything started to come together. In desperate need of some cash to repair his car while on a New Years holiday in 2012, Graeme hit the streets of Gisborne for his first ever loop pedal busking session and the response from the public was so positive he was back on the road in two days. Over the course of 2012 he upped the ante- and started driving from Palmerston North to Wellington for late night busking sessions on Cuba St. Eventually he relocated permanently to Wellington and started touring New Zealand busking and sleeping in his car ‘The Hotel Corona’. A major breakthrough came that summer in Queenstown as he would play nightly busking concerts to crowds of over 200 people by the lakefront. This started to gather what would become a large, loyal and global fan base. His ‘make-it-up-as-you-go’ attitude made for quirky and unique versions of well known songs, generally featuring a rousing solo on the electric fiddle. On the recommendation of a fellow street performer Graeme decided to record an album of these quirky covers. The self released album “Play one we all know” literally hit the streets in 2013 followed by “Play one we all know Vol. II” in late 2014. The latter was funded through a kickstarter campaign that met its $5000.00 target in 27 hours. Both cover albums have sold thousands of copies while busking on the streets of New Zealand. Playing interesting versions of popular songs allowed Graeme James to hone his craft as a recording artist and with over 500 performances over the next two years his captivating live show was earning him fans across the country. Graeme had always written his own songs, but it wasn’t until 2015 that he began performing them live and his original material was met with immediate interest from fans. His first single ‘Alive’ came out at the end of 2015 and was featured on NZ on Air’s ‘New Hits Disc’, The Edge Radio and TV and has been streamed over a million times to date. In 2015 he completed three full New Zealand tours and made two trips across the Tasman for shows on Australia’s East Coast. Recent sold out shows in Wellington, Christchurch, Wanaka, Queenstown and Melbourne are a testament to the momentum that has started to build around his original music. His debut original album ‘News From Nowhere’ is a collection of songs written over the last few years while touring the length and breadth of his homeland. Drawing inspiration from the beauty and immensity of New Zealand’s famous landscapes, the album is intensely visual in its writing and sound. In an attempt to mirror the energy and joy of his live show, he has performed and produced the album in its entirety, with a few notable features from select musicians including a duet with his wife who he met while busking in Wellington. News From Nowhere was released in September 2016. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.