When I speak to Ha the Unclear's Michael Cathro, it's just after the band has made the APRA Silver Scroll's top 20 shortlist. It's the first time the Auckland-based group has made the list, and Cathro is stoked.
"It's really cool to be included among a list of people like Tami Neilson," he says. "You just write songs and hope that some people will hear them, and for someone to think that I was good enough to be included in that list is quite special.
"I've been to the event before … John Campbell was hosting, and to have someone who was so passionate about music was quite infectious. It made the crowd feel it as well."
The honour was for their single Wallace Line, lifted from their new album Invisible Lines. The title alludes to what Cathro describes as a "crisis of knowledge" he was going through – one that reflected both his personal relationships and his studies in psychology.
"Science says certain things, but lived experiences say another thing, and I was just thinking a lot about that stuff and the invisible links between everything – this kind of intricate web of connections that isn't always initially apparent," he says.
