Kiwi singer struggled with instant rise to fame

Dave Baxter from Avalanche City struggled with being catapulted to fame by his hit single Love Love Love.

Dave Baxter tells Paula Yeoman writing new material was hard, but he is thrilled with the result.

Dave Baxter, the one-man band that is Avalanche City, would never regret the success that came from his 2011 debut single Love Love Love. It was in the charts for a mind-blowing 19 weeks and won him some of the country's most prestigious music awards. But that success also stunted Baxter's creativity when he sat down to write his new album, We Are for the Wild Places.

"People say that album number two is really hard. And I actually didn't think it was going to be because my first was so easy to write. But it was incredibly hard," Baxter says.

The down-to-earth singer-songwriter struggled with the fame that followed Love Love Love, which was initially sidelined by radio stations and picked up only after it became a campaign tune for TVNZ. "We were pushing it to radio for, like, two months and it wouldn't work. The TV2 thing really helped it on its way. But it was weird going from it having no success to it suddenly being in everyone's living rooms.

"For the first year or two years, I wasn't crazy famous, but I was still being recognised here and there, which was also kind of weird."

So when Baxter set about writing new songs, he felt burdened by the pressure of expectation. "It's a strange feeling when you know people are going to listen to your work." He found it impossible to write from that perspective. "A lot of it was me trying to figure out how to write from in here," he says, putting his hand on his chest.

"After that two-year period, people started forgetting about me and that was actually really nice and I started to feel normal again. I think that was when I started to be able to write like me again."

The album's first single, Inside Out, is a beautifully layered slow-burner that perhaps isn't quite the catchy earworm that Love Love Love was. But it's arguably better and its subtlety sets a warm and atmospheric vibe that's continued throughout.

Baxter describes it as a personal album, adding that some of that initial struggle in writing it was because he couldn't relate to the songs. However, those that made the final cut have meaning. And he's pretty damned pleased with what he's made.

"I just got the CD and I was listening to it on the way here in the car and I was like, 'This is a good album, I am happy with what I've done', which is rare as an artist," he says.

For a perfectionist such as Baxter, that's saying something.

We Are for the Wild Places is out now.