A new Marshall in town

Liam Finn. Yep, know him.

Shayne Carter. Yep, recognise him.

Scribe. Yeah, yeah, of course.

But Marshall Smith? Who the heck is he?

He is one of the entrants in the APRA Silver Scroll Awards to be announced in Wellington on Tuesday.

The annual song of the year competition boasts some of New Zealand's top songwriters, but has anyone heard of Marshall Smith, or Marshall as he prefers to be known.

Marshall is from the band The New Freedom whose song Grey Boy is nominated for the award alongside the likes of Scribe's Not Many, Dimmer's Getting What You Give, and goodshirt's Fiji Baby.

Auckland-based Marshall writes and produces original music for other recording artists, as well as films, TV and advertising campaigns, covering everything from pop to cha-cha to country.

Recently he was one of eight finalists in the National Tennessee Songwriting Awards.

"It was a country-blues kind of track and it basically had slide guitar in it, so I think they quite liked that."

Marshall rates Grey Boy as one of the darkest tracks he's written but he rates his chances at the Silver Scrolls.

He says in terms of songwriting ability he is "up there".

Although he has the utmost respect for his fellow songwriters he believes the Scribe and Dimmer tracks aren't so much based on a strict song structure, but more of a groove.

"They're pretty basic," he says.

Don't get him wrong, he's not being catty, just competitive, and rightly so. Does he know any of his competitors?

"I know Rodney [from goodshirt] vaguely, I think my sister went out with him. I guess now's a good time to have a few free drinks and say, 'Hi'."

So far as the nominees go, here's how we see their chances:

Dimmer, Getting What You Give: Shayne Carter is deserving of a songwriting award since he's already written some of this country's best songs while in Straitjacket Fits. But this song slopes along, rather than standing up.

Scribe, Not Many: Since everyone in New Zealand - even great aunt Beryl - knows the words to this song, then it has to be one of the favourites. But hip-hop/R&B act Nesian Mystik won it last year so are the judges game to give it to hip-hop two years running? It's all a bit predictable but Scribe has to be the hot favourite.

Betchadupa, The Bats Of Darkwell Lane: These guys are far too young to call a song that. So points off there, but songwriter Liam Finn has quite a pedigree and Bats is a challenging wee pop song to say the least.