Metallers Winterborn hitting home

HEADBANGERS: Masterton-founded metal band Winterborn features, from left, drummer Sarah Scanlan, Masterton guitarist and vocalist Hunter Higginson, and drummer Dhanesh Parmar. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

Masterton musician Hunter Higginson is on the threshold of his second North Island tour that will road test the latest tunes he helped pen as part of his three-piece metal band Winterborn.

Higginson will play King Street Live in his home town as part of an eight-date tour of the North Island alongside fellow Winterborn players Dhanesh Parmer on bass and Sarah Scanlan on drums, who are based in Wellington.

The trio will help launch the March of the Dirty Wizards 2 tour at Valhalla in the capital on Friday and will play Masterton as the second date of the North Island circuit on Saturday.

Winterborn will play tour dates in Wellington, Masterton, Levin, Palmerston North, Napier, Rotorua, Tauranga and Auckland, but will skip dates in Wanganui and New Plymouth as Parmar has other commitments.

Higginson said it was the second dirty wizards tour his band had been invited to join, and the three-piece will this time play eight of ten dates on the latest trip, alongside bands including Wellington-based groove metallers The Heathen Collective, Gunt (of Hamilton) and Napier's DIC.

Masterton band Inhale will open the Masterton show, he said, and he was pleased a fellow Masterton metal band will also get to play for a home town crowd.

He debuted at King Street Live last year on the same bill as Wellington's Bullet Belt when Winterborn was a two-piece unit, and Higginson was rapt to be returning for a home town gig at the same venue this weekend.

Higginson founded Winterborn in the depths of winter last year and the band expanded to a three-piece after Parmar joined and the original drummer was replaced after leaving.

"We play metal inspired by old school death and thrash - all kinds - and we just call ourselves metal. We have pretty much all originals and we'll be playing a 35-minute set on the tour because there's four bands, and we'll throw in a cover for a bit of fun."

The band had been likened to 80s metal bands Death, Morbid Angel, Sepultura and Slayer, he said, and there were "quite a few songs written that we haven't got around to performing yet".

"We're looking at recording when we're done with the tour," he said.

The band had been together for a little over two months and had debuted as a new line-up at the Valhalla venue last month, Higginson said.

"I've known Heathen Collective for years, I met them at a party, and when I got my band up and running, we just started doing gigs together and now we share members, it's even easier."

Higginson said Parmar play with the Heathen Collective as well, and Sarah was "filling in" on drums for the capital city band.

Higginson is the lyricist in the band penning songs "mainly based around the dark underbelly of society and the human race, crafting poetry into distinctive sonic works" and he also writes the guitar lines, with Parmar and Scanlan contributing rhythms, melodies and arrangements.

Tickets to March of the Dirty Wizards 2 at King Street Live on Saturday cost $10 apiece.