Q&A: Lee Mvtthews’s Tom Lee on New Zealand drum and bass scene, fan interactions and Whanganui

Cassidy Hoskin, Liana Kiriona and Lez Kiriona are organising 3 Days Deep in Whanganui. Photo / Bevan Conley

In 2013 the duo Graham Matthews and Tom Lee joined forces to create Lee Mvtthews, one of New Zealand’s top drum & bass acts. Performing at 3 Days Deep in Whanganui this Sunday, Tom Lee answers questions from Annabel Reid.

How did you both meet and when did you realise that you wanted to start playing music together?

We met in 2012 at MAINZ in Auckland, which is the Music and Audio Institute of New Zealand. It is sadly no longer around, but we met there and we were studying DJ and electronic music production.

I’d just moved up from Christchurch and Graham had moved up from Tauranga, and we both sort of met within that class that year. Very quickly we sort of realised we had similar-ish music tastes.

There’s actually a Facebook post on I think on Graham’s wall that I did years and years ago being like, “hey bro, is it all good if I come over after class and we work on some music together?”

And that was way back when. I think halfway through the year we sort of realised that we enjoyed sharing the workload and just creating together was really fun. We carried on and now, however many years later, here we are.

What is the most memorable fan interaction you’ve had so far?

It’s hard because we get quite a lot, so it’s really hard to pin down just one.

I’ll just generalise and say that people are so, so nice and friendly.

They’re so ready to go out of their way to tell stories about how songs have really affected them or helped them through a tough time or whether just one of our songs, for them, affiliates with a particular time in their life.

Whether that’s going on holiday with a bunch of mates, you hear all of these different stories from different people. It’s just a super, super cool experience. So grateful to have people who are just willing to share their stories with us.

Do you have anything you like to do before you go out on stage and perform?

It depends. If it is a really big one, I get a little loud and I sort of start yelling and psych myself up a bit whereas Graham definitely quite likes to go and sit down in a more quiet environment and sort of just chill.

I think that is a little pre-show requisite for us as well. We sort of hate being in a loud environment because obviously when you are at a gig, it’s always loud.

Having just like five seconds to gather yourselves before you go on stage is pretty good. I would say five to 10 minutes to ourselves, to chill before we go on stage.

Have you had any mishaps happen while you have been performing?

There’s been times where the equipment has sort of gone wrong on us or there’s a thing on CDJ’s where they go into emergency loop mode and it basically just sounds like a CD player stuck, it just keeps skipping.

That happened at Golden Lights in Auckland in front of like 10,000 people. Having a microphone is really good in that situation because one of you can deal with the problem on the equipment, and then the other one of you can sort of have a conversation with the crowd and pull things back under control.

Most of the time if you make a mistake or there’s something that hasn’t gone quite to plan, you just need a poker face. You need to just go straight through it and just carry on. Most people I would say don’t notice.

Where have you enjoyed performing the most?

Rhythm and Vines is pretty special. This year just gone was I think one of the biggest years that they’ve ever had in terms of attendees. We played after Peking Duck, before Sub Focus on the main stage.

That was probably one of the biggest crowds I’ve ever played to.

In December, we went to the Your Paradise festival in Fiji. We played on a rather large catamaran in the middle of the Pacific, floating around. That was pretty special as well.

Who would you have at your dream after party or ‘kick-ons’?

Theo Von, FISHER and Miley Cyrus.

What do you think of New Zealand’s drum and bass culture?

I think it’s amazing. My partner Molly and I spent from about June to September over in the northern hemisphere, predominantly in the UK. Graham came and met me for a few shows that we played over in Europe and America at certain points, but I was out there for the whole three months.

It was really interesting to just observe the difference between like our scene and say like the UK scene, what it’s like in Europe, what it’s like in America, and I think what we have in New Zealand is really, really special.

I feel like everyone’s quite accepting. You can hone in on your particular style. I think Kiwis in general as an audience, we’re quite happy with liquid drum and bass, we’re happy with like really, really heavy neurofunk, we’re happy with dance floor, we’re happy with jump up.

As long as it’s drum and bass, I don’t think people care. Whereas you go into other places around the globe and I feel like it can be a little bit more skewed in one direction. And again, everyone’s quite friendly. Everyone’s so happy to say hello and spark up a chat.

It can be a complete stranger, but within a short amount of time, I feel like everyone’s pretty happy and free to have a chat. New Zealand drum and bass scene all the way.

What song or artist would you consider to be your guilty pleasure?

I know more words to Shania Twain I Feel Like A Woman than I’d care to say, so we’ll go with Shania Twain.

If you could learn any new skill instantly, what would it be and why?

Probably like coding or something like that because you’re never going to be without a job if you can code and if you can code really, really well. The whole future of humanity is moving in this sort of tech way, but to actually physically go and learn that myself, I would hate it.

If I just knew how to do it and I didn’t have to think about it, I could then work from anywhere in the world, on my laptop, and just code for a couple hours a day and probably live on a beautiful beach somewhere and not do much else.

Some people feel there is not much of a nightlife in Whanganui, do you have any general suggestions on how to spice up a night out?

A packed venue isn’t necessarily a good venue, especially if you don’t really know what is going on musically. Just because there are a lot of people there, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a vibe. I would say getting out and about early goes a long way.

Enjoy the sunshine if you can in a nice environment outdoors. Earlier the start I would say the better. Not much good happens after 3am. Pair this nicely with a decent meal, so you can have a bit more stamina throughout the evening.

What do you like about visiting Whanganui?

I like the architecture, some of the buildings are quite cool. Me and Molly went for a bit of a lazy walk around the town and I thought that was really cool.