Source: Radio New Zealand
Eighteen years after their debut, New Zealand band Six60 reckon their new album is their best work ever.
On Right Here Right Now , which drops next month, the band rediscover the “beautiful naivety” they had as music-loving flatmates at Otago University, say frontman Matiu Walters and guitarist Ji Fraser.
“I just feel like we’re in our prime and we’ve learnt so much,” Walters tells RNZ’s Summer Times .
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“We were so green, and everything was just so natural. Now it’s coupled with 15 years of working on our craft and learning everything about songwriting,” Walters says.
“When it’s best, it is effortless, and it is easy… [On Right Here Right Now] we caught the spontaneity, but also came in with world-class songs.”
An early photo of Six60: left to right – Matiu Walters, Ji Fraser, Eli Paewai, Chris Mac and Marlon Gerbes.
Audioculture
The album explores the beauty of living in the moment and also the power of gratitude, Walters says, for living in “paradise” and also being a band that’s done “some pretty cool stuff”.
“Maybe that’s becoming fathers and just getting older, but I just feel really good, really excited.”
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“I do think this is the best work we’ve done. It’s for sure the best songs we’ve written… I just feel like we’re in our prime and we’ve learnt so much.
“We’re just really gassed to get out there and be busy and be proficient and just get in front of people.”
The cover of Six60’s upcoming album Right Here Right Now .
Supplied
Being in a band takes a lot of energy and commitment, Walter says, and Six60 – named after their 660 Castle Street flat – have had some “tumultuous times”.
Original Six60 drummer Eli Paewai’s departure last year shocked the remaining members to their core, he says.
It also led them to reflect on what kind of band they really wanted to be.
“We don’t want to fall into the common traps that we felt we have in the past of the tall poppy thing and feeling like we have to leave [New Zealand] and be everything but who we are in order to be successful.”
Three members of Six60 – left to right, Chris Mac, Matiu Walters and Ji Fraser – at the 2025 Aotearoa Music Awards.
RNZ / Marika Khabazi
Losing Paewai from the band felt like losing a brother, says Ji Fraser – “Shout out to Eli. wherever you are out there, mate” – but they were fortunate to find Damian “Damo” Graham.
He attributes Six60’s longevity as a band to what first brought them together as young university students – “being mates and hanging out and enjoying each other and loving music”.
Six60 guitarist Ji Fraser says he was sad when the recording of Right Here Right Now came to an end.
Robin Martin / RNZ
On Right Here Right Now
“We’re so intuitive with each other that it just really flowed.
“It was so much fun and so incredible that I almost felt sad when we walked out of the studio. I was like, ‘Oh, damn, that’s over now forever.’ But at least we have this album now to remember it by.”
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
