Musician finds kindred spirits

EMMA DANGERFIELD

STUDIO PERFROMANCE: Scott Bowater has created a studio at home in which he and band 4 Sure have recroded their first album.

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Scott Bowater has had a long love affair with music, having taken up the ukulele at the age of eight, progressing to the guitar at 10, followed by bass guitar and drums.

"I've really been singing and dancing and tapping things ever since I can remember," he says.

Add to that playing in school bands in his home town of Palmerston North and moving on to professional covers bands, Scott has pretty much covered all the bases as far as performing goes. He has travelled around the lower North Island backing celebrities including opening for the Exponents and done the "corporate stuff" as far as he can take it.

Scott always wanted to do his own work but was too influenced by other musicians when he was working in covers bands so in the mid-90s he stopped altogether, taking a hard line to concentrate on developing his own music and find his own feel.

"It hasn't been easy. You have to be ten times the musician to succeed with original music than you do playing covers – it's much harder to sell your own stuff."

But his confidence has grown and he credits much of that to his move to Kaikoura six years ago. Having other good musicians around him has also been huge, and he has gone from writing two to three songs a year to turning out 20 to 30.

"In Palmerston North people would focus on how much money they were going to make, whereas here I found musicians were interested in the music."

Having found some like-minded souls, Scott began to jam, firstly with bassist Allen Rae five years ago. From there, the band 4 Sure was formed and have grown in strength and popularity ever since, culminating in the recent release of their first album, Live At Scotty's.

The band now consists of Scott on lead vocals, guitars, percussion and bass, Allen on bass, Chris Lidgard on trumpet, trombone, harmonica and vocals, Alex Thompson on keyboard, Alex Ford on drums and of course not forgetting the backing vocals provided by Scott's partner Yvonne and daughter Helena. The album was created with help from a few other names and Scott says they are grateful for the support of those people as well as for the local support they get whenever they play live, as well as local radio station Blue FM which has played much of their music.

All the music on the album was written by Scott who was also the brains behind the ideas for the lyrics, although these were often a collaborative effort.

Live At Scotty's was recorded at Scott's studio which he built at home specifically for the purpose.

He would be happy to hire out the space to other artists wishing to record, and share it with any other musicians willing to work with him as he is always keen to play music with anyone. Scott has learnt the production programme from scratch, which he says has taken a massive amount of time, but now he knows he can get better and quicker and is keen for all the practise he can get.

He is working on music to send to producers in the United States, and will be busy playing over the summer with three gigs a week at the Strawberry Tree. The band is also looking to play quite a bit together over the summer, with a view to releasing another album at the end of the season. Scott says he already has enough material for another three to four albums so there will be no stopping him now.

4 Sure's album Live At Scotty's can be bought at the Strawberry Tree and Kaikoura Surf for $20.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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