Sign In / Register
By Cathy Aronson
When Thomas Oliver isn’t writing or touring, he can be found mentoring music students. The 31-year-old has been a professional musician for 10 years already and advocates an all-in approach for budding musicians.
“Don’t let anybody tell you to have a Plan B, that’s the first step to failing at something like music,” he says. “It’s such an all-consuming venture, and more competitive than it’s ever been. You don’t stand a chance if you don’t give it your all.”
He says people can get put off at a young age when parents or school career advisors tell them to have a back-up plan. Luckily his parents were supportive musicians and teachers, which explains his penchant for teaching and mentoring.The Hawkes Bay-bred, Wellington-based musician released the world’s first full-length instrumental Weissenborn-brand slide guitar album in 2013, ‘Beneath The Weissenborn’, which debuted at No 6 in the NZ charts.
He has performed in NZ, Australia, Europe and Vietnam, and shared the stage with the likes of Joe Cocker, Eric Clapton and Fat Freddy’s Drop.Thomas says one of his most memorable performances was at the Forget Festival in Budapest in 2014, the world’s third largest festival with 300,000 people. It was also the inspiration for a song on his new album ‘Floating In The Darkness’.
“It was a strange paradox of being in beautiful place and so excited, but also longing for someone else to be there.”
Many of his songs reflect his personal stories about love, loss and longing.“I’m a pretty open person naturally so disclosing my personal struggles in my writing is a natural expression for me.”
His album also has a ‘cosmic theme’ of the vast incomprehensible universe as a metaphor for love. One of the songs ‘If I Move To Mars’ won the 2016 Silver Scroll Award.Making the album itself has been another stage of Thomas’ career as he recorded, produced and mixed it himself over three years, learning about the process as he went.
Released on April 28, Thomas is bringing a full band to perform the album at Leigh Sawmill on May 6 as part of his NZ tour.
