DRAX PROJECT

From busking cover songs on the streets of Wellington to having their original songs be streamed
57 million times on Spotify, Drax Project are rightfully living the dream they have worked
tirelessly for. The New Zealand quartet of musicians turned friends— Shaan Singh, Ben
O’Leary, Matt Beachen and Sam Thomson—are taking the world of pop by an unforeseen storm.

Having met as students of music school in their hometown, Singh (saxophone) and Beachen
(drums) started busking cover songs as a duo on the streets, only to be joined later on by
Thomson (bass) and additionally, by O’Leary (guitar), as the band started to steer more toward
original material.

After releasing their first and second extended play between 2014 and 2016, the ensemble gained
exposure and recognition as their single “Cold” reached number one on Spotify’s viral chart.
They even caught the attention of pop sensation, Lorde, who recruited the fellow musicians to
open her Auckland shows during the Melodrama World Tour in 2017. In November of the same
year, the band released what is now their breakout single, “Woke Up Late,” which immediately
gained popularity across New Zealand. The track is now double platinum, according to RIANZ,
and has collected over 18 million streams on Spotify since its release.

Off of the success of “Woke Up Late,” Drax Project continued to manifest their hard-work and
talent by supporting well-known acts like Ed Sheeran and Camila Cabello and releasing their
debut EP, Noon, featuring a new version of “Woke Up Late,” with singer Hailee Steinfeld. The
re-release with Steinfeld not only gained the band repute in the U.S., but also managed to crack
the Top 30 of Billboard’s Pop Songs airplay chart. This past month, they have released the
single, “All This Time,” and now, the group is gearing up for their debut album, working
vigorously to give fans all the unreleased music they’ve been teasing with for the past few
months.

In a conversation with Listen Mag at the ------------ the band opens up about their humble
beginnings, touring around Europe, their dynamic with each other, the expansion of their
success, and album release.

At the beginning, you started off with busking, what pushed the transition to making
original music?

Matt: I think we found out after a while, [after] we played a lot of covers, we knew that there was
like maybe a ceiling to that. We were still playing a lot of covers while we were writing music,
but we were just experimenting. We weren’t like: Sweet! NOW we do originals. Like it was 90%
covers and 10% originals. Obviously now we play a lot more original music…felt like it was a
natural progression to start writing your own stuff. After playing covers and seeing people go
crazy, like “hey, we could do that!” And we couldn’t. We couldn’t do that.

Ben: We were writing some terrible songs. Some very bad music.
Sam: We were all individually writing our own music but the fact that we were writing our
music and doing the cover stuff, it kind of came together.

So, was writing original music always the plan?

Shaan: Nah, the plan was always…there was no plan.

Matt: There was no plan, we were literally like straight performers having fun. It wasn’t even a
serious band.

Shaan: We were studying music, so we were taking the music seriously but we weren’t like
seriously pursuing like pop music or hip-hop or anything like that.

Ben: We were kind of like, we play a show, in the end we get asked to play another one after
that. And another one after that.

Shaan: The first music we made was because Ben’s friend had a project at college, and he
needed to record like an EP so we were like, “sweet, we’ll write some music for your EP that
you’re recording!” And then we released it as our music, obviously.

Ben: And then we just kept writing.

All of you play instruments, but only one of you sings as the lead, did anyone else ever try
to take that part?

Shaan: Ben is singing in some of our new stuff that’s coming out soon.

Matt: We all sing when we do like acoustic. If we’re playing an acoustic show, we all sing
harmonies. Actually, we’re all singing in the acoustic “Woke Up Late.”

While composing a song, what tends to come first to you? Lyrics? Melodies?

Shaan: I think majority of the time, it’s like rift, a guitar rift. Sometimes it’s a melody, but I
would say like 80 to 90% of the time it’s a rift.

Matt: It’s probably easy to write lyrics and melody to a guitar, not a drum beat. It’d be pretty
hard to make something out of nothing just to a drum beat.

Shaan: Historically, it’s been a rift.

Sam: And none of us really play piano as our first instrument. I feel like piano or guitar are kind
of the easiest things to write songs to.

Ben: We got some really good advice from some friends of ours in New Zealand, who are in a
band called six60, and they were like if you can write a song and play it through just singing and
with a guitar or piano, that’s a sign of a good song. If it sounds good like that. So, we kind of
took that on board. When we’re writing we just try and finish the song just with like a guitar rift
or write it around it and put something on top. And then sometimes we take out like the rift that
we started with.

When you guys create music, do you all have to be in the same room or do you share ideas
separately?

Sam: At the moment, we should all be there. I mean sometimes, it might be like two of us. For
instance, Shaan and Ben started off “Woke Up Late,” as an example, and then ended up bringing
it into like the group of all of us and, me and Matt made our parts and then we all wrote lyrics
together.

Matt: Generally, we’re all in the same room when we write lyrics.

Ben: We have one like main room and then some of us will leave for an hour and then come
back like “what you guys think of this?” Every aspect of music has been like talked through
everyone and argued about.

Shaan: It’s pretty collaborative.

Sam: And sometimes we write each other’s parts as well. It’s not necessarily always, I only do
bass and I don’t do anything else.

Matt & Shaan: We share, sharing is caring!

Let’s talk about touring, you guys have done a lot of it. You opened for Ed, Lorde and
Camila, what was that experience like?

Sam: They were all quite different experiences.

Shaan: The Camila tour was like an actual like full tour. We only did Ed Sheeran and Lorde as
an opening slot for those artists in Auckland in New Zealand. Lorde was one night and Ed
Sheeran was three nights.

Matt: But the Camila tour was around Europe, and that was the first time we had left New
Zealand really as a band. So that eye-opening and seeing all the crazy awesome cities around the
world. Eternally grateful to Camila for having us.

Shaan: All of those experiences had different feelings and impacts. Like Ed Sheeran in Auckland
was like three nights of 40,000 people. Camila’s tour was like 5-10,000 venues so it was very
different. And in countries their people’s first language isn’t English, obviously. Like Paris, and
Amsterdam, and Spain, so that was probably the most eye-opening thing we’ve done as a band
for sure.

Ben: We didn’t meet Lorde when we opened for her but Ed Sheeran and Camila, they are just the
nicest people. Ed Sheeran in particular, we spent more time with him than we did with Camila,
and he was just so down to earth. Almost painfully down to earth. Introduced himself like “Hey
guys I’m Ed!” Invited us out to dinner and had like a full 20-minute conversation about giving us
advice and mistakes he’d made and things that we should try to not do.

Sam: It was just really cool to hear from somebody who works at the level he is, and also, he
came from a very similar situation.

Matt: He started busking, too.

Sam: So that was quite cool. We actually got sent a video of “Woke Up Late” being played
before his show in Osaka in Japan, last week. So that’s cool.

Shaan: So, I don’t know if he had anything to do that with that but

Ben: We like to think so!

What was your favorite city that you played?

Shaan: I think my favorite gig was Madrid. My favorite city was Barcelona.

Matt: Amsterdam, or Barcelona.

Shaan: Oh, Germany was awesome. Everyone got their phone lights out, they love doing that in
Germany. So that was crazy.

Sam: I really enjoyed Berlin. Madrid was definitely the highest energy. The biggest crowd as
well.

How do you guys manage your time and stay sane between touring, recording music,
performing shows, etc.?

Shaan: Time management? I think noise cancelling headphones help. When you’re on a plane or
a bus or a car, just being able to not listen to anything is very nice.

Ben: We were friends before we were a band. So, our manager, our soundman, we’re all really,
really good friends to the point where there’s no hesitation to tell someone that you need space or
if there’s an argument, you just sort everything out then and there There’s no like grudges.

Shaan: Yeah, no passive aggressiveness. It’s either passive or aggressive, which is really good.

Sam: Well I would say assertive as opposed to aggressive.

Shaan: There we go, that’s what I meant!

Sam: But also, the four of us have all lived together in some combination in the same house at
some point. Not just on tour, you know.
Matt: It wasn’t like an overnight thing where we suddenly are in these crazy places. We started
off literally playing to like no one in some little bars and stuff, it’s been a slow journey. Keeps us
down to earth.

Shaan: We’re good with each other.

Let’s talk about your records. “Woke Up Late” is double platinum in New Zealand now,
do you find it challenging to achieve the same kind of response in other countries, here, for
example? Is there any kind of pressure?

Matt: The only obvious challenge is more people. It’s difficult to reach everyone, but it’s been
amazing. We’ve been hearing our song around U.S. radio a lot and people are sending us videos
saying, “oh just heard your song in like Amsterdam, and Chicago and Malaysia.” Crazy stuff.

Sam: In New Zealand there are, maybe like two or three commercial stations that play top 40 pop
music.

Matt: There’s not that many, you guys have like 3,000.

Sam: Yeah what Matt was saying, it’s just a lot harder to reach everybody.

Matt: Just takes longer. But I feel like good songs can travel, hopefully ours can too.

Shaan: Our song’s been out for a while and it’s like hitting the States now, which is crazy.

Better late than never.

Shaan: Exactly, no rush.

So, what is your favorite song you have worked on or made?

Shaan: Favorite song we’ve made? Probably something that isn’t released.

Sam: I really enjoy playing “Prefer,” live. It’s fun but it’s just nice to play too.

Ben: Yeah definitely songs we haven’t put out yet. There’s an album coming out this year, not
sure when but as soon as we can.

Shaan: There’s gonna be a whole bunch of new songs, and we’re so excited.

Ben: Some songs that we’ve been writing for like two years, actually finished. Some songs
we’ve been playing for all that tour around Europe with Camila. We just can’t wait for them to
be out.
Shaan: We can’t wait to get them mixed and mastered because then I’ll know which one’s my
favorite. Because right now they are all unfinished. We’re doing some small shows in Europe
and then coming back to finish the album.

Last question, your favorite song at the moment?

Ben: Probably Monopoly by Ariana. Didn’t play at Coachella though, was definitely
disappointed.

Shaan: My favorite song at the moment: Solo, Frank Ocean, Blonde. Still good.

Matt: Mine would be right now, Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash.

Sam: Mine’s TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME however many tootimes there are by the 1975.

Ben: That’s a playlist!