Pop Mx on record

Press, 5 December 1985, Page 18

Pop Mx on record

By

NEVIN TOPP

Recording is taking a high priority with Pop Mechanix, the reformed group that this week released a four-track, selftitled EP.

Paul Scott says that the group plans to release a single and an album next year, and possibly another EP.

“We’re lucky that we have got a record company (Hit Singles) that is prepared to allow us to do these things.”

Since returning to New Zealand from Australia and reforming, Pop Mechanix have deliberately kept a low profile.

“We have been trying to keep a low profile because we have a lot to do before we start leaping up and down and saying ‘here we are’.”

“We want to prove our-

selves in a live situation first, let people come and make up their own minds rather than read something about us.” But there has been more interest than was expected since the group has reformed, including people who have not heard the band’s old songs. When the group broke up in Australia it was not because the members did not get on, but because of the lack of money and the constant travel, Scott says.

Paul Mason and Paul Scott stayed together writing songs and formed a new group, Virginia Purple, which is the subject of one song on the new EP, but it never achieved what Scott wanted in terms of recording.

Later Andrew McLennan, the former Pop Mechanix vocalist, arrived in Sydney

for personal reasons and Scott says that he and McLennan got together for a bit of a musical session and enjoyed what they did. So the band was reformed, ' although about three days before the band was to make its comeback, Chris Moore decided he did not want to go through the hassle of what the band had been through previously of facing big costs, a lack of money, and the travel, Scott says. So Brent Williams, the Christchurch guitarist, replaced Moore in the band.

The band has definite goals this time with an emphasis on recording, which was the ambition of Virginia Purple, he says. Pop Mechanix expect to be back in Christchurch before Christmas and hope to play in the city early in the New Year.