Rust in Pocket

Rip It Up, Issue 243, 1 November 1997, Page 10

Rust in Pocket

Nadir can spin a good yarn, and on the surface they appear to lead a charmed life. The former Nelson, now Palmerston North based outfit unveiled their debut album Rust in August. The trio began a New Zealand tour in September, and have plans to continue gigging nationwide until February. Nadir made Rust in Nelson, at bassist Duncan Millar’s flat, with recording equipment owned by singer/guitarist Rob Lambert. After Rust was put to tape, Lambert sold his studio gear to fund the manufacturing of the album. Initially, 500 copies of the record were pressed, however an irreparable fault with the cases saw the production company hand over an extra 500 units to Nadir free of charge. Lambert believes the total

cost of Rust marginally exceeds $lO 000, and he estimates the band has sold 250 copies. “They’ve been selling well at gigs, a lot of people are spending their last 20 bucks on our CD instead of using it to buy piss.” Musically, the majority reaction to Rust places Nadir in the Metallica camp, a comparison Lambert can live with. “We don’t mind too much, as long as it’s not compared to Load.” Upon the release of Rust, Nadir sold their car and household belongings, shifted to Palmerston North, and embarked on their ambitious touring schedule. Nadir operate on a touring budget of SBOO per week, says Lambert, that is soaked up by house rental, the PA and lighting rig the band take on the road, and a small van Nadir has on HP. To date, the trio have had zero accommodation costs while absent from their Palmy base, as drummer Kori Barnett has welcoming relatives spread throughout the lower North Island. Nadir have endured plenty of hiccups while on tour, including cancelled gigs and bad planning, that has seen them travel halfway across the country to do sparsely attended gigs in small towns, before turning round and heading home. But Lambert stands by Nadir’s decision to perform in the wops. “We decided to do an out of the way tour after playing Kaikoura on a Wednesday and it went off! The only way to get our name out there is to keep on touring. No matter how many people turn up, we’ll keep on doing it — if there’s only 10 people, hopefully they’re 10 happy people who’ll tell other people about us.” Nadir aren’t blessed with rich parents and don’t deal drugs, points out Lambert. So what will they do when the money dries up? “We try not to think of those sort of things... but that’s gonna be a hard one. My girlfriend’s got a student loan so maybe we can dip into that.” Until that eventuality arises, Nadir will simply keep on truckin’. “One of the main reasons we’re doing this,” explains Lambert, “is because we don’t want to get a job and work, we want to be in a band and tour, and I can’t see anything else that I’d rather be doing.”

JOHN RUSSELL