“12th Avenue is a 4-piece Rock band consisiting of Mark Haze (vocals/guitar), Bjorn Faree (guitar), Stanley Hill (bass) and Gareth Haze (drums).
Hailing from Cape Town, SA, the band is quickly becoming one of the hottest live acts in SA and with the release of their latest album “Sober”, 12th Avenue are embarking on a huge set of nationwide tours and are getting ready to rock…
The band has just released “Sober”, the third and final chapter in the “Crazy” trilogy, which tells the story of two fictional characters “Anjee” and “12″. The album was recorded at LMX Studios in Constantia, Cape Town, SA and it was produced by top Canadian Producer, Moon. Moon also produced the band’s past two albums, “Crazy” and “Insane”.”
I caught up with Gareth Haze (the drummer) from 12th Avenue and we talked about the new album, touring and Madonna inspired costume changes or lack thereof…
Why did you pick the band name? – The band was named after the street, 12th Avenue, which is where the house is where the band started jamming and still jams in.
How did the band meet? – Mark & I are brothers, but I only started playing with him in 12th Avenue in 2005. Mark met Stanley through friends in another band that Stan was playing for at the time. He joined us in 2007, when we were looking for a new bassist.
What are the new things happening? – We released our third album, “Sober”, earlier this year and have been playing several shows promoting the album. We’ve been very busy and having a lot of fun playing everywhere.
What you’d like to achieve in the music industry?- We’d love to achieve international success. Having our songs played all over the world and getting to tour and play in different countries. It will be awesome to hear people who don’t even speak our language singing our songs and enjoying our music.
What’s the new single your releasing (or will it be a surprise)? – It’s a bit of a surprise. We’ve been thinking about which song to release as our
next single, but haven’t quite come to a decision as of yet…
Do you have a favorite song from the album? – We all have our own individual favourite songs!
Are you touring anytime soon?- At the moment, we’re playing loads of shows in and around Cape Town and then in February next year we’ll be heading up to Johannesburg, as well as Durban, PE and East London. – All the detailswill be on our Official Website, as well as on our myspace page and on our facebook pages.
Who takes the longest to get ready before a gig? – Probably Mark, because he takes a lot of time to warm up his voice. Thankfully we don’t have any Madonna inspired costume changes, so we take fairly quick. (laughs)
Are any of you working on side projects?- Nope. We’re way too busy with 12th Avenue to even think about that right now. But we have helped out individually on other artists’ albums before.
Who talks the most rubbish (at any given moment)? – We all have our days where we talk a lot of rubbish. Although on tour, we always end up talking about Star Wars…
Who is the messiest on tour? – None of us are really messy, although I
generally have the biggest amount of trash to throw away at each stop
because I’m constantly eating on tour…
12th Avenue are an awesome band who are brilliant live and aregoing to be a fixture in the rock scene for a long while!
enjoy their vid for ‘Beds are Burning’ below!
xx
yours in musical madness
