LIPS RELEASE COLLABORATION WITH E FROM EELS + HALLOWEEN SHOW ANNOUNCED
10 October 2024
Aotearoa indie-pop stalwarts LIPS are back with a spooktacular – yeah, we said it – single 'The Wolf', featuring a guest appearance by E from prolific 90s rock act Eels.
The loping, vengeful and very fun track from the award-winning band is here to give 'Thriller' a run for its money this Halloween.
“E had heard us on KCRW in LA, and reached out on Instagram, right around the time we had this track on the boil and were looking for a cool way to end it," recalls Lip Fen Ikner. "I’ve been an Eels fan for the longest time, and was truly honoured to hear from him. I still can’t believe he was nice enough to go along with our nonsense.”
Co-written with screenwriter Ro Bright, with whom LIPS worked on the soundtrack for their film Daffodils, 'The Wolf' sees LIPS heading futher into the theatrical storytelling territory of their acclaimed 2021 album I Don’t Know Why I Do Anything.
“Many of our songs have been inspired by Ro’s screenplays; we like to imagine the music that would be playing in that scene and then write from that,” says lead Lip Steph Brown. “For this song we reverse engineered it, writing the song first then asking Ro to contribute some words. I don’t want to be too specific, as that might ruin the surprise of the track!”
Alongside the single release, LIPS are throwing a Halloween bash on Thursday 31 October at Neck of the Woods in Tāmaki Makaurau, featuring Thee Golden Geese and Cootie Cuties.
Tickets available now via UnderTheRadar
“LIPS have always been distinctive.. pure lightning in a bottle.. a punk sensibility balanced with light, playful melodic tendencies that makes for an oddly fulfilling experience.” – Stuff
TICKETS HERE
ARTIST BIO
LIPS is a four-piece band led by Steph Brown and Fen Ikner. The act won the coveted APRA Silver Scroll Awards | Kaitito Kaiaka in 2012 for their debut single 'Everything To Me', going on to release two EPs before disappearing into the world of theatre and film, not to be heard from for several years. In brief: they toured internationally as musical directors and performers with the award-winning musical stage play Daffodils, and later did the music direction and score for the feature film version of that play, which starred Kimbraand Rose McIver. In 2019, eager to get back to playing original music, Brown and Ikner recruited superstar musicians Ruby Walsh and Maude Morris to join LIPS.
As this new iteration, LIPS released 'Guilty Talk', a single mixed by UMO’s Kody Nielson that went to #1 on NZ’s Student Radio Network. 2020 and Covid led the band to finally finish their long-awaited debut album I Don’t Know Why I Do Anything (2021), which was nominated for the 2022 Taite Music Prize. In 2023, LIPS opened for My Chemical Romance and were Musical Directors for the APRA Silver Scroll Awards | Kaitito Kaiaka. They are currently developing a musical sketch comedy show starring their family band Little Lips
CO-WRITER BIO
Ro Bright (they/them) is a screenwriter, gig-theatre-maker and producer living between Naarm and Tāmaki Makaurau. They are CEO of TILDE, Melbourne's trans and gender diverse film festival, advocating for international trans and gender diverse filmmakers – and the co-creative director of theatre company Bullet Heart Club. A preoccupation with indie recording artists inspired Ro to write Daffodils (awarded a Scotsman Fringe First and named an Irish Times Top 10 show at Edinburgh Festival Fringe), as well as Elizabeth(written with Lisa Crawley, nominated Best Cabaret Melbourne Fringe) and The Hall(written with Pat Irwin from SUSS and The B-52’s). The Edinburgh Guide reviewed Daffodils as "an eloquently, elegiac love poem." ★ ★ ★ ★
In 2019, Ro wrote the screenplay for the feature film adaptation of Daffodils with recording artists LIPS (Steph Brown and Fen Ikner). The film subsequently screened at Busan International Film Festival, MIFF, HIFF and Sydney Film Festival.
Please direct press and programming enquiries to:
Sarah Illingworth
sarah@goodluckmansion.com
+642041387342