'We headlined The Shire - not many bands can say that'

The Herald Scotland

18-05-2025

They've had four number one singles in their native New Zealand - not bad for a group that started busking on the streets.
Guitarist Ben O'Leary, sitting alongside bassist Sam Thomson tells The Herald: "It started just with Matt and Shaan, who are the other two in the band.
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"Matt's the drummer and Shaan's the singer and also the sax player (Drax being a portmanteau of drums and sax) and they just started busking on just the streets of Wellington doing jazz.
"Sam was living with them at the time and he started busking and it was just the three of them playing other people's music for a while, playing pop tunes as a saxophone trio.
"They decided they wanted to start writing their own music and wanted someone to play chords, I was just kind of milling around and, well, I knew a few chords."
Sam jumps in: "He's learned a few since then too, which is cool."
Drax Project performing live (Image: Ashlea Caygill) Ben laughs: "We actually stopped busking when I joined, I think they didn't want to split the profits with me."
'Woke Up Late' was first released in 2017, going six times platinum in New Zealand as it reached number one.
It caught global attention though when a version was released featuring the American singer and actress Hailee Steinfeld, going top 30 on the U.S pop chart and racking up hundreds of millions of streams.
Sam says: "It was a pretty crazy situation. I mean, the song started off in Ben's bedroom.
"We listened to it, were like, 'oh, this is like a good song' but we hadn't really thought too much about it.
"It's definitely taken us to some places that, at the time that it was written, we would never have expected. It's been an awesome ride."
Ben adds: "It was a slow burn, though.
"We'd been around for about four or five years as the four of us, we'd had a bit of recognition in New Zealand and then 'Woke Up Late' was just getting cranked on the radio for six months.
"We opened for Ed Sheeran maybe five months after we released that song, we had three nights opening for him in Auckland in front of 40,000 people."
New Zealand is famous for many things: Maori culture, the All Blacks, Manuka honey and, of course, Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
Thanks to that franchise, Drax Project have a pretty unique claim to fame.
Ben says: "We were fortunate enough to be involved in a small part of the latest film, The War of the Rohirrim.
"It's pretty random how it came about. Some friends of ours who have done some music videos for us were really heavily involved in the making of that film and they asked us to do a demo for one of the songs, kind of just as a proof of concept like three, four years ago now.
"We kind of did that and forgot about it.
Drax Project (Image: Ashlea Caygill) "Maybe August last year or something, they got in touch: 'Hey, so we actually really like the demo and want to put it in the film. Can you guys do it in the next week?'.
"Being from New Zealand we're all massive Lord of the Rings fans. Matt, our drummer, particularly could probably quote every film verbatim and he's actually got some off-screen lines in the new film.
"The premiere was in Hobbiton, New Zealand, and we played there. Andy Serkis was there, and it was pretty crazy to meet him.
"We headlined The Shire, which is what we like to tell people now. Not many bands can say they've headlined The Shire."
The group have played massive support slots in Glasgow before, but it's a headline show in a tiny venue which stands out the most.
Ben says: "Just before Covid we did our own show at this place called Broadcast.
"It was downstairs in this little dingy spot, and honestly we quote that as a favourite show.
"I remember we got there, we went early to see the support bands, and the stairs to that venue were ridiculously steep, and I kind of stumbled down into it, all the crowd are around the perimeter and we're kind of just in the middle, standing there like, 'what do we do?'.
"We got on stage and the roof was really small, I kept standing on cables, and they'd pull out, so I'd have to put them back in.
"So we weren't expecting a great gig.
"But... the energy! Everyone was just absolutely up for it, and knew heaps of the lyrics, and was singing along, going crazy. It was honestly, one of our top five gigs ever in that little room. So we can't wait to come back to Scotland, and King Tut's looks like a really dope venue, really iconic."
Sam adds: "Glasgow goes hard, we're definitely pumped.
"We really try to go as hard as we can and if the crowd is up for that, and then gives that back, it's just really fun."
Drax Project will be at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut on May 20. Tickets are available here.