You can’t help but smile when you hear that anthem of an earlier summer – Avalance City’s 'Love, Love, Love'. Few Kiwi musicians have managed to roar up the charts and our lives like Dave Baxter’s ear worm, so Cityscape was rapt to catch up with the hit maker ahead of his tour for his third album, My Babylon.

It’s been a long time between albums… The first one I wrote over about four and a half years, and it’s been about three years between albums this time so they’re getting quicker! I sort of needed to take a break after the court case and my wife got pregnant so I thought I’d better get it together and write another album. I wrote for other people for about a year, and then we had a two month holiday and I didn’t think about music at all. So when I got back into the studio I was really excited about being there and really looking forward to mucking about with the drum machine and Juno (an analogue synthesiser). 

My Babylon is quite dark and moody – a departure from the upbeat sound we’re used to from you. It’s a bit more moody than the previous albums – it’s reflective of where I was following the court case. It’s not happy-go-lucky, but it’s not all dark and moody. It’s a departure from folk and more into that 80s synth and electric drums. I was watching Stranger Things at the time and just loved what was going on with the theme tune which was all done on a Juno. I wrote this album over about four months, so it feels more cohesive than the other ones. I didn’t write this one on guitar – it’s a lot of piano and keyboard and of course the Juno. I got really excited by the freshness of that 80s sound – I mean, it’s been done but we’re now doing it in a way that’s new and fresh.

And is there a new one on the way? I’m writing new stuff all the time, and that’s not as moody. This album is really just a blip, a snapshot of where I was at the time.

Congratulations on the birth of your son, by the way. How’s parenthood? My son is five months old and if you’d asked me two weeks ago what being a dad was like, I’d have said it was a breeze and he was amazing. But just in this last week he’s started waking up at night and he’s found this scream that just hits another dimension and gets into your brain, so yeah, sleep is at a premium right now. 

If you could see any live concert at any time, what would it be? Oooh, that’s tough. I’m not what you’d call a Bowie fan, but I’d love to see that spectacle. Actually, I’d do a Peter Gabriel concert from the early 90s when he was into that whole theatrical thing – I just love watching those massive spectacles. 

What can we expect from you on March 14? It’s going to be a solo, intimate show. I might come back later in the year with a band tour, but I love those small intimate shows. They’re how I started. So it’ll be me, a drum machine, and some looping to give it that bigger sound.

Before you go… just where did the Avalanche City name come from? It’s from a song I wrote with a friend, Luke Thompson, years ago. We did an album together and Luke wrote the lyrics and I remember thinking at the time that it was a cool name. I had no idea where I was going or what I was going to do with it, but I knew I’d use it eventually. 

Avalanche City, March 14
Blue Smoke
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