South Canty singer’s school friend inspires single
Former Mountainview High School pupil and budding pop star Shayna King has released a new single, which draws inspiration from an old school friend and her travel experiences.
King - aka Shayna - released her latest single Miles Away on April 13, with an accompanying NZ on Air music video.
The singer-songwriter, 27, who is now Christchurch-based, moved from Motueka to South Canterbury when she was 12, initially attending Geraldine High School for two years, and then Mountainview for four years.
‘‘Miles Away was inspired by my best friend, Charlotte Millman, also of Mountainview High School, who was travelling around Central America a couple of years ago,’’ she explained.
‘‘Our long-distance conversations made me think of the contrast between the beautiful travelgrams we see online and the sometimes difficult situations we may face in reality when journeying so far from home,’’ King said.
‘‘Travelling the globe with a sole companion and seeing the best and worst in each others’ characters, as you are both exhausted, low on money, and feeling like outsiders who don’t fit into the fast-paced rhythm of a foreign city, helps you see the beauty in the chaos and find the fantasy in the mundane.’’
King started learning to play the guitar and writing songs, aged 6, and formed bands throughout primary and high school.
She moved to Christchurch in 2007 and began attending open ‘‘mics’’, which soon turned into regular gig bookings.
In 2014 King released her debut album, entitled The Day Is Young.
Miles Away was co-written by M Basa and produced by Josh Fountain.
King said she had spent the past two years ‘‘purely focused on writing and developing’’ her songs, and ‘‘crafting’’ her sound.
The music video accompanying her new electro-pop single was filmed and directed by Kiwi director Shae Sterling.
King said she planned to release ‘‘a lot more music in the very near future’’.
Shayna’s first single, Broken, which was released in 2012, was written at her family home in Pleasant Point several years earlier, when she was just 15.