Wildly successful Kiwi you’ve never heard of
He’s played Lollapalooza and Coachella, but Baynk is only just getting started, writes Chris Schulz.
Jock Nowell-Usticke was buying booze in a Budapest supermarket when he got the phone call that would change his life. ‘‘It was maybe the biggest surprise I’ve ever had,’’ he says. The call was from Mark Kneebone, a veteran local promoter who, back in 2016, was putting together the lineup for the Auckland leg of the Laneway music festival.
Kneebone had a simple question for NowellUsticke: Would he like to perform at his festival?
Nowell-Usticke was taken aback. He’d only just started making music and was still figuring out his sound. He’d never played live before and had just one song available on the internet.
‘‘I didn’t quite know if someone was playing a joke on me, or not,’’ he says.
Now, Nowell-Usticke, performing under the name Baynk, is one of New Zealand’s most popular electronic artists, with performances at two of the world’s most respected music festivals, Lollapalooza in Chicago and Coachella in Palm Springs, under his belt.
From his base in Los Angeles, Nowell-Usticke releases new music regularly, a brand of upbeat and summery electronica that has taken off. He tours regularly, is an in-demand festival performer and is learning how to DJ – a potentially lucrative side-hustle.
But, when Kneebone called him, music wasn’t a job for Nowell-Usticke. It wasn’t even a dream. Music was just a hobby as the Hawke’s Bay-bred student finished up his chemical engineering degree in Christchurch.
Nowell-Usticke figured that, like his peers, he’d wind up on an oil rig, or in a fertiliser plant. It was his destiny – but he wasn’t happy about it.
‘‘The idea of doing any of those jobs was such a turn-off,’’ he says. ‘‘I kind of just panicked. I just went, ‘I need to figure something out now.’ ’’
Around the same time, he’d made more than 70 songs on his laptop, numbering them and placing them in a folder together. He didn’t think too much of them and believed music would remain just a hobby.
‘‘I was just trying to make something that was super different. It was a mix of underground house and commercial, tacky EDM [electronic dance music]. I really loved Flume and tropical house,’’ he says.
But he kept making music, and his 77th song, a shimmering poolside jam with silky synths and warped vocal samples, stood out.
Nowell-Usticke liked it a lot, so he called it Sundae, entered it into a competition, then posted it to Soundcloud. But no-one tuned in.
‘‘I just assumed if the song didn’t do well, then I wouldn’t have a career in music, I should probably stop, so I stopped,’’ he says.
‘‘No-one really listened to it [so] I kind of gave up.’’ He moved on, leaving New Zealand with a group of mates to travel around Europe.
When Kneebone called him, Nowell-Usticke was in Budapest, stocking up on alcohol at the local supermarket in preparation for the seven-day music festival Sziget.
Kneebone had heard Sundae – and loved it. ‘‘You could hear the ambition in what he was trying to do,’’ he says. ‘‘You could hear an artist trying to find his own voice. There’s something incredibly appealing about that.’’
He made him an offer on the spot. ‘‘I said to him, ‘Look, if we book you, can you play? Do you have a show?’ ’’ says Kneebone. ‘‘He said, ‘I’ll make one.’ Obviously he wasn’t an idiot, he seemed confident enough, that’s how it started.’’
So, in January of 2016, Nowell-Usticke returned to New Zealand and performed his first live show as one of the opening acts at that year’s Laneway festival.
Kneebone remembers his bonkers performance well. Nowell-Usticke added some original flourishes, bringing his sister on stage to sing vocals. Then, something else happened.
‘‘He broke out the saxophone and started doing some Kenny G s...,’’ says Kneebone. ‘‘The saxophone could be awful – if it’s done badly – but it’s such a key part of the show. He does it so well – he owns it.’’
Speaking to Stuff from his base in Los Angeles, Nowell-Usticke knows how important that phone call from Kneebone was.
‘‘It’s pretty surreal. I was quite lucky that someone found [that song] . . . it was luck.’’
Bangers? Nowell-Usticke doesn’t make them. Many of the biggest artists making electronic music these days, like Flume, DJ Snake and Skrillex, pummel punters with noise and smash them over the head with drops.
As Baynk, Nowell-Usticke has a different approach. Recording on his laptop, he makes glitchy, uplifting songs full of intricate drum patterns and chirpy vocal loops.
They’re songs that sound crisp and fresh, evoking the feeling of pulling on a crisp white shirt warmed by an iron, or diving into a cool pool on a hot summer’s day.
Often his songs come to him at awkward times. Nowell-Usticke can be out with friends, or eating at his favourite ramen restaurant, when a melody comes to him.
‘‘It will come randomly,’’ he says. ‘‘I’ll try to go where someone can’t hear me so I won’t be embarrassed . . . I’ll run into the bathroom, or go outside.’’
Once he’s on his own, he’ll sing into his phone. ‘‘I beatbox it. I transcribe exactly how I thought of it in the moment. ‘This is how the drums should go, this is how the melody goes, this is how long the song should be, this is maybe what the song should be about.’ ’’
When he gets home, he’ll flip open his laptop, make the song and give it a number. He makes a lot of songs and is already past 50 for his next project. Sometimes, he goes back and fuses the best parts of songs together to make a new one.
He knows when he’s got a keeper. ‘‘I give it a day to sleep on it and, the next day, if I get the same rush of adrenaline when I hear it, it’s pretty obvious it’s something that will see the light of day.’’
Nowell-Usticke’s music is undeniably happy. To make upbeat music, he needs to be in the right kind of mood. He used to try to force songs out, but ‘‘it was pretty mind-numbing. Now I get out and live my life a bit more’’.
If he’s in a bad mood, Nowell-Usticke avoids making music altogether. He says it comes out as
sad and boring. ‘‘Being able to channel those sad days into sad songs that you want to listen to isn’t something I’ve quite been able to converge on – I’m getting there.’’
At present, his happy music is taking him places. This past year, Nowell-Usticke’s released two EPs, plus a new single from another EP planned for this year. He’s played nearly 50 shows across seven countries, including a New Zealand tour that included a show on his old university campus. ‘‘It was just so weird going back,’’ he says about that gig.
Then there was Lollapalooza in March and Coachella in April, two of his biggest shows to date – although they were vastly different experiences.
‘‘It was 42 degrees [at Coachella],’’ he says. ‘‘I run around a lot when I’m on stage and anything where you have to exert yourself and try and breathe in that heat is so unbearable. I nearly fainted . . . my computers nearly shut down, because there was no direct shade on the stage.’’
Lollapalooza, however, went much better. ‘‘I was on at 7pm. The setting there is just so beautiful – it’s right on the Chicago city skyline. I was opposite the main stage, Death Cab for Cutie was playing. They had a massive crowd, Chance the Rapper came out, then they stopped and it was my set.’’
They all turned around and stayed for Baynk’s set. ‘‘I just had a ludicrously big crowd,’’ he says. ‘‘It was fantastic.’’
The last Kiwi artist to perform at Lollapalooza and Coachella in the same year was Lorde. Yet, for all his success, Nowell-Usticke is far from a household name back home.
He is rarely asked for interviews and has just one New Zealand Music Award nomination to his name. That came last year, for breakthrough artist of the year, an award which ultimately went to Benee, the young pop star who scored four awards.
Kneebone, who has continued to work with Nowell-Usticke since his first performance, inviting him back to Laneway and touring him across Australia and New Zealand, credits him for realising early that his music worked better overseas than back home.
‘‘So many artists say, ‘How do I make it in America?’ ’’ says Kneebone. His answer is, ‘‘by not sitting on your ass in New Zealand asking people how to do it – that’s the first step’’.
Kneebone believes Baynk’s success deserves the same recognition as Lorde and producer Joel Little, the former member of pop-punk rockers Goodnight Nurse who hit it big producing Lorde’s debut. Now based in Los Angeles, he’s produced songs for pop juggernauts Taylor Swift, Khalid and
Imagine Dragons. ‘‘He deserves to be placed in that category.
‘‘He’s having some serious success. He’s one of those few Kiwi acts who can sell a lot more tickets in the States than in New Zealand,’’ he says. ‘‘It’s been really cool to watch him get to where he is now and feel like it’s just the start.’’
Nowell-Usticke isn’t fazed. ‘‘I’m not mad at New Zealand for not understanding my music more,’’ he says. ‘‘It’s totally fine. All of my influences were so far removed from Kiwi music. I love Kiwi music, but I started making music when I heard the Australian electronic scene and the underground British scene. It kind of makes sense to me.’’
Besides, right now, there are more important things on his mind. Nowell-Usticke is hungry. He skipped lunch and wants to get off the phone so he can head to his favourite ramen joint, Silverlake Ramen on Sunset Boulevard, which is within walking distance of his home.
While he’s there, the former chemical engineer, who believed his destiny was to work as an engineer in a food manufacturing plant, might even catch a melody and write a new song.
‘‘I’m extremely lucky and incredibly grateful,’’ he says. ‘‘I don’t stop to think often enough about how life could be different. It feels normal now. I’m just happy to be able to do this as a fulltime job.’’