When five West Auckland teenagers first met in high school, little did they imagine they’d be releasing a debut album together just a few years later. Auckland-based indie rock band Park Rd was formed in 2018 by five school mates hailing from Titirangi, named for the address where they first started practicing music together after school. The group consists of Tom Chamberlain on vocals, Angus Hampton-Carr playing lead guitar, Leo Crawshaw-Bond on guitar, Te Kapua Pene on drums, and Carlos Martin on the bass.
“We all met in high school and it was a pretty small high school, so we ended up being kind of like the only musicians there - and it was also a way of expanding socially and meeting more new people,” recalls vocalist Tom Chamberlain. A few successful gigs followed, inspiring them to apply for Smokefree Rockquest in 2019. They made it to the final, which Chamberlain says “none of us were really expecting” at the time.
After the competition, they continued to “fall in love” with music and wanted to keep riding the wave - and so they have. Since then, they’ve played iconic Kiwi festivals Rhythm and Vines, Homegrown and Soundsplash multiple times, sold out gigs at The Tuning Fork and Galatos, and opened for artists like The Band Camino, Milky Chance and Spacey Jane. Playing for crowds that size was “the turning point” where they realised their dream was becoming a reality, says guitarist Leo Crawshaw-Bond, who recalls, “R&V was a huge highlight, definit.
