REB FOUNTAIN ‘Without music, I wouldn’t be here’
The past two years of lockdowns and restrictions have been a mixed blessing for local musician Reb Fountain. On one hand, she’s had the time and space to let her creativity flourish; on the other, though, like most of us, she’s felt hemmed in.
“I have a gypsy spirit,” she says. “I often feel my best on the road. Part of it is the migrant in me. I really enjoy travelling.”
Reb is rapidly becoming one of our most successful singer-songwriters. Her critically acclaimed, self-titled album released in 2020 was nominated for five Aotearoa Music Awards. Her haunting, lyrically beautiful song Hopeful and Hopeless was named Best Country Song a couple of years earlier. She was also part of the sell-out Neil Young tribute act Live Rust and, in 2021, she toured with Crowded House and was awarded the Taite Music Prize.
She was challenged by one of her bandmates to write a song a day during New Zealand’s first lockdown. “It, recorded on the iconic Flying Nun label.
