Still only in relatively early stages of their career, the quirky and vivid world of Club Ruby makes them one of the most eye-catching up and comers in today’s NZ music scene. Having recently secured their first charting single with the sassy, explosive earworm Heartbreak Overtime, the Auckland five-piece have released their second EP, a pop-punk moment of girl power energy entitled ‘Don’t Gaslight Me!’ Nur Peach investigates.

Fronted by the huge, effervescent personality of Jade Lewis, Club Ruby features Hon Manawangphiphat on bass, Jonathan Meyer on guitar, Josh Johnston on drums and Sophie Gibson on backing vocals. The indie rock/pop act have gone all-in with creating a world around themselves, modelling their personas on the structure of a high school club.

“My character is President Ruby,” explains Lewis. “Hon is the vice president! Sophie is called Bubbles the Barbarian, and is in charge of communications. Jonathan is Jonathan the Computer, and Jonathan is spelled with some @ signs and zeroes and $ signs and stuff. And Josh on drums is JJ Sticks, who we kind of put as the wizard with his drumsticks!”

The club members met while studying towards Bachelor’s degrees in music at the University of Auckland. Lewis had recently immigrated from the USA.

“Hon and Josh were in the jazz degree, and me, Jonathan and Sophie were in the popular music degree,” says Lewis. 

The line up originally featured Reuben Hudson, another popular music student who featured on Club Ruby’s 2023 debut EP, ‘Was God Birthed?’. Hudson subsequently relocated to Melbourne, and changes to their sound ensued. That first EP was softer, with a rough-around-the-edges DIY sound and a playful, irreverent feel.

Released late January 2026, ‘Don’t Gaslight Me!’ is more polished, pushing into commercial punk-pop territory. The absence of Hudson’s voice in their earlier close duets means Lewis taking centre stage.

“For the first EP, we were quite stubborn,” she states. “We wanted it to have a live feeling, so we played it all in the same room, without a click. For this one most, if not all of it, was recorded in some kind of professional studio, whether it was Roundhead or The Lab. I’m experimenting with belting, while in the first EP I think my tone was a lot more childlike. It sounded a lot more innocent. And this one, I really wanted to get more into the grittiness.”

Hearing the American-born singer’s confidence on the new material, it comes as a surprise that Lewis is relatively new to rock, and letting loose with her strong vocals. 

“I started out at university doing acoustic guitar style, sad music. I think this EP represents me finding my voice that I had all along. I’ve always loved singers that belt like Adele, Paramore and Chappell Roan. I think this EP finally just embraced the belting, and my anger as well. I think when you box yourself into one genre, like acoustic only, it really only represents one facet of who you are. You can kind of hear the acoustic still on the song Komorebi, but then we also have a lot of the anger.”

Komorebi was released as a single in August, with the songs on the new EP written over an extended period of time, some pre-Club Ruby. The earliest, Shades of You, was a co-write between Lewis and Gibson during their first year at uni.

“I think it was quite a sad song originally, because it was two chords I played on the guitar and us doing our duet stuff,” says Gibson. “And then Jade ended up adding this chorus.”

“We wrote the verses together,” adds Lewis. “We were both going through some tumultuous breakups – and lamenting about what could we have done right or wrong, and what could we have done better to cope with these relationships? Why are we still upset about them? And the shades of grief that you go through after experiencing really tough relationships and breakups, and things like that!”

Others were written during lockdowns. Following graduation and the release of the three-song ‘Was God Birthed?’ the group approached Christian Tjandrawinata to produce a sophomore EP. He ended up co-writing half the tracks.

“When Christian’s in the room we just seem to take on different roles,” Lewis grins. “I feel a lot more like a top-liner when Christian is there, because I don’t need to sit there for three hours trying to find the right chord voicing. He gives me three different options, and then it’s done! Whereas by ourselves, it can either be very quick, or very slow!”

Club Ruby have received New Music Single Pan-Asian funding from NZ On Air for two singles. Heartbreak Overtime, the first, received a brightly colourful and highly energetic music video directed by Ethan Alderson-Hughes. It features the band performing the song in a swimming pool.

“It came together super last minute, to be honest,” says Lewis. “But I think that kind of DIY crunch time energy is what Club Ruby’s all about. Everything comes together at the last second, and we have fun at the same time!”

“We got told off by the neighbour at that place for playing drums!” Gibson adds with a laugh. “That’s just punk life!”

The exuberant summer vibes of the music video, combined with the huge hooks and satirical sass of the song itself, propelled Heartbreak Overtime to #5 on the Hot 20 Aotearoa Singles chart. It was Club Ruby’s first charting single, and they hadn’t anticipated this success.

“I almost fainted!” says Manawangphiphat. “I mean, not actual faint, but I did need to sit down!”

“It was unexpected, especially how well the music video performed,” Lewis adds. “We were aiming for 5,000 views, and ended up getting 55,000 – which was crazy!”

Vibrant colour has become another Club Ruby signature, along with enthusiastically posed group photos and their correspondence closing off line, ‘P.S. We are secretly a musical’. There’s entertainment at every turn.

The success of Heartbreak Overtime sets a positive precedent for ‘Don’t Gaslight Me!’ which is a highly personal project for Lewis. 

“I’d say it’s basically my own personal coming of age story of navigating mental health, learning about inter-generational trauma, and then coming to terms with my identity as an immigrant, as a person of colour, as someone who’s neurodivergent, and just accepting where I am on my journey of healing – which may always be changing for better or for worse.”

She likens the tracklist to the five stages of grief.

“Starting with Shades of You, it feels like you’re in denial,” she explains. “It’s the point in your journey where you wish your pain didn’t exist. You wish you could just get rid of it. But then the chorus says, ‘I guess that’s life,’ which I think is a pretty funny chorus, to be honest! 

“And then on to more anger with Heartbreak Overtime, which is about being frustrated with this relationship that never seems to end, and also the self-hatred of ‘Why am I not ending it yet?’ And then with You Don’t Even Know it’s kind of like I don’t want to be defined by all these labels that I’ve been contemplating, whatever diagnosis I might have. So that’s kind of like; ‘I don’t care anymore that I have this, that and the other… I’m just pissed off.’ 

“Bargaining I kind of see in Lament, which sounds like an overall happy song. But I think it’s bargaining in the way that I know we’ve both been through the gutter, but maybe if we just ignore it and pretend like it’s not happening, then we can have fun, like there’s no time to think about that kind of stuff. 

“Komorebi is acceptance, practising gratitude in the midst of your turmoils, realising there are people around you. And then finally it’s What My Bones Know, which I think is depression and acceptance, starting with being depressed and then the bridge is really the final acceptance.”

Komorebi also received funding and will get a music video.

“Komorebi means sunlight streaming through trees in Japanese,” Lewis explains. “The metaphor is that my support system is like the forest around me, while I’m just walking through the dark. Feeling alone, but knowing that they’re there no matter what, to shield me from the rain and whatever obstacles I might face.”

‘Don’t Gaslight Me!’ may sound like a victory lap, but Lewis is candid about how trying the band’s growing popularity has been for them all.

“It looks really easy and fun on the outside to run a band, but on the inside it’s quite up and down with how burnt out or how energised we’re feeling, and we have experienced things, like stalkers. 

“In October, Hon and I were assaulted in a pretty hateful theft and stabbing. And I think the message of this EP overall is resilience and not letting my voice become stifled or pushed down, that the things we sing about are important and real, and the discrimination that we face isn’t invisible, it’s really happening.

“The hope that we want to bring people is what I want to emphasise, that despite all of this, you can still have a voice and tell your story how you want to.”