Originally from Masterton, Anj Barton has spent much of her musical life in Wellington, just recently returning to the capital after a three year stint in the Cook Islands during which she managed to record and release songs under as many different musical guises. Her island-life duo Watermelon Onesie released several singles over 2024/’25, as did her NZ-based duo The Ramblings. March 2026 sees Barton releasing a new EP under her own Ready Sett project, songs wholly recorded and mixed in Rarotonga with low tech methodology, and understandably enough titled ‘Technology Ain’t My Friend’.

Was music a key aspect of family life when you were growing up?

Yes absolutely. My earliest memories of music and music making come from my parents, of which I am forever grateful to! I was exposed from a young age to many rock records spanning from the ’60s to the ’90s and my first concert I attended was Midnight Oil at Mount Smart stadium in 1990, when I was five years old! They were touring the ‘Blue Sky Mining’ album (my favourite of theirs), and I have a distinct memory of sitting on my dad’s shoulders pretending I was the drummer…

What about school, when did any formal music tuition kick in?

I started learning piano around age seven or eight, but distinctly remember disliking it. I was really keen on music though and clearly wanted to learn some kind of instrument. My stepdad was learning classical guitar at the time, and I remember pestering him to teach me a few chords (which he did) and then I was away. I played the 12-bar blues over and over again until he taught me something else!

I remember starting formal guitar lessons at intermediate school and played in the school band competing in talent quests which I just loved. I continued having guitar lessons right through my high school years, learning lots of ’70s stuff, heaps of classic songs that were really guitar heavy with lots of solos. 

While I was at high school in the early 2000s (Epsom Girls Grammar), I competed in the Smokefree Rockquest, which had a big impact on me and gave me my first real taste of performing. The freedom of writing songs and then getting to perform them at the Powerstation and other live music venues was huge! After two years of making it to the Auckland regional finals my seventh form year was the most memorable – we made it to the national finals and were one of 12 bands to compete. I’m not sure why, but our band was called Scorpadye – not even sure if that’s a real word?! 

Did music become your focus post-school, or a sideline to another career path?

I remember having two clear pathways after seventh form, and the Rockquest kind of led to this. I was asked to audition as the guitarist for the Auckland punk band Foamy Ed and if that didn’t work out then I’d go live with my dad in Nelson and enrol at the Nelson School of Music. As it happened, I didn’t make the cut with Foamy Ed (but it was an awesome experience to jam with them!), so headed south to the NSOM in 2003 and did the contemporary performance and composition course, specialising in guitar and bass for a year. I have very fond memories of my tutors and their expertise while I was at the NSOM. They taught me invaluable things about composition and performance that I still practice to this day!

After studying in Nelson, I predominantly played the bass guitar (partly cause there was a shortage of bassists around, and I loved it) and some fellow students and I started a covers band called Jools Loft. We played throughout the Nelson/Tasman and West Coast region for about a year, then relocated to Wellington in 2005 and played on the covers circuit throughout the lower North Island. 

Around 2008 Jools Loft had disbanded and I started to write my own guitar music again as a solo project. I continued to play bass in a live capacity in Wellington originals bands such as Little Vices, The Ruby Licks and The Minor Fall with close friends. It was great to be playing original songs live and get a taste of the Wellington music scene in an environment that was different from all the pubs where we played covers. Bar Bodega and Mighty Mighty were two standout venues that I fondly remember.  

After a good decade solely focused on playing bass and having a secondary role in the writing process with other bands, I had a hunger to seriously start to write my own music and perform it. I was also really missing playing the guitar, so I started Ready Sett around 2013 as a guitar and drum duo focused on my own originals with my friend and drummer Tim Gau. We released ‘The Badger’ EP in 2015 drawing from early White Stripes and Black Keys recordings, and without a bassist I experimented with running a guitar amp and a bass amp together when playing live to boost our bottom end sound. Hail the splitter pedal! 

In 2016, Olivia Campion took over as drummer and backing vocalist. We bonded over punk, indie and Seattle-based riot grrrl groups of the ’90s, which led to the creation of many fast paced, pop-punk styled tunes. Our songs began to reflect our feminist consciousness, coming to life through simple pop hooks and irreverent humour. 

 What led you to living in Rarotonga? Do you reflect on it as an interruption to your music career or as creatively beneficial?

That’s a great question! I would say the latter. In early 2023 my partner secured a three year work contract in Rarotonga, so our family relocated there. I was a full time parent to a one and four year old when we left NZ, so my opportunities to make music had to be strategic with the time that I had! This felt strange as I’d never thought of creativity manifesting in that way. 

I’d always wanted to record the tracks that didn’t make it onto my previous EP, ‘Girl In A Band’ at some point, and living in Rarotonga gave me the headspace to think about what I wanted to do with that. In addition to recording my Ready Sett stuff, I was also music making as one half of the duo The Ramblings (my bandmate Madeline O’Donoghue lives in Auckland) and we were writing, recording and releasing tracks, collaborating between Rarotonga and NZ. 

Not long after we moved to Rarotonga I met Lou Yarrall – a classically trained singer from Hawkes Bay who had recently been living in Wellington, but we’d never crossed paths. Lou and her family had also made the move to Rarotonga on a work contract and we instantly connected over music and began to jam for fun in our spare time. As Watermelon Onesie we did the odd gig at various cafes and bars around the island, because it was a fun thing to do and it gave us goals to work towards alongside supporting our families – amongst the slow pace of island life. We eventually started to write our own music which proved a great outlet and challenge for our time living in Rarotonga. 

That idyllic environment must have had an impact on your songwriting?

It absolutely had an impact on my songwriting across all three of my musical projects, but particularly with Watermelon Onesie as we were both experiencing island life together at the same time, and our lives were very intertwined. Lou and I would describe our sound as ‘low-fi, high-charm, acoustic indie pop tunes with island-honed heart.’ In essence, our songs channel the messiness of relationships, the quirks of island life, and the battle to dry laundry in tropical weather. 

Actually, is it idyllic to be living in what is essentially a giant holiday resort?

It’s a double edged sword – there’s the idyllic aspect of being on a tropical island with an amazing climate and a relaxed way of life, but there are also challenges of living there permanently such as loneliness, isolation and a lack of family support. Not to mention contracting dengue fever which I had last year – absolutely awful!
As an ex-pat you’re one step removed from the local community and when only living there for a few years it can be hard to get to know people. I learnt that it was essential to ‘find your people’ that you get on with and gravitate towards them. Lou was one of those people for me and making music together really solidified our friendship. 
I got to know Mo Newport, drummer and founder of Motone Productions, while living there and we did a few gigs together which was fab! I didn’t come across any commercial recording studios – most musicians I met had some form of home studio set up.  

‘Technology Ain’t My Friend’ is a great, honest title, was that song the starting point?

I was throwing around EP names a few years before landing on ‘Technology Ain’t My Friend’. I thought about names that would encompass living in Rarotonga and recording there, but then nothing seemed to feel right. At the end of last year when the songs were almost completed, I realised that it fitted perfectly. Technology Ain’t My Friend is the final track on the EP, and I think the name is apt due to the constraints around recording with very basic equipment and squeezing in music moments while juggling kids. My friend Madeline O’Donoghue (The Ramblings) created the cover artwork, and the handdrawn aspect of it accurately reflects the messiness and ‘basic’ recording style narrative that encompassed my recording journey for those three years. 

I would’ve loved to have initially recorded ‘Girl In A Band’ as an album in 2018, but circumstances didn’t allow at the time, so I parked these songs hoping that there’d be an opportunity in the future to revisit them, and now that they’re out there I’m really pleased. I kind of see it like a closing of a chapter and the final puzzle piece has landed. The songs are all different subject matter but I think they work well as a body of songs together.

Girl in a Band is literally about being just that, and some of the challenges girls/women face in the music industry today. We’ve come a long way but there’s still much more to do in terms of fighting sexism and the visibility and recognition for female musicians. Kar to Korea is about a dream I had, a bit wacky but aren’t all dreams?! 

Tempelhof is about visiting the WW2 airport in Berlin and the effect that place had on me while there. I talk about the airport being a person as if we had this fictitious relationship. It’s just a really special place and so vast. Totally recommend going there if in Berlin! Technology Ain’t My Friend is about just that – I feel like as tech advances I’m going backwards, does anyone else feel the same?

What sort of unexpected hurdles did island recording bring?

The EP was recorded solo in my spare room in Rarotonga using the iPad version of GarageBand and an SM58 mic – it took me three years just to record four tunes! Multiple instruments make up the songs with everything being recorded live apart from the drum beats which are programmed from GarageBand. Mo Newport helped me with drum tracking and mixing, then mastering was done here in NZ by James Goldsmith. 

Now you’re back in Pōneke will you be doing the band thing again do you think?

I hope so! I need some band members though so get in touch if you’re a drummer or bass player!