The Kiwi epitome of a working musician, Adam McGrath is nearing his own half century, still playing three or four solo shows a week in music venues and country halls all over the motu. Lyttelton’s favourite folk artist may have slowed his gigging frequency a little in recent years in deference to his health, but with that has come the bonus of two solo albums. Released in May 2026, his sophomore album is called ‘Wrecker Songs’. Richard Thorne talked with him about the project which commemorates NZ’s largest industrial dispute, and the harbourside workers’ union spirit that endures.
2026 is the 20th year of Ōtautahi folk, country and social-hearted act The Eastern, the membership-dynamic band synonymous with its Lyttelton-based vocalist, lead songwriter, and ‘three-and-a-half chord’ guitarist Adam McGrath.
Reasonable to assume then that we’re here to talk with McGrath about an anniversary ‘best of’ release, but no, the focus is his second solo album, ‘Wrecker Songs’.
McGrath’s recent and first solo album ‘Dear Companions’ saw him win a 2024 Tūī award as Best Folk Artist, and you wouldn’t bet against a sophomore repeat with this new album, which is subtitled ‘Songs from & for the Maritime Union of New Zealand’.
The famously hard-working live performer was recently made a lifetime member of the union, despite never having been a waterside worker himself.
While no doubt associated with the album release, the honour as much reflects the long association of McGrath and The Eastern with supporting workers’ causes across the nation, and standing up for the people of Lyttelton. The band’s selfless response to the Christchurch earthquakes with non-stop live shows, fundraisers and 2011 charity record ʻThe Harbour Unionʼ being cases in point.
“We’ve always been a union-centric band, in the sense that you can call us up and we’ll come and deploy – on the picket line, or the rally, or whatever, you know?” McGrath smiles.
“We’ve always been on that side of the fences as it were, and the Maritime Union has been great, because we try to have like, a service component of musical life I guess. So we do lots of charity things and fundraising things and community things. Like we did a Labour Day picnic and the Maritime Union paid for the bouncy castle, or might have contributed to food, or something like that. We trade on that sort of goodwill.”
As he tells it, the idea for ‘Wrecker Songs’ started over a beer in the union hall with the Lyttelton MUNZ union secretary.
“A conversation about why and how records got made became an idea about what they could do once out in the world, what they could be. About how folk records had to reach beyond the internal maladies that are the usual fodder for singer-songwriters, further into the world in which they inhabit.”
February 15, 2026 marked the 75th anniversary of the Waterfront Dispute of 1951, the largest industrial dispute Aotearoa had seen before or since. McGrath celebrated the date by releasing the first single from his new album of songs inspired by the stories, struggles and solidarity imbued in the history of the Maritime Union.
“The thing that I wanted to do through the album was create a spirit, sort of like using a story to express that spirit. I want the songs to live.”
A firebrand reworking of an Australian miners’ union song Which Side Are You On?, he altered lyrics to make specific reference to 1951, including the political villain of the era, Prime Minister Sid Holland, with speech samples from then Watersiders’ Union boss and spokesman Jock Barnes.
“The ‘51 lockout was a loss,” he points out. “The lockout got broken. All the other industries that were on strike eventually went to work, and we had to go back to work, so it was a loss.
“But in a way, just that strength of solidarity from all those who stayed the course of that lockout, 151 days – which is six months! Sometimes, even if you lose the battle you ultimately win, because there is something really, really cool, and something that inspires me, and inspires people that I know, and that makes you strong for the next fight. So that’s why, even though it was a loss, we celebrate the action itself.”
His album closes with is a heart-aching solo reworking of The Eastern’s song Be True, first recorded back in 2010 with lyrics inspired by the Stood Loyal Right Through cards distributed to those who held ground throughout the length of the dispute. McGrath had seen the cards on display in a local museum.
“There is a strength. An honourable stand that was taken, and that permeates. I grew up working class, and you don’t forget those things.
“Even as a youngster I can remember, the idea of being scab is like the worst thing you could be, you know what I mean? Like you just don’t sell out your neighbour, you just don’t do that. It’s just… it’s completely contrary. To do that would be the antithesis of everything I was brought up with.”
Accustomed to recording with professionals in their studios, McGrath further personalised this album project by recording and mixing it in his own small home studio/office space. It was a first that meant teaching himself how to use Logic, and learning all the processes involved.
“Since the advent of accessible software like Pro Tools, or Logic or whatever, plenty of people have taken to home recording… not me,” he grins. “That’s not something that I either do, nor have really been interested in either. When you record a record you go somewhere, hopefully with someone smarter than you!
“But this was me trying to figure it out myself. Whether I’m successful at it or not, it’s not for me to decide, but I did enjoy the process. And I always have that beginner’s mind about whatever it is that I do, so that was a good part of the challenge, and I’m glad that I did that.”
A determinedly roots-oriented folk artist who cherishes simplicity and authenticity in his music, the art of sampling became a new string to his bow.
“But I grew up listening to Public Enemy, so the sample culture’s part of something that speaks to me,” he laughs.
Developing the songs for his union-themed album involved research, conversations and a wide range interviews. That’s far from his songwriting norm which McGrath describes as often boiling down to having some sort of idea that plays in your head, so you just follow whatever that idea is…
“Usually I might chat with someone and that will spark something in my brain. And then I’ll sit down with a guitar and that might turn into a song. This time it was more interviews rather than a chat, I set out to find the songs among the people and communities it’s about. And it was a pretty deep well to be throwing my bucket in!”
Planning at first to share the album production workload, he then decided he wanted to bring the project home and figure it all out himself.
“So it’s just through my limited skills,” he adds with laughter and typical humility. “These are the ones that sort of came out the best!”
The album runs through various song formats, moods and tempos, in a manner not unlike an Adam McGrath live setlist (not that he ever has one), albeit without the usual engaging and conversational narratives between each.
“I always look at songs as kind of like an armoury, in the sense of each song having a different job to do. So like; this time I need everyone to stand on the tables. I need people to cry, so there’s this song. I need people to dance and drink, that’s this song. And sometimes your most successful song might not be the deepest song, it just might be the funnest song!”
He says the ‘Wrecking Songs’ title came before anything.
“Yeah. I was reading Toil And Trouble, which is kind of a book about industrial relations, with lots of photos. There’s something in there where, during the lockout, those on Holland’s side were calling the workers ‘wreckers’ – like they were wrecking society. And I just thought that’s such a cool word, and I wanted to take that back. You can call us wreckers, but we’re not wrecking what you think.”
Achieving a balance of song content across the album’s 13 tracks was a strong consideration.
“I kind of just wanted to make it digestible and accessible. There were lots of story songs. Lots of angry songs, and there were lots of funny songs, so it was a matter of just trying to find that balance…
“One of the songs is called The Assembly, and it comes from one of the women on the port who lost her husband at sea, and was really struggling with four kids to feed and keeping everything going.
“She was just completely surrounded and supported by the other women of the port. Through that experience, they formed their own sort of auxiliary union called the Women’s Assembly – that was sort of born out of their spirit.
“I’ve got another song about the first woman secretary of Wellington union, and her experience of not having any idea about what a union was realising she needed to sort of stand up for her own rights. And through that, discovering what unionism was, and what it means. So the idea of having these little stories as a means by which you can sort of carry a bigger story.”
‘Wrecker Songs’ certainly not all dark. Billy McCain is one of his dance floor fillers, a fun tale about a watersider repeatedly drunk at work while loading cargo ships. Fells Point, Baltimore keeps that joy tempo up with a composite story of distanced love in which McGrath has blended a true story he was told of one time and place, with another he imagined, but set in a Baltimore docks union pub he drank and played in while living in the area.
“It’s pretty hard to put the words ‘communist insurgent’ into a song, you know what I mean,” he explains in laughter. “So I just transplanted that story to Baltimore.”
McGrath had a couple of significant health scares over the album development period, but has since returned to gigging multiple times a week, while bringing ‘Wrecking Songs’ home.
“You want to honour people. You want to honour the idea, and you want to honour the spirit. And you want to get the job done, like you just want to finish it, that’s important. And I’m a working man, in the sense that I don’t spend too long contemplating my navel.
“The artist is in there, that creativity is the ember of everything. But over and above that it’s work, you know, and I gotta show up. That’s very important to me, that I have to get that done. Trying to get it done in amongst my usual ramblings and some of the health stuff last year was sort of challenging but, ‘jobs on’ bro!”
