It seems each new Fazerdaze release attracts glowing praise from major international music press, and that history is already repeating for the Auckland artist’s just-released sophomore album ‘Soft Power’. But Amelia Murray has long understood the need to ensure a measure of personal control, as with her recently created Fazerdaze Collective, a virtual workspace on Zoom where she and fans can come together, work on individual projects, collaborate and connect through live chat. Soft power it might be described. Amanda Mills talked with her about the highs and lows of success that brought this brave and bold new album to the surface.

A decade can be a lifetime in the music industry, a notoriously fickle place to play. Amelia Murray – Fazerdaze to you and me -released her first EP 10 years ago. Three years later in 2017, she delivered her debut album through Flying Nun records, ‘Morningside’, which featured the spectacularly catchy single Lucky Girl. It was a big moment and ‘Morningside’ was hugely successful internationally, fundamentally changing her life.

After considerable time away from the spotlight Amelia has just released her self-produced second Fazerdaze album, ‘Soft Power’. Now 31, music has been a touchstone that helped her through hard times as a teenager, and since into womanhood. 

“The importance of music to me in that period never left me… it’s helped me so much. I’m just so compelled to make it for other people,” she says. 

After first learning piano she started guitar at 14 and hasn’t stopped playing since. Her all-female Onslow College band, The Tangle, taught her a lot about being in a group, which she is still thankful for. 

“I got to experience the real basic band stuff in a really safe, fun, vibrant environment with this amazing group of friends. I had no idea at the time how important that experience would be for the rest of my life!”

From Pōneke Amelia moved north, studying music at University of Auckland which gave her solid foundational music knowledge and got her into the music scene there. She had a problem though with the organised structure, which she rebelled against. 

“There was definitely this box at uni that I just wanted to break out of… this pre-conceived idea of what was good, and I didn’t necessarily agree.” 

To help herself get a foot in the industry door she worked at NZ Musician magazine then Flying Out, and made sure she went to every gig she could, while working on her own music.

In 2014 she released the ‘Fazerdaze’ EP, and remains fond of those early songs – as well she might given Jennifer has enjoyed over five million Spotify streams in the time since.

“I feel really proud of myself for not feeling like I knew what I was doing, but doing it anyway!” 

Three years later came her debut album ‘Morningside’ (named for the suburb she was living in), which connected and took off in unexpected ways, including award nominations, international tours, and slots at 2018’s Coachella festival. However the international success and recognition didn’t sit comfortably, plus it altered dynamics within important personal relationships.

“Suddenly I had so much attention and success and spotlight on me, and it made some people around me uncomfortable… Also, I was really uncomfortable with it,” she admits frankly.

Nagging thoughts that other musicians deserved that success more added to her feeling more diminished. 

“I just didn’t have the people around me, all the tools and psychological maturity to navigate that amount of attention. It was just a really foreign first-time experience of being right in the spotlight, and I just didn’t know how to handle it.” 

It was also a catalyst for a period of flux. Three international tours and accompanying industry expectations put further stress on her, leading to Amelia cancelling another big tour. Her relationship was breaking down, she lost her voice, and decided she had to put her music career aside – letting her manager go and taking an office job just to do something different. 

It worked, in giving everything up she found herself. Slowly beginning music again, she re-established a home studio and continued to write music for what would subsequently become ‘Soft Power’. Trips to the US to meet with producers for her new work proved fruitless, solidifying the thought that she should produce her own music.

Seemingly out of the blue and a couple of years ahead of ‘Soft Power’ came the aptly named ‘Break!’, a musical sidestep in the form of a cathartic 2022 EP that she says released a lot of the weight from her shoulders. 

“I embraced the title and the exclamation mark! There couldn’t have been a better word to sum up what I had gone through, and what I was letting go… I was a lot less precious about it.” 

She was on her own professionally at this point with no team, but Amelia says her detachment from ‘Break!’ was positive. 

“It was fun, it was free, everything about it was like, ‘Fuck this, I’m just going to put this out. ‘Break!’ just showed me this way of letting go.” 

The result was in many ways unexpected, but before long she had engaged a new manager and a supportive team began to build around her. Accompanying ‘Break!’ was an engaging short video documentary, ‘The Thick of It’, in which she discussed the reasons for stepping away from the musical spotlight. Other tangents happened too – collaborations with Aporia, Eyedress (Idris Vicuna), Sparrows, Phoenix Foundation and Voom. 

“I don’t usually do many collabs because I think I’m quite a slow creator,” she explains with trademark shy laughter. “When friends who I feel really comfy working with approach me about something, and it feels easy, I’ll do it.”

The songs on ‘Soft Power’ were created in a tumultuous period of Amelia’s life, which informs the album’s title, as do her experiences dealing with power in various forms. The old patriarchal structure systems of having power over someone are, in her words, “icky.” 

“‘Soft Power’ is my journey of untethering myself from that power structure and… finding power within myself. Figuring out what power means to me; as a woman, as someone who lives in Aotearoa, as someone that’s making art. I think ‘Soft Power’ is my way of identifying what power means to me.”

Indeed Amelia considers music to be her own soft power, and she is especially mindful of its importance during her own personal and professional experiences. 

“‘Soft Power’ is me reclaiming that, re-finding that in me, removing myself from playing into these old power dynamics and structures that just were taking so much power away from me.” 

Lived experiences over recent years have led her to embrace feminism, which is helping her come to terms with some of the things she has been through, and heal from them. 

“I’m more conscious of power I can change. Every time I stick up for myself I’m doing this for other women or other artists, it’s not just for me!” 

She describes ‘Soft Power’ as being fiercely self-protective, and a way to not appease everyone around her. The search for balance within herself and her own relationship with the wider world. 

Her own personal transformation is at the heart of the album, Amelia likening it to a hero’s quest, especially where the hero is at their lowest ebb. 

“I feel like ‘Soft Power’ is placed at that part of the hero’s journey where she’s alone… there’s this woman on a journey and there’s no context to her. She’s leaving something behind her. You don’t know what that was, but she also hasn’t arrived, she hasn’t figured out the answers yet. And you see this woman in between and being brave enough to even embark on that journey.”

One key track among the 11 on ‘Soft Power’ is Bigger, a song that marked a turning point for her writing. Bigger has a spoken word hook in the chorus (or anti-chorus) where the rhyming pattern draws the listener in. 

“I feel like this is a whole new level to my songwriting… it was a real push through for me to write that song. It came from me forcing myself to sit down with my guitar and try to write something.” 

The song was written at a particularly low point, she explains. 

“I was in such a bad space, mentally, spiritually, psychologically, physically… I feel like I was just trying to write my way into a better life! I think it’s also why I pushed myself so hard to write pop songs. I was just in such a bad space that writing big songs was my only beacon.”

Cherry Pie, the album’s second single, also has a long back story.

“There are quite a few different versions of it,” Amelia smiles. “I was so lost in producing the song that even just the structure was like, what is the chorus? What is the verse?” She sent the demos to Aaron Short (formerly of The Naked And Famous), who liked what he saw she was trying to achieve. 

“He understood the spirit of the song. He listened to all my demos and picked the best bit of each demo and sent it back to me It’s just like a slow chipping away of different versions until we landed on something that I could tell was something really good! I wanted the song to just hit me in the heart. It was so long trying to get that feeling where it’s just pulling at your heart strings, and I just chased and chased and chased that feeling until the song was doing that for me.”

The album was mostly recorded in Amelia’s Auckland home studio, and at Roundhead. Although accustomed to working solo, she does like getting other opinions. 

“It’s really good for me to venture out and bounce the songs off other people… as long as I could take all the files and all the feedback and kind of have control when I get back into my bedroom.” 

She bounced ideas off Voom’s Buzz Moller and worked with Alex Freer on live drums, tracking at Roundhead with the help of Emily Wheatcroft-Snape. Shannon Fowler (Tom Lark), Moller and Gareth Thomas helped with the writing, and the album was mixed by Simon Gooding. 

She describes Aaron Short as being her safe person during the making of the album, promptly helping with her tech questions, and being an empowering collaborator who helped “…without all these strings and agendas and dynamics attached.”

The previous bedroom lo-fi Fazerdaze sound has also changed as she learned how to navigate the studio, and her evolution as a producer and desire to make something big is clearly shown in the work. At heart though she is still happy as a computer girl. 

“I love software, I love Logic Pro. I was just leaning into my strengths as a creative and leaning into effects and long reverbs!”

She refers to the album’s sound as “bedroom stadium rock”, the successful outcome of trying to get a larger sound on the songs. 

“As a songwriter and as somebody who has felt so tiny in my life, as so many people do, my outlet and handling of how tiny I felt was to just try to tap into this bigger space in my head. Of connecting to something bigger than me, to connect to other people, connect to bigger audiences. I felt so, so tiny and depressed, and oppressed as well with what I was going through… I would hear like a Bon Jovi song at a bar, and I’d be like, ‘Fuck yeah, that just makes me feel elation, pure elation!” she laughs. “It was kind of my North Star, can I just make something that connects me to a bigger life?”

‘Soft Power’ is released in Australia and New Zealand through Amelia’s own Buttrfly Records label, which she started after moving to Ōtautahi a couple of years ago. The name originates from her experiences of feeling trapped in the industry. 

“To go through that journey of transformation… I think that’s subconsciously why I called my record label Buttrfly Records – it’s about freedom and having things on my terms.” 

The month prior to the November launch of ‘Soft Power’ saw Fazerdaze performing a 14-date tour of northern US major cities, including two dates in Canada, as support for Perth’s psychedelic rock act Pond. Australasian album promo dates are scheduled for early 2025. 

“I’ve got extra anxiety talking about touring, but I am ultimately really excited!” she laughs gently. “It’s pretty easy to feel in my head and disconnected when I’ve been working on the music for so long. Getting to meet the fans face to face makes it all make sense.”