From six separate duchies they rode, forging together their various genre superpowers in the heat of music-magic, creating a sonorous hexapartite kingdom. Earth, air, fire, water, and two other ones combined in the fecund plains of the Manawatū to produce the musical Scylla-beast that is Pāmutana six-piece Kokoa Nashi.

Comprising Christian Perry – guitar, Levi Lewis – vocals, Jimi Afeaki – keyboard, Shay Wright – bass, Daniel Ashcroft – drums, and Alex Debenham on guitar, the band has been in existence since 2015. Stellar local Palmerston North singer Hana Grace Tamatea has also been involved over the years.

“We technically started a new band in 2019, but just didn’t change the name,” Perry confesses. 

“Everyone in the band speaks a different language, musically,” reckons Ashcroft. ‘“Alex and I are more the metal guys, Shay and Perry are fluent in jazz, Jimi can do anything, Levi comes from hip hop/nu-metal/alternative background. So when we come together it’s an exchange of different music culture. We work out a way to intertwine what we love.”

“It’s quite organic,” Lewis affirms.

That said, here’s a stab at describing what you might hear in a Kokoa Nashi song; styles ranging from smooth funk/soul to hip hop to metal, garnished variously with dreamy licks or grunty chugging from the guitars, all tied together by Lewis’s lyrical flow. The closest comparison that springs to mind is Troy Kingi’s ‘Night Lords’ album, though the Nashi have their own twist on it of course.

“We made a rule of thumb a while back that we’re just gonna do whatever we want. It keeps us chasing different sounds. We’re still learning as well,” says Perry.

“In Japan they didn’t seem bound by time or genre or trend. So it was inspiring,” Ashcroft smiles. 

Japan, you say? That’s right, Kokoa Nashi won the national Battle of the Bands competition at the end of June this year, and part of the prize was a week of gigs organised in Tokyo and Osaka.

‘“We made great friends with the bands over there,” he continues. “Every single band member would show up before the show. When any band played, every band was up the front, supporting them. And then after the gig ended, it was party vibe. Everyone hung out, exchanged details. We’ve done a few collaborative [social media] posts, so that’s another way to keep that momentum going.”

“Australia could be something that’s a cheaper alternative,” Perry acknowledges, “but the big goal is we all want to go back to Japan. We really fit in over there.”

As soon as the band returned to Aotearoa they released the single Motherlode. The song presages an album to come later in 2026.

“We had a bit of an action plan going on,” Perry explains. “When we won the comp we stepped up a lot more.”

Lewis reveals that the lyrical content of Motherlode is about chasing a dream, and dealing with day-to-day life pressures throughout.

“Another aspect of the band that’s quite unique is that we incorporate subjects like fatherhood, family-oriented stuff, and the turmoil and hardship,”Ashcroft points out. The word ‘vulnerable’ is proffered.

“It did take a while to be able to write songs like that,” Lewis confides. “There’s no formula to it. It’s not; ‘here’s a hook, here’s a bridge, here’s a verse’. It’s quite freeing to go ‘this feels like it wants to go here’. If it sounds out of place, we’re not afraid to go there if it feels like it’s in the right place, emotionally.’

The band have been weekend regulars in the practice rooms of local Palmerstion North recording/rehearsal/venue The Stomach for the last several years.

“We couldn’t count the number of sections and lyrics that have been thrown on the cutting room floor, ” laughs Lewis. “These guys are creative powerhouses. Having the time to figure out how we work well together has opened us all up individually. We’re leaning towards simplifying things a bit at the moment, just to see how it goes.”

“There has been a lot of discussion about how to use space, cos there’s six of us,” Ashcroft chips in. “So you have to allow each other to have space, in the rhythm and in the melodic content. Sometimes you add more by taking away. It’s a hard thing because most of the time we want to blast.”

In the beginning it was “jazzy math rock” says Lewis.

“There was a lot of odd time signatures, and a lot of two-minute riffs and solos. I only wrote two songs with the boys originally, and there was still all this instrumental shit in there, so there’d be times when I was standing onstage just doing nothing for like three whole minutes! So I was like, ‘We can’t do this any more. I’m literally not standing on stage while you guys just jack off.’ So we had to work at a lot of things. Even now there are songs that we’ve altered in our set.”

The band is completing final tracking with Sam Sheppard at The Stomach for their album titled ‘Good Game’, due out by the end of the year. While they wait for the album to be finished, in lieu of being able to tour Ashcroft says they’re compensating with online content.

“It’s not something we want to do for our own ego, it’s marketing and keeping people engaged.”

“Also,” says Perry, “making videos is fun, man! That’s one love that I’ve developed.”

According to Ashcroft the trick is to be creative with it.

“We had a fundraiser show before we went to Japan, and we had this incentive that, for everyone who said they were attending on the event page, we would go to the gym and do that amount of reps. That got people talking, not just in the music community, but also in the gym community! And then we were endorsed by a gaming company, and then we were able to incorporate that demographic into it. It opened our eyes to the possibilities of how we can reach people who aren’t just in our small musical circle.”

Lewis sums up. “What we do is so much for ourselves, for the enjoyment and the catharsis of expression. We appreciate and respect listeners, but we don’t want to ‘sell’ something, because it limits us. So we focus on outputting what feels the rawest, the most fun for us, and gets across the feeling of what we’re trying to do. If you have an eclectic taste you’ll likely be able to find something in our music that you enjoy.”