The Albert Street social media descriptor is about as succinct as it gets for a band; “4 lads from Hams, NZ. We make music, and we love it.” With a release history that dates back to 2020 when in their early teens, the Kirikiriroa indie rock act prefer to let their songwriting do the talking, and in 2026 are coming off a release hiatus, with an album scheduled for later in the year. Front Porch is the first taste of that long player and the free-swinging single was included on NZ On Air Music’s February NewTracks compilation.
There’s four of us lads, all from the mighty Waikato: Zak Trenwith, Jacob Smith, Daniel Humphrey and Leejay Trenwith. Zak, Dan and Jake all live in the Tron, and Leej lives out in Raglan. Zak is on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, his younger brother Leejay is on bass and backing vocals, Dan’s on lead guitar, and Jake keeps us in time on the drums.
We all originally lived in Hams when we started the band, so we’re based there with practices being held either at Zak and Leej’s parents’ music room out the back of their house, or at a little church in Te Uku on the way out to Raglan. Means we can meet in the middle with Leej.
The band got some early media coverage through winning the Waikato Smokefreerockquest comp back in the day. We released an EP called ‘Hometown Playground’ in 2023 and a bunch of singles over the years, maybe some NZM readers will have heard something of ours from over that time?
Zak, Jake and Dan all met on the first day of high school in music class. We all just got on so well and became good mates before we even thought about starting a band. It just happened to be that we all played different instruments so when we’d hang out we’d just naturally end up jamming for hours. Then it just developed into actual band practices, then getting some little gigs.
With Zak wanting to switch from vocals and bass to vocals and guitar, and his younger brother Leejay knowing a bit of bass at the time, the solution was pretty obvious to get him in there. Now here we are.
Yeah, Zak and Leej grew up their whole life living on Albert Street in Hamilton, and the music room out the back of that house is still our main band practice spot. The band feels like it started and developed to who we are now, all in that music room, so after going through a few random names over our first two years, Albert Street ended up just sticking.
Having started the band at just 13 years old, our taste in music has changed a lot since then, and that’s been heavily reflected in the music we’ve written and released over the years too. When we first started, our influences were more 2010s surfy, pop bands – whereas now we’re definitely more influenced by older grunge/alt-rocky stuff. This tune, which is the first single for our upcoming album, was one of the first tracks we recorded when we got to that turning point from more poppy to more rocky.
Playing at Northern Easter Camp in front of 5000 – 6000 people a few years ago was pretty surreal for us. And it wasn’t super deep into our time as a band, so I think being younger and experiencing that made us extra pumped! The biggest highlights are also just the most hype and energetic shows though, whether it’s 100 people or 1000, the more into it the crowd gets we just thrive off that, and they become our highlights.
Yeah, a bit of a sabbatical, aye! We released a single called My Way in December of 2023 and then basically since that release we’ve been in and out of the studio recording an album. At the day of writing this we have actually just got a mix back for the final tune. So yeah, it’s been a very very long process, but we’ve all had heaps of other stuff happening in our lives over these last couple years which has definitely made it harder to gig and get together for practices.
One thing we really wanted to do was get into the studio and record a full song at least once every couple months, no matter what else we had happening in our lives. We were able to stick to that which is awesome, meaning this year we’ll have an album dropping and get back into gigging and pursuing this dream.
As mentioned above, we’ve definitely been a lot quieter in the gigging scene over the last couple years, but we’re keen and excited to get back into it after these next couple singles, and then album, drops. Performing tunes we wrote/released three-five years ago definitely gets a bit stale after a while, so having some new tunes out in the world that we can perform will be so good! People at the shows can go and listen to the tunes afterwards if they like them, whereas the last couple years we’ve played some of our ‘new’ unreleased tunes and then had to say, “Well you’ll be able to listen to that one on Spotify in a couple years time…” Not the best look! But overall excited to get back into it this year.
Everyone probably has a different favourite to perform live, the crowd’s highlight is always an old tune we have called Earthquake. It’s just has a couple of super hype breakdowns where we all jump off speakers, or the drum kit or into the mosh, and the audience always love that. We have an unreleased track from the upcoming album called Otherside that us in the band always love jamming though. Keep your eyes peeled for that one.
When listening to Front Porch amongst the rest of the tunes in the album, it always felt like a single. It’s upbeat from the get-go, blends pop with rock and it’s maybe one the more straightforward, palatable tunes in the mix. Ever since we wrote that song, well before we even hit the studio, it just had an uplifting, driving feel to it. Recording it with Scott Seabright out at his studio in the wops brought it up to the next level. It was also one of the first songs we wrote for the album so releasing it first just kind of felt right. From playing it live, to getting the first mix back after recording, we knew it would be the first single in the lead up to the album.
It’s a story written from the perspective of a child and the conversations he has over his childhood with his grandad. Some of the lyrics relate to personal experiences of Zak and Leej and the relationship with their Poppa, but the overall story-telling of the song is fictional. At its core Front Porch is about choosing authenticity over appearance, and in an ever-changing world, listening closely to the wisdom of those who’ve lived before us, before their words become memories.
One of the verse lyrics, “It’s easy to fake handshake and smile, but take those that stay through the lowest lows” is a goodie. Again, it’s not exact words that one of our grandads have said to us, but it’s definitely the type of advice you hear a lot from the people in your life that are older and wiser, like your grandparents, parents, sports coaches, etc. The line also sounds cool to sing, so ya know, maybe that skews my opinion a bit!
Our vocalist and rhythm guitarist Zak wrote the lyrics and chords for Front Porch and then brought it to the band who all added their parts just through jamming over the tune a few times. We then went to the ol’ faithful Scott Seabright who co-produced and recorded the tune with us. We’ve recorded our entire album with him, as well as a couple singles we released back in 2023. He’s contributed a lot to this album, from the recording and mixing aspect to the laughs and hour yarns before we actually
start the session.
As mentioned earlier on, there’s a genuine message and meaning to this song. And it’s something that us lads strive to do as well as we can, as musicians and as individuals. Staying grounded, taking on advice, and choosing authenticity over appearance. Just being you. Bit cheesy, but it’s not as easy as it sounds.
Apart from Scott who produced Front Porch and everything we’ve done in the last few years, it’s just the four of us lads, no label or management or anything. Bunch of close mates and family that feel like they’re basically in the band, but other than that we’re just doing our own thing for the time being.
Yeah, that was a cool experience for us. We tracked the whole thing in Jake’s bedroom, which at the time doubled as a studio. This included recording all the drums in a homemade isolated drum booth that Jake and his dad built into his bedroom. It took a crazy amount of attempts for us to get the mic situation figured out, how to even properly use Logic, and just every little step along the way was a complete learning experience. We got our mate Hamish to polish our turds (mix and master them) and he did as good a job as he could. We were stoked to get the EP out without having to put in much money at all, and learning heaps along the way.
Wet Denim – Cascade
Arlo Mac – Ease My Mind
Casper – Sunshine
We got funding back in 2023 for our tune My Way. We found the application pretty straightforward and easy to understand. We’d been keen as to apply for a few years prior to getting this funding but it definitely took a little while to get enough boxes checked off on the criteria. We think that’s such a fair way to do it though. Good way to make sure artists that are getting the funding have already been in the scene for a while, put the hard yards in to prove that NZOA will benefit from the opportunity as well as them. So yeah, even though it took a while for us as a band to meet all the criteria it was an awesome feeling when we eventually did, and then got funding for My Way. Hopefully more to come in the future!
Love watching the Tiny Desk concerts, so cool seeing your favourite bands and artists in a more intimate setting. The ‘Shred with Shifty’ podcast with Chris Shiflett from the Foo Fighters is mean as too. He talks to legendary guitarists, diving into their iconic solos and guitar parts. They just yarn about the origin of the part, how they were written and recorded.
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All band links
Thanks heaps for having a yarn to us, so stoked to get this feature. Stay tuned for the next single coming out soon, and then the album later this year! We’ll also be gigging here and there so follow the socials to keep in the loop with that. Cheers NZM, legends!
