APRA AMCOS has announced that renowned folk/alt-country band The Warratahs will be inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame | Te Whare Taonga Puoro o Aotearoa at the 2025 APRA Silver Scroll Awards. 

One of our country’s most loved and enduring bands, The Warratahs have spent nearly four decades weaving their music into the fabric of NZ life. Still performing and recording (with some membership changes), in May 2025 they released a new album called ‘Burning Daylight‘. 

Back in 1987 The Warratahs played what turned out to be the first of many nights at Wellington’s Cricketers Arms Hotel. The band had a life of its own right from the start. Playing covers of Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams and Hank Snow songs, plus a handful by their own pair of ace songwriters, Wayne Mason and Barry Saunders, they quickly built an inclusive reputation. The Warratahs soon established their own unique sound, with a stripped back band playing a brand of country/folk with a distinctly New Zealand soul.

The band sound was based around Saunders’ evocative storytelling voice and guitar and Nik Brown’s fiddle, with Mason provided piano and accordion, Clint Brown on bass and Rob Clarkson was on drumming.

Recorded in just a few days, their first album ‘Only Game In Town’, spent months in the charts and produced two classic and enduring hit songs, Hands Of My Heart and Maureen. The band’s enduring ‘of-the-people’ music credentials were soon  stamped with a clutch of prizes at the 1987 Gore Golden Guitar Awards, and subsequent NZ Music Awards accolades. 

With support from legendary local record label Pagan, they toured relentlessly for almost a decade, playing towns that rarely saw live music, and sharing stages with international greats including The Highwaymen, Billy Joel and The Carter Family. Having one of their songs used on the TV ad for the Interislander ferry undoubtedly helped make the band a household name.

Barry Saunders’ solo work, alongside collaborations with Sam Hunt and Delaney Davidson has further cemented his place as one of New Zealand’s great musical storytellers and country/folk voices. 

The Warratahs will be inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame | Te Whare Taonga Puoro o Aotearoa at the 2025 APRA Silver Scroll Awards on October 29, at the Isaac Theatre Royal in Ōtautahi.