Visual Soup interview

Our Events & Marketing Manager Rachel O’Gorman caught up with local band Visual Soup ahead of the 10^th anniversary Northland Fritter Festival on Saturday 8 March.

Rachel: Tell us a bit about yourself & how Visual Soup came to life?

Visual Soup: Cool! So we’ll introduce ourselves first, this Beau, Reuben, I’m Harper & this is Louie. & we’re visual soup, we’re a band from Whangārei Boys High school, & we play all sorts of music! All sorts of genres, we try and span as many genres as we can because we have mixed interests, so it works the best for us. We formed in 2022 for The Smokefree Rockquest, and we have done Rockquest ever since, and managed to win the Northland one last year! So it was pretty cool. Hoping to do that again in the future. We are stoked to be playing Fritter Festival & super excited.

Rachel: Where do you guys draw your inspiration from? Any particular artists of moments that shaped your sound?

Visual Soup: We all have our own individual very specific niches, for me the red hot chill peppers, plus I’m a die hard Dire Straights fan. So they all kind of come together & mash up to a ‘soup’.

Rachel: I was lucky enough to be at the Smokefree Rockquest last year & the talent was unreal! Taking us back to that night at Forum North, how did it feel when you were announced as first placed band?

Visual Soup: Honestly we were all a little bit surprised, and just amazed. There were so many other great acts that night, we were pretty sure we weren’t going to win, but when we heard the name got read out we were just blown away.

Rachel: How would you describe your sound?

Visual Soup: Probably like.. a bunch… of different ones *heavy laughter from the band*

Rachel: who’s your ultimate dream collab, if you could work with any artist local or international, who would it be?

Visual Soup: Probably the Red Hot Chilli Peppers! Beau definitely likes their music, and we all play a bit of their music, and we’re actually playing one of their songs at Fritter Festival this time, so you’re going to have to wait and see!

Rachel: where do you see yourselves in 5 years?

Visual Soup: probably headlining at Fritter Festival

Rachel: So Visual soup is the second Smoke Free Rock Quest band to open the Fritter Festival after ‘Ready Set’ last year, how does it feel to be kicking things off this year?

Visual Soup: I mean, we’re pretty stoked! It’s a cool as opportunity to some experience, to get our name out there you know.. entering the world of being a band.

Rachel: What are you most looking forward to at the Festival?

Visual Soup: We’re looking forward to playing alongside & seeing all the other cool bands! Like Kora, Stellar & Lost Tribe Aotearoa, and hanging out with them backstage and stuff! And obviously taste the best fritter, and vote for the best fritter.. which you should too!

Rachel: If you had to create a ‘Visual Soup’ Fritter, what would be in it?

Visual Soup: Uh.. probably a whole range of ingredients, just like our band, you know we’ve got lots of different things going on, just like a pretty nice fritter. *laughs*

Rachel: If someone out there was thinking of staring a band, what advice would you give them?

Visual Soup: I mean, you’ve just got to find other people who love music as well. You know, surround yourself by them, get into events, go to gigs, go watch cool people play (like us) and get in the scene you know! (Harper takes over question) And play at Rockquest! Because Rockquest is a great opportunity for any band starting, it’s a great opportunity to perform when you haven’t performed much before.. everyone’s super supportive!

Rachel: For your mates & everyone watching that might not have their tickets yet, what would you like to say to them?

Visual: BUY YOUR TICKETS NOW!

You can watch Visual Soup perform at 12pm at the Northland Fritter Festival at Semenoff Stadium on Saturday 8 March.