Their debut album was perhaps the most anticiated and postively received local release of 2012.
Homebrew’s debut digital release, the Home Brew Light EP came out in 2007, with music produced by Soulchef and mastering from Chris Macro (Dubious Bros). They followed that up in 2008 with the Last Week EP on vinyl and digital, featuring production from the crew’s Haz Beats.
In 2010, after a number of rejections for NZ On Air music video funding, the band held a mammoth fundraising gig to make a video and pulled in $15,000 in one night. They had convinced acclaimed videomaker Chris Graham (Scribe, Savage, TrinityRoots) to agree to make the clip for ‘Underneath The Shade’ if they raised the money.
Home Brew were shortlisted for the inaugural Critics Choice Prize at the NZ Music Awards in 2010, alongside The Naked And Famous, and eventual winners Street Chant.
Home Brew’s self-titled debut album dropped in May 2012 and went straight to No.1 on the New Zealand album charts. They celebrated its release by holding a monumental 48-hour release party at a former brothel in Kingsland, Auckland. The official blurb for the album tells you a lot about the band – read on...
“Despite what these people might tell you about Home Brew being burdens on society, or advocates for drug dependency, you gotta respect the integrity of their independence and the diligence of their work ethic. In the last year they've been involved in three 5 star releases (At Peace, Max Marx, Last Week), nominated for the Vodafone Critics Choice Award, impregnated Petra Bagust and shaped the rules of the NZ Music Industry without a marketing director or legally recognised source of income.
“Now, after three years of dedication and benefit fraud, they've finally completed a piece of work good enough to move them out of their Mum's place; a debut double album conceptualised by the balance of life's extremities. One side, light. The other, dark. A dichotomy of methadone and melancholy. Infinity and finality. It's a record that looks back at Saturday's moment of madness through Sunday's moment of clarity.
“Featuring the talents of such people as Chip Matthews (Opensouls), Christoph El Truento (At Peace/Wonderful Noise) and Hollie Smith (Don McGlashan's friend) it's their most mature, self reflective, existential piece of work to date.”
The album landed four nominations for the NZ Music Awards in 2012, and the band arrived at the event, walking up the red carpet “leading a goat and dressed like they were about to board Noah's Ark” (NZ Herald). The goat decided to go to the toilet during its red carpet debut, nerves perhaps. Home Brew performed at the awards, dissing John Key and swearing lots, which managed to get them censored on the TV broadcast of the evening. They walked away with the award for Best Hip-Hop Album, making a point in their acceptance speech of thanking God for not existing, “because if he did, we wouldn't have won.”
The next day they were the talk of the (often horrified) media.
Following the album’s release, the band performed successfully across NZ and made their first foray into Australia. And yet, that was largely it, with the band being on hold since 2014.
Scott was also involved in @Peace, and the group worked with a bunch of like-minded musicians as part of the Young Gifted and Broke collective (which also included Team Dynamite, Scratch 22, Tourettes, Christoph El Truento and others).
Scott moved to Melbourne in 2013 and started a new outfit with Lui Tuiasau called Average Rap Band, and while living there, started developing the ideas for Avantdale Bowling Club. He recorded their self-titled debut after moving back to Avondale, and released the album in 2018. It charted at No.2 the week it was released, and went on to win The Taite Prize in 2019. The followup album, Trees, came out in late 2022, immediately charting at No.1.
Home Brew regrouped for some live appearances at festivals in 2018, and did a few occasional live shows in following years. They finally got back the rights to their debut album, reissuing it on CD and vinyl in September 2023, subtitled “The 10th 11th anniversary edition”. The reissue hit No.1 on release (just like the original release in 2012), quite possibly the only local hiphop album ever to top the charts in two different decades.
Home Brew may be the only local act to have two No.1 albums in a year
They performed sold-out shows in Wellington and Auckland to mark the reissue in October 2023, then surprised their fans when they announced a new album Run It Back was on the way for December 2023. When it hit the shops it went number one on release as well. They may also be the only local hiphop act to have two number one albums in a year. Hell, they may be the only local act to do that.
Tom Scott explained the title and approach behind Run It Back: “There’s a term hoopers use after you lose a basketball game – “run it back”. You could get beat 11-nil, but if you call ‘run it back’ then you start the game again from 0. You keep the same team, same rules, but you get a do-over. And if you’re lucky you might have learned something from the last game. It’s like a shot at redemption. After that call you don’t think about what the score was in the last game. You just keep it moving.
“So that’s what it is now. I used to think I had to keep making the same mistakes to make another Home Brew album. Thought I had to stay the person I was then forever. But, nah, that was something I made up. I dug my own pigeonhole. Truth is that nobody wanted me to stay the same forever. They wanted me to grow. And I’m not the only one who has grown up – the people who grew up with that album grew up too.”
In his review for RNZ, Tony Stamp said, “After their first album Home Brew became identified with lyrics about substance abuse, alcohol, and political agitation, and those are still plentiful here. The first two in particular. But there’s no doubt this is a more mature album, much as I doubt they’d appreciate that descriptor.
“Some of the nihilistic humour has been replaced by other concerns, like lines about being a father to young kids. As Tom Scott says in the liner notes, he’s changed. Run It Back isn’t about atoning, necessarily, but it is about the passage of time, and learning things along the way. What’s clear is that the partnership between him and Haz Beats is still strong, and creatively fertile, and they’re still orbited by a wide array of equally talented people.”
