Tom Scott
Avantdale Bowling Club, Average Rap Band, Home Brew, @Peace
Avantdale Bowling Club is the project of Tom Scott, a rapper and songwriter from Auckland, New Zealand. Over the course of two albums, Avantdale Bowling Club (2018) and Trees (2022), Tom has worked with some of the best musicians and producers in New Zealand to craft a vivid intermingling of jazz, soul, hip-hop and electronica. Written from a working class perspective at the bottom of the globe, Scott’s songs explore the day to day realities of life lived on the margins of society.
The debut release won the coveted Album of the Year and best Hip-Hop artist at the Aotearoa Music Awards followed by Independent Music NZ’s Taite Music Prize for best album release. At the end of 2022 the folllow-up ‘Trees’ debuted at number 1 on the chart.
Sad and celebratory in equal measure, Avantdale Bowling Club has been celebrated by NPR, Refuge Worldwide and Radio New Zealand.
Raised on jazz, soul, funk and rap, he’s honed his skills as a rapper, songwriter and bandleader through membership in several cult groups, Homebrew, @Peace and Average Rap Band.
Tom Scott is one of the most compelling figures to emerge from the New Zealand hip-hop scene over the last fifteen years.
Auckland hip-hop act Home Brew have successfully, in equal parts, both transfixed and shocked parts of New Zealand in recent years. Their debut album was perhaps the most anticipated and positively received local release of 2012.
The trio of Home Brew were led by Tom Scott, working alongside Lui Gumaka and beatmaker Hazbeats (Haz Huavi); joined onstage by a full live band. They established themselves off the back of a series of digital EPs they gave away for free on Bandcamp, along with some very entertaining home-made video clips posted on the internet; promoting their music and generally getting up to mischief while avoiding getting arrested.
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 Hazbeats.
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.
“Featuring the talents of such people as Chip Matthews (Opensouls), Christoph El Truento (@Peace/Wonderful Noise) and Hollie Smith (Don McGlashan's friend) it's their most mature, self reflective, existential piece of work to date.”
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, perhaps never to return.
Scott was also involved in @Peace, and the group work with a bunch of likeminded musicians as part of the Young Gifted and Broke collective (which also includes Team Dynamite, Scratch 22, Tourettes, Christoph El Truento and others).