Singer Dave Adams begins by getting into the origins of the band. “Well I met Tim (Parry – guitar/vocals) and Loz (Bell – flute/vocals/percussion) when I walked into a tiny music venue on Smith Street,” Adams says. “They were playing at that time in the Gabi Smith Trio and I was the only audience member apart from a couple sitting on a couch. They were amazing [with] cheeky smiles and beautiful harmonies. I realised I’d walked in on the last song and asked them if they’d play one more for me and they were stoked someone had asked them to play another. They played a song that had meant a huge deal to me at the time that would be too daggy to name now – freaky, I thought. Years later in Facebook time, I had had a dream that I was in a band with Tim and found him and messaged him telling him my dream. He needed a singer for Lamarama – bam! He also needed a drummer, who was the dude in the couple on the couch at same gig. I promise that’s all true.”
The synchronicity sounds too perfect to be true, and Lamarama’s cheeky style evokes a sense of wariness to a story with so much romanticism, but hey, for now that’s how it happened. The more Adams talks about Lamarama though, the more intriguing coincidences appear. For example, their association with the support act for their EP launch, Ghost Orkid. “Actually their first gig ever was supporting my other band Captain Groove, filling in for a band that had dropped out five hours before needing to be on stage. They got together and jammed the entire set as Matt Kelly and the Turbo Rads, I think the name was,” he says. “We’ve supported them for one of their Monday night residency shows at The Evelyn recently and our bands seemed to really suit each other; it’ll be interesting to see how we go going on after them because they’re quite something.” When asked about any upcoming festival shows for Lamarama, Ghost Orkid appears again. “We’re doing Folk, Rhythm, and Life in a few weeks actually – a one in the morning Saturday night spot I think,” he says. “Oh and actually we have Ghost Orkid on right before us too! The amount of coincidences and weird things that happen around this band is bizarre. It’s because Loz is a hippy I reckon.”
While the tales of the band’s inception and recurring coincidences appear convincing, Adams admits that he does play a role within the beast that is Lamarama and in his storytelling as a lyricist. “I’m a character man actually; too scared to sing about my own life, although that’s exactly what I end up doing, but through characters,” he says. “Ray Davies from The Kinks was almost the start of that, although John Lennon was putting on really different voices and things like that and I try to do both of those. I think wanting to be an actor for all of early high school plays a role in that. Sorry, we’re a very punny band.” Pun-filled humour may be rife, but so is their instinctual and impressive talent as musicians and entertainers.
BY KRISSI WEISS
