GUEST MUSICIAN JUSTIN DEVEREUX introduces his debut album Nickels&Dimes

Like many people, during COVID I had a lot of time to think and reassess my career in film and television.

I was waking up in the middle of the night with cold sweats, freaking out that I’d missed my chance to make music. That was what I always wanted. That’s always been my dream really.

So in 2023 we packed up our young family to follow the lifelong dream , leaving New Zealand behind and settling in Los Angeles where we now live.

It was really hard to pack our lives into nice suitcases, which meant only three suitcases each. And for me, it was like - clothing or guitars? So I took the guitars.

Knocking on the doors of a local studio, Studio City Sound, I met Grammy Award winning producer, Tom Weir, and together we recorded my second single, Cotton Wool. 

LA was kind of surreal, Tom just got on the phone the day I met him, and arranged for some of his session guys to come in the next day. Musical geniuses like Jeff Babko (Jimmy Kimmel Live), Gregg Bissonnette (drummer for Ringo Starr and David Lee Roth), guitarist Laurence Juber (Paul McCartney’s Wings), and bassist Lance Morrison (Alanis Morisette).

I was like ‘woow! 

When it was time to record an album, an invitation to play a live show presented itself back in Auckland, and as a fan of Neil Finn’s work, I set my sights on Roundhead Studios.

Along with producer De Stevens, we performed and recorded live in the ‘brick room’, along with Neil Watson on pedal steel and lead guitar, Alex Freer on drums, with Jonathan Burgess and Chip Matthews sharing bass responsibilities over two separate sessions. 

Quite frankly, these guys are the best. I’d worked with Neil and Chip before on my first single Deer in the Headlights, so when De suggested them for the album I didn’t hesitate. They’re super talented, and by default they put so much into the songs. They really care, and collectively I just love what everyone did on this album. 

Nickels&Dimes is ‘genre-fluid’, taking the best parts of Americana, blues, rock, and folk to tell the story. It captures my journey, so there’s a lot of depth and reflection, but also a restlessness and longing for something or place just out of reach. 

From the get-go, its first track Let it Rain is big and cinematic. You hear the pounding of drums (almost tribal) and then a massive wall of sound hits you. The type of sound that’s right at home under a big desert sky, and Let it Rain is the perfect hymn to start your road trip.

Suddenly you shift gears and you’re in indie rock, with driving guitar arpeggios over a bed of hypnotic tom-toms. Within You is upbeat and energetic, and you feel like the album has just stepped out from behind the curtains: “You don’t know what you put me through, the same finger’s pointing back at you, I am lost and found whichever way shits goes down, I am lost and found within you”.

It’s a song that just came out of nowhere with lyrics and chords almost completely intact. From what I can gather it’s about a person who feels like someone else is living in their own body along with them, and the two personalities don’t always get along. 

Dirty Water shifts modes again into the muddy Mississippi delta blues.

The first single, Starring in My Dreams released in April has already found a home in playlists around the world. It was selected for May’s NZ on Air, NewTracks playlist in the folk and country genre

Standby for Transmission closes out the album as an adult lullaby.

Don’t we all just want to live happily ever after? I thought, why not write a song about that. Somehow it became more about chasing down your dreams, but I’m really proud of how that track turned out.

I embraced the crooning vocals of a late night TV host singing, “Standby for transmission, we’re coming to you live from the moon, riding the waves of tranquility.

That's a reference to the moon landings of the 1960s as well as the quest for humanity to strive for the best versions of themselves:“Rise and shine, you and the stars are going out tonight”.

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Justin Deveux's Nickels&Dimes is available on all music platforms with a Holiday Records gatefold vinyl pressing due mid-July. Pre-order a vinyl copy here justindevereuxmusic.com

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