Falling somewhere between Coldplay, Razorlight and Crowded House, the New Freedom effortlessly combines elements of pop, rock and soul to create an epic sound. The Auckland five-piece – made up of Tom Fox, Duncan Jackson (both vocals/guitar), Marshall Smith (vocals/keys), Geoff Perkins (bass) and Barry Widerstrom (drums/percussion) – are currently putting the finishing touches on their debut album and have recently won an international competition run by American magazine Remix to have it mixed by LA producer Ed Goldfarb (KD Lang, Morcheba, Boys II Men).

The band received another welcome boost recently when they were given $10,000 worth of funding from NZ On Air to go towards the release of their first single and accompanying video late last year. But it’s not just on TV that you can catch them. The New Freedom are a fairly busy live act and regularly play at major music venues throughout Auckland, including the Kings Arms, Dog’s Bollix, Galatos, Masonic, Reef Bar and at various festivals.

The members of the band are all talented in their own right and have received accolades for their abilities. Keyboard player Smith was a finalist for Song of the Year at the 2004 APRA Silver Scroll Awards (New Zealand’s top songwriting honours) and has won, or been a finalist in, a wide range of international songwriting competitions. Smith also currently has three international publishing deals, which have seen music written by him featured on USA networks such as MTV and VH-1. Singer/guitarist Fox has seen similar success – he is a chart-topping songwriter and producer in his native South Africa and won South African music producer of the year in 1998. In 2006,