| Standing out from the rest |
|
“Typically musicians hate one question which is ‘tell me about your music’ because they don’t want to be put in a box, we want to be artists and have some mysteriousness about ourselves,” says Woolston. “The reality is if you took a blender and threw some Switchfoot guitars into that blender, took some Audio Adrenaline gutsy kind of vocals and chucked that in, then you took a bit of Day of Fire rock and then took a Kiwi and you turned that blender on for 20-plus years, you’d get my music, I would come out of that.” Woolston has played his music all over the world. “I’ve played in New Zealand; I’ve played in strange places like Bulgaria, Romania and Russia. I’ve even played in Shanghai, of all places where Christians aren’t normally welcomed so much, and at a conference I won a Karaoke competition, singing one of my songs about becoming a Christian,” he says. “So that was an interesting way to take music and take what we do into a world that doesn’t always like what we’ve got to say as Christians. So I’m one of those kinds of Christian musicians, I never want to take Jesus out of my music because then for me it would be pointless me making my music.” As well as being a musician, Woolston works in I.T and is associate worship pastor at Harbourside Church on Auckland’s North Shore. “I also love to pass on what I know to other people. I’ve done a specialist songwriting certificate at Berklee School of Music in the States and so I teach songwriting. I want to help people take what you love to do and love others with it. Interestingly my son Daniel is a musician also, he’s in Atlanta Fall, and he played at the Hamilton ITM 400 as the support act for Good Charlotte. To me that’s big because I’ve passed something on.” Woolston’s music can be found at www.peterwoolston.com as he believes the internet is the best way to connect people. “I use the internet to connect with people all over the world,” he says. “I’ve got people who like my music in Auckland, I’ve got people who like my music in Europe and I’ve got people who like my music in California. I’m old enough and smart enough to realise the world is a great big place and you can make a difference in people’s lives if you just make it easy for them to get what they need. The web’s the place, for me, for people to go to.” Ultimately Woolston’s music is about outreach. “The kind of musician I am is that I believe it’s got to be more than the music. Yes, the music’s got be good and people have got to love it but it’s got to be more than music. That could be through what the song is about or where it leaves the person after hearing the song or the character of the musician playing the song, in two years will they be a bad reflection on the song they made which helped someone in their life. These are all big things that really for me,” he says. |
Musician Peter Woolston has been performing for over 20 years and has developed a unique style from a blend of international inspiration.