All Left Out home for NZ music month
Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 10:12 am

---

Hamilton band All Left Out was the winner of Best Gospel/Christian Album at the NZ Music Awards 2008. Not that they’ve had much time to be in New Zealand over the last few years. They toured for 11 months last year, will tour for six months this year and probably another 11 in 2010. In amongst all of this however two members of the band, Ken Pratten and Dave Murray are able to finally spend NZ Music Month in NZ.

NZ Music Month means more gigs for New Zealand musicians, something All Left Out vocalist and guitarist Ken Pratten says can only be a good thing.

“In Hamilton, when I was a teenager, there were lots of bands playing every weekend. NZ Music Month is a chance for bands to perform, play more gigs and get more exposure.”

All Left Out recently played on the famous American Warped Tour and opened for Fall Out Boy in California. The band haven’t left their Hamilton roots behind though and returned home to record their new album with Caption Hook in Hamilton.

Listeners to Life FM will had heard the brand new single “Things Fall Apart” from the album “We’re Alive” during Life FM’s NZ Music Month Bands in the Basement series. For everyone else you’ll have to wait until the album comes out in New Zealand in September.

All Left Out - The Conquest
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 6:31 pm

---

All Left Out
The Conquest
Release date: October 15th 2007
All Left Out Music / Universal Music

All Left Out can only be described as New Zealand’s best kept secret. Not such a secret to their hordes of fans in the U.S, but certainly locals may be surprised to find this internationally admired young punk band doing the do in their own back yard.

In order to understand the extraordinary achievements of this young band so far, let us travel back to early in the 21st Century...

All Left Out was founded by singer/guitatist Ken Pratten in Hamilton in 2002. As a drummer in another band Ken found the outlet needed for the many songs that he’d written, and after roping in the help of three friends, All Left Out was born.

In 2004, after some line-up changes, the band began recording demos for what would become their debut album. The plan was to borrow money to record the album and then make a trip to the United States to sell them, using ‘street marketing’ to recoup the costs. A scary proposition even for an established act, but these entrepreneurial young men, lead by Pratten, felt the fear and did it anyway. In June 2005 All Left Out arrived in the U.S.A armed with a burning desire, their newly recorded debut album Never Say Never and a second hand shuttle bus, which they tore the seats out of and replaced with bunk beds. With no fewer than four breakdowns a week and no air conditioning in the sweltering heat, the band travelled all over the USA and Canada following the Vans Warped Tour.

By the end of 2006, through their relentless determination and self-promotional efforts, the band had toured the U.S three times, opened for Fall Out Boy in California, established a fan base in all major cities of the USA and parts of Canada and the UK, and independently sold 17,500 copies of Never Say Never.

That is what is known, in the most hyperbolic of Kiwi terms, as A Bloody Good Effort.

So how to follow up such a smashing success? Why release a second album and join the Vans Warped Tour for a third year running, of course. If it ain’t broke...

Over June, July and August of this year All Left Out played another 40-odd shows across the States, this time playing more than half of them on the Warped stage. During that excursion they sold nearly 12,000 copies of their second album 'The Conquest'.

The video for first single 'The Lights' is on screens now, featuring a real WWII biplane dontcha know.

The Conquest will be available in NZ stores on October 15 2007.
www.myspace.com/allleftoutnz
www.allleftout.com