Bio

In 2006 the notorious 'Hopepa' (a.k.a. Joe Lindsay trombonist extraordinaire) - ceased his outlandish antics for a brief moment and formed his own group: THE YOOTS!

He enlisted his younger brother Sam Lindsay along with colleagues Iain Gordon and Toby Laing. Then he summoned Mike Fabulous, the Yeabsley brothers and P.K. Hoskin. Still not satisfied, Hopepa called in favours from the likes of Craig Poll, Lucien Johnson, Will Ricketts and Adan Tijerina and finally the ensemble was complete.

With Hopepa at the helm, the new group set out to navigate a musical passage somewhere between Calypso-Ska and Country-Soul.

THE YOOTS! took the stage at The Cuba Street Carnival, a series of outdoor festivals - as well as late night appearances too numerous to enumerate. Wild excitement and heaving dance floors followed THE YOOTS! at every turn and the air crackled with the strains of the finest party music - songs from distant corners of the globe - from east Africa to the Caribbean.

Early in 2010, THE YOOTS! began to chart a slightly different course. Along with the rocksteady rhythms of Don Drummond and The Skatalites, other sounds: famous melodies from Aotearoa began to feature on the program. A new era had commenced.

Songs such as 'Hine E Hine' and 'E Papa Waiari' were heard alongside strains of Calypso-Boogie and Creole-Compa. Instead of hunting through rare records to unearth musical gems from distant lands, THE YOOTS! searched through their own experiences and earliest memories to draw on the rich musical tradition of these islands.

At this point ECONOMY RECORDS stepped in and requested, nay, demanded a debut album to be recorded, mixed, mastered and delivered to the President's desk first thing Monday morning. This is exactly what happened and this is what Scott Kara from the New Zealand Herald had to say about it:

"The cool thing about (SING ALONG WITH THE YOOTS!) is that it's made up of instrumentals of classic Maori tunes for you to sing along to - so crank it up and get down".

And here's what The President of Economy Records had to say about it:

"Melodies travel at a speed so rapid as to be immeasurable by science. Long before the words can be heard, the melody of the song had entered the listeners' dreams and there it will forever stay. Now is the hour Aotearoa, to SING ALONG WITH THE YOOTS!!"

Band Members:
Joe 'Hopepa' Lindsay (trombone)
Sam Lindsay (guitar)
Iain 'Lord Lichfeild'Gordon (piano)
Chris Yeabsley (organ)
Daniel Yeabsley (double bass)
P.K. Hoskin (drums)
Adan Tijerina (congas)
William 'Wyld Bill' Ricketts (percussion)
Lucien Johnson (lead tennor)
Toby Laing (trumpet)
Craig Poll (tenor)