Music
Press
Like our answer to Coldplay and U2, they played big, rousing pop songs with the beef to fill a stadium and the sentiment to back an Oxfam campaign.
- NZ Herald
This could well be high up on the list of albums of the year when the class of 2007 is dismissed. **** - Southland Times
Well-penned lyrics and great cohesion ensured Second Hand Planet delivers a sound much greater than the sum of the band’s individual parts… I can rate Second Hand Planet as a standout album. **** - Waikato Times
the sound of Second Hand Planet is truly world class; up there with U2 and Coldplay - all bands who have obviously made a big impression on this Kiwi band. Frontman Jason Kerrison shows he is an incredibly gifted songwriter and he is blessed with a fine set of pipes - an extremely strong vocalist, possibly the best NZ has to offer presently. - NZmusic.com
Discography
2007 - Second Hand Planet (Album - NZ only)
2004 - You are Here (Album - NZ Only)
Photos
Bio
Milestones for Opshop and Second Hand Planet album:
March 2008 - Nominated for an MTV Australia Award
March 2008 - invited to play at Musexpo at the House of Blues in LA.
After 32 weeks on the Official Top 40 album chart Second Hand Planet goes Number 1, beating out Radiohead on it's debut week. The following 2 weeks opshop maintained #1 album position as well as #1 itunes Album and Single.
Secondhand Planet reached double platinum status after 34 weeks and has been in the NZ Top 40 for 42 weeks.
Opshops debut album You Are Here spawned 7 singles and reached Platinum status.
The single Maybe has achieved the honour of being the biggest song at New Zealand Radio in 4 years, holding the #1 spot for 12 consecutive weeks and was the only song to receive over 10,000 spins in 2007.
#1 on NZ Album Charts
#1 Most added to New Zealand Radio (Maybe)
# 1 on C4 Television (Maybe)
# 1 on Juice TV (Maybe)
#1 at Digirama (Maybe)
#1 at i-tunes (Album and Maybe Single)
#1 at i-tunes (One Day)
#3 on NZ Singles Chart (Maybe)
#4 on NZ Singles Chart (One Day)
#1 Overall Airplay for 12 consecutive weeks (Maybe)
#1 on Overall Airplay (One Day) for 3 consecutive weeks.
2008 Big Day Out Mainstage performance
Best Group Video Award at Juice TV Video Awards (Maybe)
Most nominated artist at the 2007 NZ Music Awards Video, of Year, Album of Year, Group of Year, Best Engineer, Best Rock Album, Single of the Year, Peoples Choice.
Winner Peoples Choice Awards at 2007 NZ Music Awards
2007 Guest Appearances Snow Patrol NZ Tour/ Silverchair and Powderfinger
2007 Coca Cola Christmas in the Park to an Audience of 200,000.
First artist to hold i-tunes #1 Album and Single positions simultaneously twice Maybe and One Day
Sell out shows in London and Dubai Nov/Dec 2007
Second Hand Planet: The background.
Its been a while, but Opshops long awaited follow up to the platinum selling You Are Here is certainly evidence that where theres a will, theres a way.
Since the bands debut release, Opshop has downsized to a four-piece following the departure of Tim Skeddon and Ian Munroe. But the smaller line-up has done nothing to diminish the bands intensity of message and music.
Weve certainly been through some personnel changes, says lead vocalist Jason Kerrison.
It was difficult and we thought it was all going to go pear-shaped. But we just willed ourselves back into being. We tried some options but we conceded that we would never find a replacement for Tim so we stopped looking and just decided to find the elements that worked for the album.
Those elements included the secondment of bass player Clint Harris who already had a long standing connection with Jason and [drummer] Bobby Kennedy. Jason says that before they asked the question he was there anyway.
With Tim not there we lost a bit of the growl that he had brought to the group but Clint fills a different part of the spectrum and [guitarist] Matt Treacy has found a few more clubs in his bag, says Jason.
It was at this early stage of development that renowned producer Greg Haver approached the label and asked if there was a chance to work with Opshop. The band was more than happy to have his involvement.
Greg Haver came complete with a resume packed with international accomplishment having produced, mixed and engineered for a number of acts including Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals, Spiritualized, Catatonia, Lost Prophets, Tom Jones and many more.
We especially enjoyed what he had done with Manic Street Preachers so he came into the process and he acted as a great sound board for the songs we had. We already had a fair idea of what would and wouldnt work but that critical approach was helpful, says Jason.
After initial pre-production Opshop realised they had some decisions to make. The band had about 14 songs but after recording 10 they realised that because they had been written at different times and for very different reasons, there was a distinct lack of cohesion to the collection. It was the beginning of a hellish burst of creativity which Jason says was perhaps the catalyst the band needed to find their collective voice.
We knew Greg was going away to Japan with the Manic Street Preachers so we had just three weeks to find those songs that would bind the whole album together. It was high pressure, but thats where the songs I love off the record came from songs like Noah, Maybe, One Thing Worth Preserving, Waiting Now and Nothing to Hide (which we completely reworked from the original session) came out of this intense writing period.
Still, even with the body of songs required now together, there were still many forks in the production road and Jason claims Opshop were at pains to let the album ferment into its own identity.
An album is such an amorphous blob at the end of the day so its not finished until you hear it in its entirety. In saying that, w
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