Juna

Juna are a Wellington pop-rock three-piece built around big harmonies, crunchy guitars, 80’s synths and songs about the messy reality of growing up, falling in love and figuring things out.

The band began almost by accident. Max, Hannah and Hayden first got together to play covers, but after only a couple of rehearsals realised they were far more interested in writing their own music. Bassist Evie Patterson completed the line-up, bringing together four young musicians with backgrounds spanning jazz, folk-pop and Wellington’s live music scene. However, she has just recently moved overseas to study classical double bass.

Co-fronted by Hannah and Max, Juna draw influence from The 1975, Olivia Rodrigo, The Japanese House and Bleachers, while developing a sound of their own. Songwriting is shared across the band, whether it starts with an instrumental idea from Max, something written individually or a conversation in the room that develops into a song.

Things have moved quickly. Their second-ever show saw them play to 3,000 people at Gardens Magic, while an opening slot for Borderline in Auckland gave the band an early glimpse of how far their music was travelling when they looked out to see people singing their lyrics back to them. They’ve since played CubaDupa, headlined San Fran, opened for Emerson and built a following of more than 20,000 across social media. They also look forward to their seven-date national tour in late November/early December.

On October 30th, Juna releases she’s coming over again, their debut EP.

The project follows a chronological story of a relationship, from the very start when someone first catches your eye through their track canadian waters to the bittersweet end of missing you (all the time).

she’s coming over again is strongly focused on aspects of Max (guitarist) and Hannah’s (singer) relationship that bloomed through Juna. Both Max and Hannah were writing songs for each other, allowing each song to be ordered by the time it was written, falling into a natural order. Juna’s last track of the EP missing you (all the time) is loosely based off of Hayden’s (drummer) past relationship and its extremely bitter-sweet end. As the band heard his story, they felt inspired to write a song that lyrically sounded sad and heartbroken, but melodically conveyed feelings of hope and new beginnings.

With their debut EP and a seven-date New Zealand tour ahead, Juna are looking beyond 2026 too, with Australia, the US and more festival stages firmly in their sights, including playing Rhythm & Vines on the 29th December.