MNZ Interview: Curlys Jewels

Curlys Jewels are a rock band from Wellington, known for a sound that’s grungy yet powerfully emotive – soaring vocals, dark guitar undertones, and a punching rhythm section. Their newest single, Panic Parade, described as “a song for the times,” is set for release this Friday, 1 May 2026. Muzic.NZ’s Ayla recently caught up with Aaron and Jel from Curlys Jewels to talk about the band, their hobbies, their fans, and of course, their cats.

What is your role in the band, and describe yourself in five words. 

Aaron: I am the guitarist in the band and songwriter. Myself in five words. Oh man, this is real hard eh?
Creative, analytical, patient, driven, and supportive.

Jel: I’m Jel and I am the singer, voicetress of the band and co-sign songwriter with Aaron. And five words to describe me would be, I’m going to call straight up one word.
So straight-up, eclectic, analog, entertainer, and grateful.

Curlys has a strong fan base. What’s your secret to having such a dedicated fan-mily? 

Jel: I like that, fan-mily. Oh, I would say it’s about as you say, family. I would say it’s about creating a thing where it’s not just about people coming to see us on the stage, but us all being part of the show together. That’s how I feel it anyway. Like we try to create a feeling of it’s all, we’re all in it together, you know, and that’s both on stage and at a show and online as well. Like it’s all very accessible. We like to try and make sure that our fans feel like they’re very much part of the family, which we’ve created. And we always say that we try and get our fans to be part of it one by one. It’s not like we just kind of go, oh, come and be part of it, but we try and get our fans to be part of Curly one by one.

Aaron: Yeah. Also like finding out about our fans as well and what they do and at the end of the day, it’s all about people, right? You know, we just make music, but that’s just our kind of I guess our hobby in a way. And the best thing about it is, you know, it has to be about people.

Speaking of strong fans, you have a few fans who have Curly’s tattoos. How do you feel about that? And did they ask you before they did it? 

Aaron: Yeah, it’s real humbling, eh? Because I mean, it’s a lifelong commitment to have our band name or imagery sort of, yeah, tattooed. It’s pretty epic really. And no, we didn’t really know, I mean, on a couple of them, we had no idea it’s just like, hey, isn’t this photo cool? It’s like, oh my God, that’s pretty epic. 

Jel: Shit yeah

Aaron: And it’s super, super humbling. We’re blessed that people love our music to be able to, you know, and it connects with them, for them to actually go and want to go and do that.

Jel: Hell yeah, it’s ridiculous

Aaron: It’s epic. 

Jel: It is the buzziest thing. Like every now and again, we’ll just be like, people have got our shit tattooed all over the line. Like that is absolutely crazy. Not crazy for them, but just crazy for us. And as you said, Aaron, very humbling.

Aaron: Oh, it really is. I’ve got a music tattoo on me and that’s a portrait of Jimi Hendrix, you know, I idolise Jimi Hendrix. He’s an absolute legend. And for people to be able to have our band on their skin or in their skin is like, wow, crazy awesome. 

So the picture for Panic Parade is pretty epic, who designed it and what does it mean? 

Aaron: So the designer is a guy named Barney and his business is called Indium Design. And he’s done quite a few of our records now. We just love the work that he does and he really takes our concept and we let him have that creative vibe for his style to be able to build on our idea. And he just makes our idea just sing on the images. 

Jel: Which is cool too, because he kind of, we give him the lyrics and he likes to go off what the lyrics are and he takes that and goes, boom, okay, this is how I interpret the lyrics. And he goes from there, which is really kind of cool because our lyrics aren’t just thrown together words that are thought about quite heavily. So to have somebody who really thinks about the imagery as far as what the lyrics mean is quite meaningful for us. So that’s really cool, especially with this one, because we’re not doing a video and stuff for it. So that’s quite a heavy imagery for it.

Yeah, so why aren’t you doing a video?

Aaron: I guess we were thinking, we like to have, you know, visuals for the work that we do, whether it’s singles or even live performance. But for this one, we kind of thought, well, there’s just so much stuff on screens at the moment. People always look at their phones and there’s a heck of a lot of things happening in the world right now and we thought, well, should we try and take it back to the roots before there were videos and images and stuff.

And it’s like, how about we just give people the song and you just make your own determinations of what it means and how it connects with you, just from the song alone. And obviously it needs the cover art to go along with it just to give it that extra push, but yeah, that’s the main kind of reason. It’s like, yeah, we just don’t want people connected, you know, totally on their phones the whole time, watching stuff, the world go by.

Jel: Leave it up to your taringas for once. 

If you had to be confined to one room for six months and you could only take two albums, an international and a New Zealand artist, who would they be and why? 

Jel: Oh, bro. I don’t even know if I could answer that, to be honest. That’s so hard. Oh, Curlys.

Me: Do you listen to yourself? 

Jel: Hell no. To be fair, I skip me and it’s not because I don’t want the spins. It’s because I just, you know, don’t listen to yourself.

Aaron: There’s certainly albums that I’ve grown up with and love to listen to. But if I had to pick one, probably Pearl Jam: Ten. And that’s just because that’s what got me started on guitar pretty much and all the songs on that album just drop dead freaking epic, in my opinion.

And for a New Zealand album, yeah, that’s really tough. I mean, jeepers. If I had to actually pick one, probably, I’m a huge Aaron Torkona fan, so probably Weta: Geographica.

Jel: My favourite album in the world is A Perfect Circle’s Mer de Noms, super excited about them coming at the end of the year. So I’d probably have to take that. I find it really hard to choose. I’m not very decisive but that would be my first thought, just because that is my favourite album. I couldn’t pick another one. 

So your latest merch features a cat and you’re pretty well known for naming your cats some very interesting names. Tell me your cat’s names and why you picked them?

Jel: All right. So our four-year-old big baby, his name is Mr Hamsteak Fantasticleese McMince and his name has been around for 10 years before he was actually. Part of his name was named by my dear old flatmate, Pat, who had another cat whose name was Sweet Banana Truffle Muffin. And we had decided, well, before Cleese, that’s his short name, was ever around that the next cat off the rank, had to have the name Mr Hamsteak in it. And I was like, well, Mr Hamsteak Fantasticleese McMince is going to have to be it.

So that’s been around for a long time before Cleese was. And then his picture came up online and I was like, there he is, so therefore he arrived in our life. And then we also ended up with Cheeky Squinkle Chicken, who is our little one-eyed baby. And funnily enough, we named her before we found her as well. But she matched her name because strangely, Squinkle just kind of worked with the fact she is squinting quite regularly. She’s a beautiful little addition. So yeah, that’s who we now have in our whanau.

So Cleese has gone on tour with you. Will she come on tour too? 

Jel: To be fair, most likely, because she’s actually very, very social. In fact, far more social than Cleese. Cleese loves it at the studio, which is random because he’s quite scared. You know, he’s a skittish boy. But I think Chicken will be ridiculously social and probably freaking love it. So yes. If we could find her a little pirate harness, that’d be glorious but she’s probably just going to get a pink one and come on tour at some stage.

What is your strategy for surviving so long as a New Zealand band? 

Aaron: Yeah, I mean, I guess we just enjoy it. It’s as simple as that. It’s just enjoying what we do. And we just love creating music and performing in front of people, and getting the response of our fans basically to say, hey, you know, that’s awesome, yeah, it made our night. Because we’ve made our night every time we get on stage right, and then if people are there to enjoy that with us, then yeah, man, we’re stoked.

And I guess we’re all, we’ve all been really good friends as well. Obviously, Jel and I, we’re partners so that makes life a lot easier, you know, for our writing and getting the basis of songs down. And we’ve had Andy, obviously, he’s our bass player and he’s been a friend for years and years and years. And then we’ve got our old drummer Corey, who left about a year or so ago. I mean, he’s still a friend of ours now. And he was in our band for like 13 odd years. So we’re just good mates.

And then now you have your brother in the band

Aaron :Yes. Because Corey, he medically retired from our band and so we were thinking, gee, what are we going to do?

Jel: How the hell do we replace our Corey? 

Aaron: Yeah, I mean, it’s because we had a core, unchanged lineup for 13 plus years and it’s a massive step to kind of think, shit, what are we, what’s our next kind of like step basically. But thankfully, I called my brother, who’s an amazing musician, not just a drummer, guitar player, singing, you name it, he can do it, which is a real blessing. And I said, hey, would you be keen to fill in for a couple of shows? And we had a recording session booked.

And he said, yeah, man, I’ll do it. I’ve got some time. And yeah that’s how we kind of connected with him and he’s kind of a permanent member in the band now, which we’re stoked about. 

Jel: Very.

So how do you make that work? Because he lives in Auckland, yeah? So like for recording and practicing.

Aaron: So the logistical challenge especially right now, of the North Island, you know, it’s kind of like we have to be able to, we had to make that work somehow. So I guess the key for us is that we know the songs inside out. And Gavin is extremely dedicated to any project that he’s on. So he knows the songs absolutely, probably better than we do.

Jel: Yeah, he actually does. 

Aaron: So what we normally do is if we’ve got a show coming up, he’ll come down the night or two before and we’ll just smash out our rehearsing then. So that doesn’t really affect our performance, we still play tight enough for a show. For recording, we do that remotely so we record guitar and vocal demos here, send that up to him, he’ll do drum tracks up in Auckland. Then we’ll sort of put them together and then send them to our producer and get the song into ship shape and then we’ll fly to a recording concert and get it done.

What’s your creative process look like for a song for each band member?

Jel: So usually, and this has always kind of been how it’s worked for us. At least, I mean, it may change now because we’ve kind of got to change the way we approach things a little bit, being a bit more remote with Gav being away. But up until now, at least, it’s always been Aaron and I have written basically the basis of the song because it’s easier for us to just go guitar and vocals. Obviously, we live together, so that makes life a little bit easier to do it like that. So we’ve done that part and then we normally, in the past at least, we’ve taken it to the lads and they’ve chucked their bits and pieces on it, bass and drums. But it’s a little bit harder these days being that we don’t get regular rehearsals. So as Aaron said, it’s going to be a little bit more remote. We have to send the track up to Gavin and say, hey bro, what do you reckon? Hoof some drums on it. And then when we get the chance, obviously we send it to Andy as well and he can have a little think about what he wants to chuck on there as well.

And then when we actually get the chance to get together, that’s when we get to have a play at it. But that’s not usually until we actually get close to recording time. So that is a whole different way of having to write stuff now.

So you know, once upon a time it was like we’d jam it at band practice and all that sort of thing, but now it’s a completely different kettle of fish. So we’re still kind of learning our footing on the new way of doing things. But you know, change is a good thing and we’ve got to roll with that, you know.

So hard as going now. But yeah, still the basis of how we’ve always done it has been Aaron and I writing the bones and that hasn’t changed.

Pre or post show rituals?

Aaron: I don’t really have any, not a hell of a lot. I mean, I like to stay busy before a gig and just kind of make sure that I’m not sitting around doing nothing because I don’t want to think about the show too much.

Jel: Yeah, Aaron is a busy human all day.

 Aaron: Yeah, so I just walk around and find things to do, yeah, pretty basic for me. The other guys, Andy and Gav, I mean, we’ve all got our own little quirks, I guess, but I don’t even know what they do, to be honest. We kind of just like, 10 minutes before the gig starts, it’s like we just turn up and go, hey guys, you all ready? Yeah, sweet. 

Jel: We’re all there watching the other bands and doing all that. I’m always fluming around dancing like an idiot for the other ones, for the other bands.

I’m stupidly talking to absolutely everyone, which is completely against what I should be doing, because I always have a lost voice, but I can’t help it. Which goes back to the whole how do we grow our fandom thing, is because we are social, and we actually talk to everyone, and we have a relationship with the people that we hang out with that come to our shows. Because they aren’t just fans, they’re whanau, and that’s what happens, you know, and we genuinely enjoy the people that we’re around, so that’s part of the pre-show ritual, that we hang out and we spend time with people. Yeah, so I suppose that’s the pre-show ritual, aside from us all standing backstage going, oh, have a cuddle, That’s it, the pre-show cuddle

So Aaron, tell me about your onstage setup that you’ve managed to, you’ve compacted it to a nice thing.

Aaron: This is real techy. So live, I use a Fractal FM3, which is a guitar processor, pretty much it basically imitates or has, real amplifier sims and cabinets and foot switches and pedals and all bits and bobs, all in one. So it’s really portable. Rather than, I used to lug around big, giant amplifier heads and cabinets and, you know, I’m getting too old for that and the old back can’t cope.

So it’s portability, really, which has been a real game changer for me. I personally think the sounds that we get out of Fractals and things like Quad Cortex processors are pretty much, at a live level anyhow, pretty negligible in sound difference to my ears, which is really awesome. And at the moment I’m using Yamaha guitars. I’m Lucky enough to be endorsed through Music Works New Zealand so they’ve been amazing to me over the years and I’m loving playing Yamaha at the moment. Then I’ve also got an old Gibson Les Paul, which I rip out every now and then, which is always fun to play. Super heavy, but, you know, again, it’s about the back thing, why I don’t play it as much anymore.

What’s your favourite New Zealand venue to play? 

Jel: Well it was Lovelands, but let’s not cry. (R.I.P Lovelands)

Aaron: I mean, to be honest, I love playing San Fran. I think that’s such a cool venue. We’ve had some really amazing experiences at San Fran opening and supporting some pretty damn legendary international and New Zealand acts. And it’s always been a full house when we’ve played there. I feel like capped out San Fran is just insane when you’re playing to a crowd of that size. So, yeah, that’s probably it, every venue is good in its own way, but if I had to pick one, that would be San Fran.

Jel: That’s a pretty good call. I think I’d pick the same. I do enjoy, actually, Paisley Stage up in Napier, but Paisley’s changed now. We haven’t been to the new one since they got a new premises.

Aaron: That’s why I wasn’t going to pick that one, because we haven’t played it.

Jel: I know, we haven’t played the new one, but I did used to enjoy that, because it’s a very buzzy, cool place, and just going in there was really choice, because it’s got so much to look at. Even if you’re waiting around, there’s just so much to see. 

Me: Yeah, so much pop culture. 

Jel: Oh, it was so rad.

What’s your dream venue to play? 

Jel: Oh, mate, hook us up with the TSB Arena. Nah, I’d like to play Meow Nui, I mean, it would have to be a massive, you know, support gig or something like that. There’s so many awesome venues, but I suppose that realistically, it’s not ever going to be a TSB or anything like that. But as far as a potential, maybe, if you’ve got a support gig with someone, it could be a Meow Nui, maybe.

Aaron: Yeah, at a local level, Meow Nui. But at an international level, man.

Jel: Wembley! 

Aaron: Headlining Glastonbury. 

Me: Oh, Glastonbury’d fucking love you

Jel: Maybe, actually, a festival gig in Aussie or something would be so cool. Just, even on the first stage of the day, I don’t give a shit. I’ll rage like a bitch while everyone’s walking in the door. I don’t care if it’s at 12.30. I know that’s not quite a venue, but it’s close enough.

Hobbies outside of music? 

Aaron: So, hobbies for me, super geeky. I love aviation, I love building model aircraft, and I’m kind of into the pop culture kind of scene, so I like collecting stuff like G.I. Joe figures, and I used to collect Star Wars figures, like Stormtroopers and bits and bobs, so I love doing that. 

Jel: We have a museum downstairs.

Aaron: We have a museum at our house, full of collectible stuff.

Jel: You can see it after this, You must, whether you want to or not, we love it. My outside hobbies are Annoying Aaron.

Me: That’s a good one.

Aaron: Yeah, she does that one well. 

Jel: I’ve perfected the art of annoying Aaron after all these years. I collect pop vinyls. I do theatre. Yeah, that’s a big one of mine, entertainment, in any respect. I am the entertainer of all things. I am the funeral singer, I am the wedding singer, I am the entertainer of all things, wherever it may be needed. Yeah, I do enjoy that. That’s the main one, really, for me, is just anything entertainment. And just collecting pop vinyls and wandering around to random comic related things with Aaron or like pop culture related things with Aaron.

What can we expect next from Curlys after Panic Parade? 

Aaron: For us it’s just like writing at the moment. So we’ve got heaps of ideas. Jel and I have been really busy. We’ve been moving house and bits and bobs, and that’s kind of slowed us down a wee bit, but given us a good break and it’s been nice to have a break from music for a little while, but now we’re all guns blazing, writing new stuff and we’ll run our process of getting the ideas to Andy and Gav, and we’ll just book our usual book a studio in probably August or something and record some new songs. 

Jel: trying to get ourselves out and about for gigging as well. Obviously it’s a little bit hard with this whole petrol crisis thing to figure out what’s going to happen. Having Gav in Auckland, we’ve got to make sure we can get him here and things like that, but we definitely want to get around and get out and play because it’s been a little bit difficult.

Andy’s just had a baby, which is really cute, so that’s been a little bit of a, you know, we haven’t been doing too much recently because of that as well. And I’ve had a few bits and pieces going on, so we haven’t gigged as much as we’d like. So that’ll be on the cards as well, to get out and about and gigging.

Aaron: We do have a show coming up which will be released shortly, so we’ll keep everybody posted on that. 

Jel: But yeah, obviously, as with everything at the moment, we’ve just got to play it by ear and see how the world goes.

J: We certainly want to get out and play because that’s the biggest thing for us is getting the music out there and getting ourselves out there as well. On the cards, babe, on the cards. 

And lastly, where will we be able to find Panic Parade? 

Aaron: So we’ll have it on all of the usual streaming platforms. Spotify, Tidal, Bandcamp, Apple Music, all of those places. It will still be available on YouTube, but just as in YouTube Music, obviously, there won’t be a music video per se to go with it, but the track will be available to listen to on there if that’s your streaming choice

Thanks so much for chatting to me Aaron and Jel, it’s been a pleasure! And I can confirm the downstairs collectables museum in their house, as well as the cuteness of their cats.