Real Vegan Cult - Q and A with Adam Fulton

Arpie pinged some questions in the general vicinity of Adam Fulton, head honcho at Kirikiriroa Hamilton-based underground music conglomerate Real Vegan Cult ahead of their first ever two -day festival 'RVC Fest' this coming weekend.

Kia ora Adam! First of all tell us about Real Vegan Cult…what is it, why is it, what is its mission, and how long has it been a thing?
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​RVC basically just started out as a gang of Chumz’s (Sam Chumz of Wizz Kids) when there were 6+ vegans all living in a compound down the north end of Victoria Street, Hamilton, back in 2016. These days it’s an outlet for our joint creative endeavours, primarily putting on shows and putting out music. It’s a lot easier and a lot more fun doing these things with 3-4 other people than doing it all yourself. We don’t really have a mission or plan to speak of, if someone comes up with a good idea we will all just try and develop it as best we can. At the moment we are mostly just working on a couple of shows, putting out a couple of records and a few other slightly more unusual projects. 

The first ever RVC Fest is this weekend March 12/13 at The Meteor, Hamilton. What is the concept behind it? Is it just a heap of bands you like or is there more to it than that? Are there many bands coming from around the country? 

RVC Fest started out as a final show for Hedge Fund Trader. When we started talking about who we would like to have on the bill, it became obvious that we could very easily make it a two-night event. There are a lot of really great Hamilton bands that almost never get to play in Hamilton (Raglan is not Hamilton), so the event is split pretty evenly between Hamilton bands and out-of-towners, but every single band on the bill are ones that I would happily go out and see play by themselves in the middle of winter. 

​I know it’s a terrible question, putting you on the spot, but which bands are you especially looking forward to seeing? Maybe because you're seeing them for the first time or because they blew you away the first time…?

First Move are the only band on the bill I have never managed to see live before. They have a sort of Midwest post-punk sound reminiscent of the likes of Rodan, Shipping News, Unwound etc. with this vocal delivery that is extremely evocative of inland provincial New Zealand. Piggery are a world-class live band, extremely heavy, groovy crust. LDR and Bridge Burner both have stuff coming out soon, so I am looking forward to hearing some new stuff from both of these bands. 

Do you hope it will become an annual event or is this it?

We will see how it goes this weekend, but The Meteor crew are really good to deal with and seem keen to have something like this on annually. 

Will there be RVC merch? Do we need earplugs?

There are a few people bringing their distros in from various parts of the country, so there should be a lot of good and obscure music there for people to go through. (I suspect earplugs would be a good idea - Ed)

What’s your take on the local scene in Hamilton at the moment, what do we need more of/less of etc.

Hamilton has been ahead of the rest of the country for ages now, things that started affecting the music scene here when I started playing live music (a lack of venues, this chasm between between local government and any sort of DIY music venture) seem to be affecting a lot of other regional centres more than I remember. Another thing would be arts funding in Hamilton. If you compare us here to somewhere like Palmerston North with The Stomach-a government funded venue, recording studio and rehearsal space-they have this organisation set up to remove the financial barriers to making art and music, as opposed to what we have going on in Hamilton (funding artists for specific events) which has just resulted in a glut of corporate art that wouldn’t seem out of place on a Vodafone commercial. 

Follow RVC Fest's FB event page to stay up to date with all details about the weekend's shenanigans. - Arpie