Once upon a time the little girl dancing in the sawdust at the annual music festival run by her parents on their family farm, she had progressed from the tween watching her brothers’ band in high school Rockquest competitions to taking part herself and eventually recording and releasing her own songs.
The daughter of New Zealand country music icon John Grenell and Miss New Zealand 1969 runner-up Deirdre Bruton, Amiria Grenell was born in 1985 and named after a great-aunt on her dad’s side; Amiria being the Māori transliteration of Amelia. She was the last of the couple’s children after sons Denver, Oakley, and Redford.
Every summer until Amiria was 10, her parents ran the Whitecliffs Family Music Festival on their farm at the foot of the Malvern Hills, an hour’s drive from Christchurch. The event started small as the Malvern County Country Folk Festival in 1982, but by the mid-1990s was attracting more than 3000 punters to the farm’s front five paddocks.
Before she went to the tiny Glentunnel School, Amiria was privy to her dad’s daytime performances at the farm, organised by her mum, who was also John’s manager. “Mum and Dad organised these bus tours visiting from Christchurch, and we would join them beside the stream while Dad would perform. Mum would put on scones and tea.”
For around two years at the start of the 1990s, the Grenells moved to the outskirts of Hamilton so John could take advantage of increasing demand in the North Island. Having concentrated on farm and family for most of the 70s and 80s, his career was on the up again after ‘Welcome To Our World’ zoomed to No.1 on the New Zealand singles chart in February 1990. “I was five years old when we moved to Hamilton,” Amiria said. “Dad would be on tour quite a bit and I remember listening to his CDs when he was gone and missing him.”
Returning to Whitecliffs, Amiria’s bedroom was next door to brother Redford’s, and she would be influenced by the likes of Tracy Chapman, Bob Marley and a big mix of styles emanating from his room. She won Cranberries and Spice Girls CDs from the NZ Listener that would arrive at the farm.
At the age of 10, Amiria started learning to play guitar in a house bus on the family farm
At the age of 10, Amiria started learning to play the guitar after the house bus of Sandy and Redgie Valente broke down at the farm. Redgie’s brother, Ron, had lived in a caravan at Whitecliffs for a time and met his wife, Lindy, at the 1985 festival there. Soon after, they formed The Gypsy Pickers.
“So, while they [Sandy and Redgie] were there, Sandy taught me how to play two songs on the guitar, which was so cool,” Amiria said. “One of them was fingerpicking and one of them was strumming. And then I began to write my own songs about saving the Earth, flowers and animals.”
The first band that she really fell for were Irish alternative rockers The Cranberries, who she saw at the Christchurch Town Hall in May 1996. One of the first songs she learned was their hit ‘Zombie’ which she performed at the Glentunnel School prizegiving.
But the band she heard most live were The Psycho Puppets, a trio consisting of her brothers Denver on bass, Oakley on guitar, and Redford on drums. She was a constant at their gigs and was there when they represented Darfield High School at Rockquest. Later, she followed Oakley and Redford’s ska-and-reggae band Bunyip.
As a Linwood High School student, Amiria entered Rockquest three times. The first two were as part of Archimedes’ Foot, but as a solo artist in 2001 she won the female musicianship award at the Christchurch regionals. Fellow Cantabrian Anika Moa had won most promising female musician in 1998.
“I really admired Anika Moa and Bic Runga and enjoyed watching them live as a teenager,” Amiria said. “I looked up to my brothers quite a lot, and so I guess my music was kind of like folk-reggae at that time. I found my brothers’ bands’ music really inspiring and loved going to their gigs.”
Mum Deirdre was her children’s biggest cheerleader, driving them to and from lessons and events. Amiria alone had taken ballet and dance, singing, and drama. “I remember going to a drama-music group as a teenager, and she’d drive me three days a week to these classes,” Amiria said. “And supporting all four of us with our interests was pretty awesome.”
When she was 17, Amiria started a three-year Bachelor of Performing Arts degree at the National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Art (NASDA) in Christchurch. At its completion, she moved to Wellington, where she acted in plays and recorded a solo EP, Cola Monti, under the name Mea, and an EP with Harriet & The Matches, a duo with Jessie Moss. “My brothers nicknamed me Little Mea as a baby and it stuck as my nickname, so as a teenager I decided I would make it my performance name.”
“My brothers nicknamed me Little Mea ... I decided to make it my performance name.”
A year later, she was back in Christchurch. “I thought I’d never move back to Christchurch, but then after a year I was like, ‘Oh, Christchurch is just easy!’” However, she did fly back to the capital to record her debut album Kapowhai with her “other musical brother” AJ Hickling, who produced Cola Monti.
The album was completed in 10 days in late September 2006. “AJ decided he’d film the making of this album in 10 days,” Amiria said. “He was so up for anything and so supportive, and, yeah, we did everything – designed it, recorded it, he mixed it and mastered it, everything, in 10 days. I feel really lucky to have all these musical memories with AJ as he passed away at the end of 2023.” Again released as Mea, the CD featured contributions from Hickling, violinist Anita Clark and future Fly My Pretties alumnus James Coyle.
After giving birth to daughter Sienna, Amiria again relocated to Wellington for her partner to study at Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School. “So, I was back in Wellington for a few years, and then lived between Wellington and Christchurch, and finally settled in Christchurch 10 years ago.”
For her next album, Three Feathers, Amiria Grenell reverted to her given name. The album was tracked at the family farm with Amiria on guitar, brother Redford, who had just left jungle/drum-and-bass outfit Shapeshifter, on drums, family friend Brent Thompson on bass, and brother Oakley, by now a producer and DJ in Melbourne, producing.
“We recorded the bones of the album there, and then I recorded some of my vocals back in town in a studio,” Amiria said. “And then a year of both Oakley in Melbourne and me in Wellington adding friends’ musical layers. Oakley helped so much on that album. I couldn’t have done it without him.”
Released on Oakley’s Central Records in 2011, Three Feathers featured musical contributions from many friends, including multi-instrumentalist Mark Vanilau, Tamara Smith, pianist Gerard Masters, and even some backing vocals from the Grenell family patriarch John, and Amiria’s young daughter Sienna. The album won the New Zealand recording industry Tūī for best folk album.
Grenell’s ‘Three Feathers’ album won the 2012 Tūī award for best Nz folk album
Its promotional tour kicked off at The Wine Cellar on a rainy night in Auckland in September of that year. After sound check, Amiria retired upstairs for an Indian dinner. “I was feeling all glum, like, ‘Man, I hardly know anyone here. Oh, gosh, we’ve come all this way.’” On her way back down, she passed Redford on the stairs. “You’re gonna be pleasantly surprised,” he said. The place was packed.
The tour, with Amiria on guitar, Redford on drums, Oakley on bass, and AJ Hickling on keys, continued through Wellington, Blenheim, and Nelson, culminating with a gig at the Christchurch Arts Festival.
Prior to the release of Three Feathers, Amiria had sent the album to Mikee Tucker at LOOP Recordings to gauge the label’s interest. Tucker invited her to be part of a new iteration of Fly My Pretties for shows in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland and Melbourne in October and November.
“I was so blown away because I’d been a fan of Fly My Pretties for years,” Amiria said. “Like, I’d go to all their concerts and loved the music, and then I got to be part of it, which was just so fun. And we had a really amazing group of musicians. It was such a cool tour.”
She became close with the other women in the 16-strong cast and has remained steadfast friends with Anna Coddington, Eva Prowse, Flip Grater, LA Mitchell and Lisa Tomlins. “It was a really cool experience where I made lots of great musical connections, and we were well looked after as a musical supergroup!”
It was a far cry from what Amiria Grenell was accustomed to. “My tours have been so fun and successful because I take a small group of people on the road and play intimate shows like house concerts and small halls,” she said. “My first performances were at folk festivals growing up, and then at Mainstreet Café and The Dux de Lux in Christchurch, continuing on to festivals and events.
“House concerts are a beautiful way to share music with an attentive audience. People enjoy the relaxed environment and it’s quite a unique experience for them. One of my fondest memories was a house concert performing with my father in Nelson in 2008.”
Amiria appeared as Mea the Musical Pixie in the KidZone at Womad in the early 2010s, as well as once with her band. She was there again in 2013 with Fly My Pretties, and in 2017 with The Swan Sisters, a duo she had formed with Amy Grace, who she had met at NASDA.
“Amy and I had been singing together at events and festivals for many years. After a couple of summer tours, we decided to make an official duo with the name The Swan Sisters after hearing some lyrics about swans while driving in the tour van.” They released the EP Rivers to Bandcamp in 2015.
Autumn, Amiria’s second album under her own name, was also released that year. This time she and brother Redford recorded with Little Bushman founder Warren Maxwell at his Stonefeather Studios in Featherston with bass player Johnny Lawrence. Overdubs were completed over six months, mostly in Wellington. It was produced by Amiria with assistance from brother Oakley and Dimmer guitarist James Duncan.
The Grenell Family – John, Denver, Oakley, Redford and Amiria – performed together at the Nelson Arts Festival in 2014 and the Tora Tora Tora Family Music Festival in the Wairarapa, but plans for a family tour were thwarted when John Grenell suffered a second stroke. He died of a heart attack on 27 July 2022.
Amiria Grenell’s 2024 album, The Winter Light, was dedicated to her father. Produced by Amiria and singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Ryan Fisherman, it was recorded at Fisherman’s home studio The Hut and in Amiria’s lounge. It featured musical help from Oakley Grenell, Holly Arrowsmith, and longtime Dave Dobbyn sideman Jo Barus. Like Autumn, it was released on Amiria’s Quiet Bird label.
She and her brothers put on three sold-out Grenell Family tribute concerts around Canterbury in 2024 and intend to do more in the future. “We were singing Dad’s songs,” Amiria said. “It was an emotional but very special experience.”
