Depends on the offer, but we are looking for a contract at the moment

In October of 2001, bass-guitarist Duncan Nairn and his German exchange student drummer friend, Moritz Decker asked Lester Litchfield to join their band. Jam sessions began in Wellington High School's band room where they wrote their first song, called "The Other Side of the Line". Shortly thereafter, amidst the elation of the beginning of their summer holidays, the three decided to record three songs with Lester's older brother Ben Litchfield and with the already recorded "Fairy Stroke", make an E.P.

Practices began in Duncan's local parish where the boys wrote "Too Young" and "Scary Clown Song" - a working-title which stuck. Having played together for two months at this point and still without a real name (jokingly calling themselves The Mysterious Trio), Lester told the other two to sit down in the pews and not play another note until this three-piece had a name. Moritz started talking about how he thought the name of the American prog-metallers Dream Theater was cool while Duncan went through the glossary of a nearby bible, putting words together with Theatre. Alabaster (the white stone used for making pillars etc in biblical times) was fifth on the page and Alabaster Theatre became the name of the three-piece.

In December of 2001: three days, three songs, three hundred dollars produced The Oil On Water E.P to which Lester's aforementioned acoustic song was added. After a couple of photo shoots and Moritz's first bowl of porridge, the young German flew back home to Wuppertal in the early days of the new year. He went on to make many copies of the four-track EP which he distributed to countless Germans with whom Moritz was acquainted.

Two months followed in which Lester and Duncan searched for a new practice space and of course a new drummer. Through his French class at WHS, Duncan knew a young woman called Lisa Lawton who offered her bedroom as a place for the two to practice, which also had a drum-kit in it for the not-yet-discovered drummer. It was at a Christian Easter Camp in April 2002 where they brought on Jeremy Bennett, an acquaintance of Lester's through his fellowship at Saint Johns. At the Saturday night concert of the Easter Camp, Lester, Duncan with Lester's girlfriend Sarah on violin performed "Higher Ground", one of Lester's acoustic pre-Theatre numbers. The following week, back in Wellington, the three met up with Jeremy and began a series of band practices in Lisa's bedroom. The song "Teeth" was composed.

It was around this time that Lester blew Moritz's two-and-a-half-hours-late-to-band-practice-record out of the water by showing up at half past eleven to a band practice scheduled for half past five - Duncan and Lisa were still waiting. In May, at Jeremy's suggestion, the three relocated to Saint John's where they practiced in the church itself, next to the altar.

Later that month, the band competed in the band competition of the Capital Teen Convention, passing three stages of auditions to compete against the winners from all other regions in New Zealand at the Michael Fowler Center, on the Saturday of Queen's Birthday Weekend where Alabaster Theatre came third in the country. The band continued to practice and composed "Allah Sabec" and "World Down Below". A string of shows followed at Capital E, Munters in Waikanae, Eva Street and the band's first bar gig at the now "relocated" Bar Bodega on Willis Street.

In September 2002, Jeremy left the band due to time restrictions and Lester's not showing up to four band practices in a row. A week or so later Duncan's friend and accomplished violinist Polina Walker began jamming with Duncan and Lester. After a couple of months of jamming in the Youth Group room of Saint Johns, in November, Duncan's friend Aean Campbell returned from the South Island and joined the band on drums. After one practice, the four-piece played a show at Eva Street. "The Man Who Cured Death" was written. A month later they played in Duncan's backyard for the farewell-party of his German friend Johannes. The day after Polina quit the band because the music was too "pop" for her taste.

A week later the Lester, Duncan and Aean started another studio session recording for the Zeal Compilation at their recording studios on Victoria Street. Matt Barnes did the engineering but again Lester's brother Ben popped in often to help out. In the New Year, this time 2003, the mastered versions of the two songs "The Man Who Cured Death" and "World Down Below" were finished and the boys were very happy with the sound.

An interview followed in the New Year with Ian Jorgensen for the first issue of his music magazine 'A Low Hum'. After Lester returned from Australia, the boys played a show at The Southern Cross bar after which the band moved their practice space up to Aean's parents' house in Stokes Valley where they contined to to rehearse their live act and wrote "Steal You Away".

Soon enough March rolled around and it was time for Duncan to fly off to Wuppertal to stay with Moritz. Aean, Lester and Duncan played one last show together at Duncan's goodbye party at the Island Bay Community Center with Halva Eve. From the sixteenth onwards, Lester and Aean looked for a stand-in bass guitarist while Duncan jammed with Moritz on the other side of the world in Germany.

The search was an arduous one and took many weeks. Eventually Lester and Aean started to jam with a bass player at Whitirea Polytechnic named Ants. While technically good, Ants was extremely chaotic and two successful shows at The Valve were played with “Armarna” (a Tool covers-band). Another show was played at The Valve with “Goose”, a bass player from a similar location, who filled in for one show.

During this period, the band learned lots about playing live, thanks to the supportive and energetic atmosphere of The Valve and started to be warmly received by audiences. The sound was slightly more aggressive than previously, which suited The Valve, it’s patrons and the members of the band at the time.

However, despite meeting their first real gigging success, the band was continually on the verge of collapse with members often showing little commitment and with on-again-off-again enthusiasm, time management became a major issue. Then without warning, Aean moved back down to Christchurch as he was heavily in debt and unable to survive financially independent from his parents.

The next drummer to come along was Chris, a drummer from one of Lester’s previous bands. After two practices with Ants, Chris could not continue due to time restraints. He did however, leave his drum kit at Lester’s house, which is still being used piece by piece for lewd and unusual purposes. Following the disappearance of Chris and Ants was a sabbatical time in which Lester recorded some solo songs with Brother Ben, and worked on some of the new materiel that was to define the new sound to emerge in Germany.

On June 23rd 2004 Duncan picked up Lester from the airport in Duesseldorf and shortly afterwards, the "mysterious trio", Duncan, Lester and Moritz were sitting on the stage at Cafe Zweistein in Wuppertal drinking beer and reminiscing about the good ol’ days in Wellington. Having tried to secure a much-anticipated concert for the fans of the Oil On Water E.P, success was achieved in booking a two-hour slot at Café Zweistein for Thursday the eighth of July.

In early July Lester and Duncan took off on four-day trip around Amsterdam and Paris and upon returning to Germany, four days of rigourous band practice commenced in an office of a closed-down brick factory just outside of Wuppertal. Six hours a day for four days brought out a sixteen-song set, including all tracks from the Oil On Water plus some new songs including ‘Clockwork’, ‘An Ode to the Fall’, ‘The King of the Dawn’ and ‘Cinderella Supernova’. The show was a tremendous success, Zweistein was packed out and a lot of fun was had.

Two weeks later, Lester and Duncan were back in New Zealand and looking to keep the ball rolling gig-wise. Lester’s work-colleague Jesse mentioned that he had once drummed and actually held the country’s fastest double-kick. Although Alabaster Theatre was and had never been very metal but always open-minded, band practices with Jesse commenced. After four or five in Duncan’s bedroom and then in Lester’s dad’s studio, Lester and Duncan decided that Jesse was not the drummer they were looking for. At that same time, Aean Campbell, back from Christchurch mentioned he would like to drum in the band again.

It felt like a breath of fresh but familiar air to have Aean drumming again as he knew half the songs already and was familiar to how Alabaster Theatre songs were written. After teaching Aean the songs written in Germany and also writing together ‘The Great Escape’ the band began a series of Friday and Saturday night shows at The Valve with local bands such as Starfig Newton, Acid Jack, Alpha Noise, Goodbye Galaxy and Percy Feral.

The last three shows at The Valve were packed out which led the band to believe that it was time to move onwards and upwards to a larger venue. Meanwhile, Lester’s older brother Ben had offered to record another E.P for the band and tracking began in December. Because of Ben’s hectic touring schedule with his own band Autozamm, tracking continued into late April. It was decided that the four songs ‘The Great Escape’, ‘Average Man’, ‘An Ode to the Fall’ and ‘Goodbye, My Fragile Butterfly’ were to be recorded.

In the meantime, the drummer from Starfig Newton, Brad Gallen, announced that he wanted a change from drums, quit Newton and joined Alabaster Theatre on synth-keyboards. The three were very excited to have another musician in the band and instrument, which they remarked on at the time that the keyboards “filled up the holes they never knew they had”. At this time ‘Average Man’, ‘Goodbye, My Fragile Butterfly’ and ‘Octopus Rising’ were written.

Eager to play a concert in this promising new formation, a night was booked at the new Bar Bodega on Ghuznee Street. (For those who do not live in Wellington, the old Bar Bodega was demolished to make room for a horrific extension to the motorway called the Bypass, which literally slices through the alternative heart of the city). As the owner of the bar had never heard of Alabaster Theatre, he was unwilling to give the boys a weekend slot but agreed to let them have the bar on Easter Sunday.

Therefore, at midnight, the doors were opened to a new era of Alabaster Theatre. In support were the members of goth-grunge band Saliva Twist, having swapped instruments and calling themselves The Plastic No Band and Duncan’s friend DJ Enerate playing some well-known and loved goth-rock classics. Although it was not a common night for band’s to play and it was raining outside, a crowd seventy-strong braved the elements and showed their support. Footage was also filmed by Jordan “Mix-Master” McArthur for the music video of Average Man and Kenneth Crawford projected images onto a white screen hung behind the band.

After this very enjoyable and sucessful show, the last of the drums and now keyboards were recorded and the mixing/mastering began, both in Wellington and Auckland. Brad flew off to England and Canada and while he was there, Aean decided that he could yet again not afford to remain independent of his parents in Wellington and because of personal problems with Duncan, returned to Christchurch..

Brad was asked if he would like to return to his primary instrument behind the drums and happily agreed to, saying that he missed them and his time on the keys made it clear which instrument was his. Feeling a little bit better about things, Duncan asked the man behind the solo-act Goodbye Galaxy, Bernie Gruschow, to join the band on synth keyboards and he too happily accepted.

Upon Brad’s return to New Zealand, practices recommenced at Duncan’s mother’s house in yet another formation. Some new songs including ‘The Giants’ March’ and ‘On the Sea’ were written and a freshly finished second E.P titled ‘The Rise of the Oak’, aluding to their logo of the oak tree, was released at Katipo Café on the twenty-sixth of May, organised by Bernie’s friend Joel Cosgrove. Fourty CDs were moved that night and the remaining ten were taken to Miss Demeanour to be sold on their counter for $10 each.

The month of June 2005 saw the four play at the 21 st birthday parties of two friends, firstly the director Jordan McArthur’s in his apartment’s sitting room and secondly the local musician Marc Deans’ at the Monkey Bar with his own bands Saliva Twist and the Plastic No Band. Joel thought he saw something in the band and took it upon himself to promote Alabaster Theatre and to arrange more concerts for the young band that he claimed were good but nobody knew.

Joel, as now the manager of the band and at the request of Duncan, set up a concert at Bar Bodega on Thursday the 21 st of July with Percy Feral in support and again DJ Enerate spinning the decks. At the practice before the show, now again at Lester’s father’s studio, Brad suggested that a great white sheet would be hung infront of the band onto which crazy lava lamp footage compiled by Kenneth would be projected from the front and the silhouettes of the band from behind.

As it was designed so it happened and for the first two songs the audience watched the silhouettes of the four amidst the funky footage and at the beginning of the first chorus of ‘An Ode to the Fall’ Duncan and Bernie ripped down the white curtain to reveal the four on stage. The show was appreciated and enjoyed by those attending.

The Victoria University of Wellington Student Association (or VUWSA) were planning a lunch-time gig in the quad of the university protesting against student fees for August the fourth and asked Alabaster Theatre to support Cortina and the protest. Needless to say the band was very keen and the protest and concert were a tremendous success as a crowd of between one hundred and one hundred and fifty students gathered to hear the bands. A.T performed very well, impressed the masses and left very satisfied with the concert.