Debbie Harwood

“Night in a small grateful NZ town and the music flying; rehearsing over cups of tea in a dingy flat; spending months in the studio day and night building up the beautiful strands of songs that started as dreams; breathing my voice onto the genius songs of others both live and in a studio – that is the life I have lived. Almost a secret world. But those moments are hard things to write about or quantify because they have no markers – no evidence, nothing a human mind can grasp or understand. So everyone focuses on awards and chart placements and numbers but none of those things matter at all to me. Everything good about the making of music (and my life in it) has been the firefly moments of pure bliss that will never happen again. My latest release The Sun is a little piece of evidence that those myriad moments existed.”

While wearing multiple industry hats, Harwood has always been a solo artist and songwriter first and foremost, and over her prolific career, has penned a private songbook that has culminated in the release of her original album ‘The Sun’. With music always being the constant driving force, Harwood’s long career in the industry as an artist ran parallel with tour management, management and independent record company roles (alongside Mike Chunn at Mushroom NZ) for many successful NZ acts including DD Smash, The Exponents, Citizen Band, Big Sideways and Blam Blam Blam to name a few.

A major turning point would come on a chance meeting between four young wahine toa at the 1985 NZ Music Awards – Harwood, Annie Crummer, Margaret Urlich and Dianne Swann. With the addition of Kim Willoughby the rest was her-story. In 1986, When The Cat’s Away would become New Zealand’s biggest touring act playing to packed-out crowds around the country, until 1990 saw them back on their respective solo paths.

When The Cat’s Away went on to receive ‘Top Group’ at the 1989 NZ Music Awards, achieved a #1 chart hit with ‘Melting Pot’ and sold out seven national New Zealand tours including the legendary Melting Pot Tour (1988) which became the most attended tour for a Kiwi band – a title only recently usurped (some 30 years later) by Six60.

Following a move to Australia, Harwood would lend her signature smoky rock vocals to Jimmy Barnes’ Soul Deep and Two Fire tours throughout 1990 to 1992. She had met her match.

In 2001 the reformed When The Cat’s Away undertook a sold-out New Zealand tour culminating in three shows at Auckland’s Aotea Centre where a new album ‘Live In Paradise’ was recorded with dear friend Sharon O’Neill. The single ‘Asian Paradise’ was another Top 10 radio hit and the album reached close to double-Platinum sales.

The release of her jazz album ‘Soothe Me’ saw her as a finalist for Top Female Artist at the 2006 NZ Music Awards. In 2009 Debbie conceptualised Give It a Girl – an original hit-laden show featuring Annie Crummer, Margaret Urlich, Sharon O’Neill, Shona Laing and herself. Debbie continues to work with her band The Band of Gold and also with variations of the Give It a Girl line-up. Her most recent release ‘The Sun’ is a highlight of her career and has opened the sleuce gates for more original recordings. Debbie has two children Marlon and Gala and is also a certified clinical hypnotherapist.