L.O.V.E is a collection of songs that explores that most all pervasive of human conditions, romantic love. L.O.V.E is also an homage to everything we have ever loved about pop music. Both born in the early 1960’s, Zed and I were weaned on a style of pop that included the heyday of Motown, the sun-drenched melodies of Beach Boy era California, swinging London, Broadway, Disco, MOR, AOR and The Brill Building.

It came at us from the television, the movie screen but mostly from Top Forty Radio. During the recording of L.O.V.E there were numerous discussions about musical memory and at some stage we understood that the music we were crafting was but an expression of the sounds that defined our youth.

Zed and I met at Mobil Hillcrest sometime in the mid-1980s. I was pumping gas, he was driving a van containing all sorts of musical equipment. I asked about it and he said he was building a recording studio just around the corner up on Morrinsville Rd. He suggested I pop in sometime. I did.

We clicked immediately and over the next few years set out on all manner of musical explorations. The studio, a 16 track analogue affair called Tandys, was our instrument and the sky was our limit. Our output was sporadic but our adventures exciting and educational.

When Zed built NZ’s first fully digital studio (The Zoo) up the North end of Hamilton’s main street in the early 1990’s I followed and together we recorded The Wallflower, a sort of sci-fi country album. It sold 240 copies before disappearing from view but still stands today as the most ambitious recording project undertaken in that fair city. Exhausted by the project we went our separate ways, Zed to WINTEC where he gained a degree and started a teaching career, me to a career in sales (FMCG).

We met up again in 2015. Zed was now a senior lecturer at MAINZ in Auckland where I was working as a jobbing writer. Over a casual beer he suggested I visit his home studio. “No,” I thought to myself. I considered my music making days long over. Still, before I knew it there I was sitting before a microphone with Zed asking what I had.

Over the course of the next two and half years Brookes & Johnstone have quietly evolved into a boutique label called Rhythmstick with a small roster of artists under development. Central to the cause is our own work. Starting where we left off with The Wallflower back in 1995, L.O.V.E has been a long time in the making.

As for the two of us? Of the pair, Zed is the most accomplished and his many achievements include Step Chant Unit who scored Hamilton’s first chart hit of the modern era. Painting Pictures (1985) peaked at number 34 on the national charts and led Zed to a spot on the legendary Radio with Pictures.
Zed’s influence on the Waikato music is hard to quantify but it might be said that he single handedly raised the bar of excellence for the region. Pretty anyone and everyone of any significance from that era worked with Zed’s at some stage or another. More about Zed here -https://www.audioculture.co.nz/people/zed-brookes.

As for Johnstone, he’s mostly a Waikato farm hand and a gardener. He writes and makes music and like Zed, loves the studio and the process of bringing songs to life.

- Andrew Johnstone, March 2018.