Year after year, thousands of students from across Aotearoa, New Zealand, join forces to compete in Smokefree Rockquest, a challenging music competition that requires young Kiwi musicians to write and perform their own original songs. Pakūranga College sends budding performers through almost every year, but for the very first time, a band from our kura has achieved second place at the Manukau Regional Finals. They’re called Glass Arañas, and they’re taking their passion for music to the centre stage. Despite their newfound Pakūranga College rockstar status, I was lucky enough to get some information about these talented young musicians.
So, who even are Glass Arañas? Well, when it comes down to it, they’re a group of Year 11 students who came together to form a band. It all started with Stand Up Stand Out (SUSO), an Auckland Council music competition. At that point, the instrumentalists (Isabella Hambrook, Max Lush, Steph Kavumbura) were relatively new to their instruments — but they didn’t let a bit of a learning curve stop them. It was difficult finding a vocalist at first, and they had to beg Lucia Bell to join. She agreed, and thus Glass Arañas was born. Later on, Rustin Velarde joined as a second vocalist, bringing the band’s headcount up to six. Bassist Isabella Hambrook wrote that “the choice to bring on another singer really shaped the direction of our band and added some fun dynamics to our songs.” Towards the end of 2024, Jasmine Ng joined the band as a second guitarist.
Speaking of songs, the band currently has two originals written and polished. The first, which got them through the first round of Rockquest heats, is titled Unreliability. Their most recent song that had them landing second place at the Regional Finals was titled Hypocritibility. Both songs had a similar compositional process, with bassist Isabella Hambrook starting a riff that other instrumentalists drew inspiration from. Lyrics come after, based on topics the band feels strongly about. For the song Unreliability in particular, the topic of choice came through musically as well as lyrically. “We were struggling to come up with a bridge, so we started thinking of how we could portray the feelings of unreliability within the music instead of just the lyrics. We finally chose to have a groove change for the bridge to demonstrate how we were being unreliable to the actual time signature of the song.”
Inspiration can come from many places, and for Glass Arañas, the community that they have found in other local bands has been instrumental in their success. Last year, the band played at a gig titled Starex, at which they had the opportunity to perform with the band Marceline. “Being the youngest band there, we were definitely nervous but were supported the whole way through by the vocalist of the band [Marceline], Jamie. Even after our gig, he has still been supporting us with comments and messages celebrating our achievements.” Glass Arañas also got the opportunity to meet the lead vocalist of Topshelf, the 2024 Smokefree Rockquest Winners, at the Manukau Regional Finals. “He told us many stories of his own band and how even they messed up during their performances last year, and it definitely eased our stress. While other bands were performing, we joined in with him, supporting them as we jumped and clapped along to their songs.” As Glass Arañas continues to grow as a band, they hope to be able to support other up-and-coming musicians in the same way they were supported.
When it came to actually performing at the Regional Finals, it was a hugely different experience from the heats. While the first round had the band arriving twenty minutes before their performance and leaving straight after, with hardly enough time for nerves to kick in. Regionals, on the other hand, were a completely different story. They arrived at 5:45 pm and didn’t leave until around 10 p.m. “I could totally feel the nerves as each band went on and off stage,” bassist Isabella Hambrook wrote. All of their hard work and dedication culminated in an epic placing in the regional finals, though this was not expected. Isabella confessed that “when it was finally time to announce third place, I felt disappointed when our school didn’t get called because I thought if anything, third place was all we could get.” It turns out that she and the rest of Glass Arañas thought wrong — they placed second, and now have a chance to go to the National Finals. Whether or not they get selected, I’m sure that this is only the start of a bright future for a terrific band.
Cerys Gibby, Year 13
