Shaun Blackwell was living in London during the 2020 lockdown. The New Zealand musician had a long history in his homeland —playing in bands like John The Baptist and Big River Chain— and had been making solo music, at the time, that was dark and Gothic.

But lockdown sparked a new "experiment" in sound: drawing from '60s girl-groups, '70s country crooners and '80s new romantic heartthrobs.

That experiment didn't just turn into a new project, but a whole new identity: Hemi Hemingway.

"It's absolutely an alter-ego persona," says Blackwell, in interview on The International Pop Underground. "I view Hemi as sort of an idealised version of who I'd like to be"

"He's open and honest. And whereas I can often be really anxious as a person, Hemi's just really cool and calm and at home on stage."

Across his 2021 EP The Lonely Hunter and newly-released debut album Strangers Again, Blackwell uses the character to get at his own insecurities and vulnerabilities, through songs that play with Phil Spector's wall-of-sound production style.

One of the most striking Hemi Hemingway songs, though, is notable for its difference: set over solemn synths and sung in te reo Māori, it finds Blackwell addressing his heritage and the still-present scars of colonialism in New Zealand.

Hemi Hemingway is, in part, for Blackwell, a way of exploring ideas of masculinity, which he puts in his own cultural context.

"The idea of looking at masculinity in a vulnerable way, to me that feels like it's being informed by Māoridom," Blackwell says. "The masculinity we understand in New Zealand wasn't always like that in Māori culture. It's having another look at it, trying to unpiece it and pick it apart."

Feature image: Erin McNamara