Pictures: Chris Sisarich.
Music has been a part of singer-songwriter Reb Fountain’s life ever since she was a small child, living in San Francisco in a house filled with musical instruments and people who loved to play them. Aged six, she emigrated with her family to Christchurch and it became even more important.
“We connected with other migrant families through music,” explains Reb, who now lives in Auckland. “My dad made a songbook, and we’d sit around and play music. So I grew up singing, whether it was in a church – because I grew up in a religious family – or in community groups.
“There were a lot of other things in my life that I felt insecure or uncomfortable about, but singing was a way that I could express myself from a young age. It felt like a very natural part of me.”
By her early twenties, Reb had children of her own. She was continuing the family tradition, playing music at home with them. As a single mum, she often took her son Kalvin and daughter Lola out with her when she went busking.
“I used to busk at the Britomart Farmers Market when the kids were little,” recalls Reb. “They’d go and buy stuff with the money I was earning. That’s where I met Don McGlashan. He came up to me and said he was working on a movie, Show Of Hands, and he’d like me to sing on it.”
Family and friendship continue to be central to Reb’s music career. Kalvin has designed some of his mum’s artwork and Lola makes her music videos. Lola made her first video when she was just 14 and recently created her 20th for a song from Reb’s latest album How Love Bends.
“I don’t think Lola realises how amazing it is that she makes these films,” says Reb. “And we have a really cool time. Both she and Kalvin grew up with this lifestyle, a mum who played music and bandmates around the house.
“It’s not an easy way to make a living, so I think both of them have tried to ground themselves in the kind of vocations that will give them a bit more steadiness.”
For the past few years, Reb has been able to focus mainly on making music. Her self-titled album Reb Fountain, released in 2020, was a hit despite the pandemic resulting in an international tour being cancelled. In the end, lockdowns were a very creative period and she wrote her next album Iris.
However, just as it was released, she had a serious accident. Reb was gardening when a cherry tree branch struck her on the head, leaving her with concussion and ongoing problems.
“The recovery was so long that it changed everything,” explains Reb. “For the next year, there was no way I was doing much at all. Performing was so painful for me that I questioned whether I could still be a musician.
“I felt foggy and not present, just really out of it. I wanted to be creative because it’s how I’ve always made sense of things, but it was like I just couldn’t piece anything together.”
Reb felt discouraged and very down. But then, her bandmate Dave Khan started sending her little pieces of music, sort of like mood boards.
“They would give me a feeling, then I’d sing over that feeling, record myself and write lyrics,” she explains. “And I had this really strong compulsion with my head injury where I’d be asleep and wake with this need to express whatever was going on in my brain as I was dreaming, so I recorded all of that.
“That process sort of reconnected everything for me. There are songs on this new record that are born out of those dreams.”
New release How Love Bends is a haunting and powerful album. The title, says Reb, can mean whatever the listener wants, but for her, it’s really about self-love. As a younger woman, she struggled with feelings of being overwhelmed and insecurity. She found herself relying on cigarettes and alcohol to cope.
“I didn’t feel good in my own skin,” she says. “How Love Bends for me is about the way that over time or through reflection, you can see things in a different light, which changes them. Love is the most powerful tool that we have to do something about the world and you have to start with yourself.”
In midlife, Reb feels as strongly as ever that, while it isn’t always easy, what she wants is to keep making music.
“You have to keep doing what you love because time is limited. You never know what’s going to happen,” she says. “That sense of mortality has really made me step up.”
How Love Bends is out now. For tickets to her nationwide tour, visit rebfountain.co.nz.
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