The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience

Headshot of The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience
The Jean Paul Sartre Experience, formed in New Zealand in 1984, played a unique mix of REM-ian folk-rock and Velvet Underground-ian psychedelic-rock achieving a painful kind of ecstasy.
The Jean Paul Sartre Experience, formed in New Zealand in 1984, played a unique mix of REM-ian folk-rock and Velvet Underground-ian psychedelic-rock achieving a painful kind of ecstasy.

One of the leading bands of the second wave of New Zealand indie pop that emerged in the wake of the rise of the Flyinh Nun label, the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience began as a naive but tuneful alternative pop act and matured into an indie rock band with big guitars but the same sense of melodic adventure they had at the start. Formed in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1984, the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience were launched by bassist and lead singer Dave Yetton and drummer Gary Sullivan, who had begun working on songs together; the name was inspired by a roommate given to drug-addled discussions of the French existentialist’s writings that could last for hours on end. The group expanded to a trio with the addition of guitarist David Mulcahy, and not long after they began playing out in 1985, a second guitarist, Jim Laing, filled out the JPSE’s definitive lineup.