For over 30 years The Warratahs have carved a niche into the New Zealand landscape – literally from North Cape to Bluff, becoming legendary for extensively touring both small towns and cities alike.

This year New Zealand’s greatest country music band celebrate the 30th Anniversary of their debut album The Only Game In Town. Winning the Country Music Album Award for 1988 and receiving a Gold Award for sales, the album included songs that have long become well known favourites – ‘Hands Of My Heart’, ‘Maureen’ and ‘The Only Game In Town’.

To honour the occasion, The Warratahs have released Drivin’ Wheel, a 24 track compilation spanning the years from 1988 to the present day, including the brand new song “Fast Train”.

Over the last 2 ½ years The Warratahs have released the acclaimed studio album Runaway Days, supported Lucinda Williams, Leann Rimes and Jimmy Barnes, played many shows including Selwyn Sounds, Hamilton Gardens Festival, Tora Festival and a recent sell-out show at The Gold Guitars in Gore.
Barry Saunders has toured with Tami Neilson, Delaney Davidson and Marlon Williams, played in The Band tribute show The Last Waltz and has been working on a forthcoming studio album with Delaney Davidson.

The band are currently on tour in New Zealand.

October 12 – Blue Smoke, Christchurch
October 13 – Captain Cook Hotel, Dunedin
October 20 – Paisley Stage, Napier
October 26 – Sherwood, Queenstown
October 27 – Ascot Park Ballroom, Invercargill

Native Tongue writers The Warratahs and Mel Parsons claimed the top prizes at New Zealand Country Music Awards last night.

The Warratahs’ Runaway Days was selected as New Zealand’s Best Country Music Album for 2016, and Mel Parsons’ song Alberta Sun was selected as the Best Country Music Song.

Finalists for the 2016 Recorded Music NZ Best Country Music Album and APRA Best Country Music Song were announced today.

Native Tongue would like to congratulate our writers on their nominations.

The Warratahs’ are finalists in the Best Country Album category with “Runaway Days”, and Mel Parsons is a finalist for the APRA Best Country Music Song category with her song ‘Alberta Sun’.

This year’s winners will be announced at the New Zealand Country Music Awards on Thursday 2 June at the St James Theatre in Gore.

The Warratahs’ seventh studio album ‘Runaway Days’ has debuted at #34 on the New Zealand Album Chart. Don McGlashan remains in the chart at #32, while Marlon Williams has re-entered at #24 after 5 weeks and Courtney Barnett has re-entered at #20.

Native Tongue also represents shares on 4 of the top 6 tracks in the NZ singles chart this week.

With an illustrious career spanning more than 25 years, The Warratahs have announced the release of their 7th studio album ‘Runaway Days’ on Friday June 19th.

The recording of the album is something of a departure from the bands previous studio albums. “Apart from a couple of songs we’d been playing live we didn’t rehearse the new songs as we usually would, “ recounts songwriter and singer Barry Saunders. “We just went into the studio and played them live. We wanted the album to sound as close to us live as we could and figured the way to achieve that was to capture the songs fresh.”

In true Warratahs spirit, ‘Runaway Days’ is a new collection of Barry Saunders songs. The 11-track album also features a cover of June Carter Cash’s classic “Ring of Fire”.

‘Runaway Days’ is released in New Zealand on Friday June 19th. Pre-orders are available now on iTunes and JB Hi-Fi.