About Novy Zembler

Novy Zembler are a new band of old friends from Holland and Gloucestershire.

With Corona looming, guitarists Rick Senley and Drew Campbell reconnected through lockdown zooms. Hard drinking friends from 1990s Leicester, the pair's lives had joined, and separated, from addiction to recovery, families and loss. Despite the decades and the distance, their affection for each other had deepened.

With his bands Dog on a Stick and Made in Minsk on hold and the ever present threat of depression, Rick needed a new musical output, while in Holland, Drew was struggling with homeschooling his boys and training his new puppy

So with a shared love of The Cure, Mogwai, My Bloody Valentine and Joy Division and an escape into music, the idea of creating together seemed inevitable.

With Drew finding time between the family business and clearing up dog’s mess and Rick staying up drinking til dawn with his kitten, the pair took it in turns to send each other ideas – guitars, keyboards, bass, samples.

Obsessed with mastering home production as he learnt from writing and recording Wrath of Maitreya , Drew, who also writes and produces gothic pop Sleeps Under  Beams and programmed Novy Zembler's drums, says: “The various bands I'd been in were frustrating as they lacked my obsessive focus and depth of application so I constantly had to find new ways of getting rid of them without faking my own death. Realising that I could collaborate with someone so close to my heart and with a common music ancestry, was immensely exciting, especially as we weren’t living in the same country.”

Rick says: “Five years gigging and recording led to inevitable acrimony in the bands so by the time lockdown came, half of us weren’t speaking. Being an inherently lazy guitarist (although I have released 10 solo albums as musicforvoyeurs and I Am A Man With A St Tropez Tan), I needed a new motivation. Hoping Drew might want something similar and realising he could make his guitar sound like Robert Smith and Peter Hook, I asked if he fancied giving it a go. And if we argue I can just say my wifi has gone off.”

The result is Upstairs, their first 4 track release. Available on...