Introducing The Folk Today Project

The Folk Today Project Reason For Living

A new concept band from New Zealand, The Folk Today Project, has one purpose – to turn the folk world on its axis and revive the fundamental intention of folk music; to comment on society. Their debut single ‘The Reason For Living’ is out now via TFTP.

‘The Reason For Living’ is a cleverly crafted response to modern day living, namely big city people preferring to live alone. The song explores this theme, whilst retaining melodic roots in traditional folk.

As founder Neil Pharazyn explains: “There are issues big and small in our faces today that we should be singing about, such as school bullying, hanging out versus dating, mobile phone obsession, gay marriage… you can probably suggest more.”

Neil (composer) grew up with a strong passion for music, which lead him to write songs in a variety of pop genres, he also takes advice from a Nashville producer when developing his songs. Bill Hickman (lead vocals) has worked with New Zealand-based artists such as Will Ricketts (Phoenix Foundation) and his vocals have featured on records by The Shot Band and Eb & Sparrow and Andrew Laking (bass / guitar) is a formally trained musician with substantial international experience in acoustic music. He also toured the world for ten years with folk group Gráda and has two solo albums under his belt.

The Folk Today Project is ready to bring back folk music with a modern message.

Artists’ website: http://thefolktodayproject.com/

‘The Reason For Living’ – official video:


We all give our spare time to run folking.com. Our aim has always been to keep folking a free service for our visitors, artists, PR agencies and tour promoters. If you wish help out and donate something (running costs currently funded by Paul Miles), please click the PayPal link below to send us a small one off payment or a monthly contribution.