Ruby Frost

Ruby Frost was travelling the United States with her parents' gospel choir when a man with a gun burst into the church foyer. It was 2001 and the Columbine tragedy was fresh on Americans' minds. Frost's parents were inside, singing, oblivious to the fact their 13-year-old daughter, who was working on the merchandise stand, was locked out.

"I was freaking out," says the singer-songwriter, now 22, eyes popping beneath her black fringe. "All the security guards were running around saying 'there's a gunman in the carpark!' This freaky guy ran past in a trenchcoat, playing with this black, shiny thing. I was so scared."

The man was apprehended, the gun turned out to be a hockey stick and, rather than succumbing to post-traumatic stress, Frost channelled the experience into art.

Ruby Frost was then Jane de Jong, a student keen on music and creative writing. Choosing the icy moniker as her pen name, she relived the terror with an entry in the Katherine Mansfield short story competition (she came fourth).


It wasn't the first time Jane had changed her name - as a kid she was always dressing up and pretending to be exotic characters - but it might be the last. Until recently Ruby Frost was best known as the bubbly music reporter on TV2's hyper teen show The Erin Simpson Show, a job she's now quit to focus on her music. She also won fans at the annual Parachute Music Festival, the family-friendly Christian music fest that attracts around 25,000 fans each year.

Then, in December, she won the inaugral MTV 42 Unheard competition, a live talent quest that attracted 357 entries; the six finalists were chosen via 15,000 public votes. The judges, including Gin Wigmore, Shelton Woolright (Blindspott) and Ash Hughes (Kidz in Space), and reps from the music industry, were unanimous: Frost stole the show.

Wearing a handmade batcape with sequins, the young singer-songwriter and guitarist performed two original songs, calling to mind a cute, kooky mix of Kate Bush and Florence and the Machine. The prize was a recording contract with Universal Music, an opportunity to play at CMJ in New York in October and funding from New Zealand On Air to make a music video. Although the label was under no obligation to release anything if it wasn't up to par, Universal Music's A&R director and marketing manager Scott MacLachlan says he would have signed Frost regardless of her win.

"She realises she has a unique point of difference," he says. "Vocally, her look, her approach to music. She wants to be a global star. If you don't have that ambition you won't make it." - New Zealand Herald (newspaper)

Touring churches in middle America with your gospel duo parents may not be the most common way to spend every school holiday break.

But it’s stood Jane de Jong in good stead as a performer.

Jane, whose stage name is Ruby Frost, was the winner of the MTV and 42Below Vodka 42 Unheard competition held recently.

She beat six other bands and impressed a panel of celebrity judges to earn the top spot and prizes including a trip to New York to play at the CMJ music marathon, $5000 funding for a music video, a single release
deal with Universal Records and recording time.

The finalists, who played at the Transmission Room in the central city, had been narrowed down by online votes from 357 entries across the country.

Jane says the generous prize is a dream come true for a young songwriter.

"It’s pretty much the best opportunity you could ever want in music."

And she would know – the 22-year-old lives and breathes the music industry, working at her parents’ company Parachute Music.

They founded the popular Christian music festival Parachute in 1989 and
Jane says she’s had music "ingrained" into her whole life.

Travelling on the road with them as their merchandise girl and seeing a band work really hard gave her an insight into the hard road ahead.

"It’s a world within a world," she says.

This weekend Jane will perform at Parachute for the fourth year in a row in front of international bands and expected crowds of more than 30,000.

At 17 she had her first live performance and in 2007 her EP, How Long, sold out its first run.

For the past three years she has been working on her quirky, acoustic guitar-inspired sound.

At the moment, writing "heaps of songs" and experimenting with computer synth sounds is taking up her time, with her single and video due out in the next few months.

But she’s under no illusions that it’s an easy road from here.

"I would love to make an album and keep making albums if I possibly can.

"All I can do is work as hard as I possibly can and see how it goes.

"Songwriting’s definitely my passion." - Central Leader (newspaper)

That picture right there of the cute girl holding the giant 42Below vodka bottle and the winning ticket is Ruby Frost a.k.a Jane de Jong, a.k.a the winner of the MTV 42Unheard competition. Frost was picked from a panel of judges (including Gin Wigmore and for some reason Shelton Woolwright) out of 357 acts that entered the competition months back. She’ll now go to New York to play the CMJ Music Marathon, get recording time, a single release deal (with options) through Universal, a feature in Real Groove magazine and a list of other swag. It’s tough to know where to start with this since a month ago I put all my bets on her to win this thing – I guess sometimes I’m actually right. On stage and especially on paper, Frost is the logical choice – she’s extremely marketable in a country that hasn’t exploited pop music all that much recently (in part I guess because we don’t do pop music all that well) – and she’s genuinely talented whether watching her on stage or hearing her recordings.


The night started off a little shaky with opening indie-rock act The Frisk doing their best to amp up a crowd that was mostly happy to enjoy the open bar. Their show was predictable with their songs sounding like a slew of other indie it-bands but there was nothing that separated these guys from the pack. They list their influences as The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys and Kings of Leon, which shows their youthfulness, but ultimately it didn’t add up to much. It doesn’t hurt to know your history kids. There was good music before 2001.

And that was the gist for The Pink Pound Experience too. Despite reading their bio which told me to “take a listen, it’s the future…” there were only elements here that reflected how late they were to jump on the indie-rock bandwagon. The rest of their bio is every bit ridiculous: “We got together in mid 2009 and practice hard to deliver and mental product that may only be sold on the top shelf, alongside penthouse, mayfair and euro boy.” There were rumours that these guys got a ridiculous amount of votes from fans that got them into the top six but on stage they barely clicked. Maybe they were just having a bad night but a friend of mine joked that they wouldn’t even had made it into the Rockquest.

Then shit got interesting. Rap Authoritar (Joe Buchanan) is the brother of Eric Ultimate a.k.a that dude from Coco Solid, and he had people in the crowd wondering if he was serious or if he had us sucked into a huge joke. Not that he couldn’t rap or anything (even though it was impossible to hear what he was saying) but no one seemed to know what to make of him.



For Da Grind were the biggest surprise of the night. There’s a possibility that there was guitar shredding involved but this was an R&B group taking their favourite influences and applying them to make an impressive set. There are officially six members but the stage was filled with a couple of others as well (one vocalist even quipped that half the crowd was now on stage). Compared to everyone else in the competition, they seemed like the wildcard (I guess because they sounded unike anything else) but they easily stirred up the crowd, which the other bands failed to do. There was also a group of girls standing at the front that screamed for them the entire way through their set. Somebody get these guys a deal.

Out of all the indie-rock bands Tiddabades were easily the best. They were animated and showed that they had been doing this long enough to know how to play a set like this and impress. The Wellington four-piece put on a great closing set that I’m sure impressed the judges but it wasn’t to be their night. Amber Peebles took on the emceeing duties (how good is she looking lately?) and introduced Kidz In Space who filled in the, um, Downtime, with a set that opened with Phoenix’s 1901 and went to show why these guys will be sticking around for a long while yet.



But the glory belonged to Ruby Frost, who made it well known from her charisma that she deserved to be the one that took this thing home. Her band was tight, and from the get-go where she opened with a new song called Hazy, she blew away most of the competition and remained on point throughout her performance. I don’t know how she’ll fit in at a festival like CMJ but that’s still a year away so who knows what she’ll produce by then. The judges made a great decision picking her – she’s young, beautiful and when she let the short but pounding epic Goodnight ascend from this tiny melody into something a lot bigger than the demo sounds, you can see and hear all the potential that this girl has. And that’s the thing with this competition – it was judged on who had the most potential to take this opportunity and run with it. Let’s just hope that Universal don’t mess it up for her.
- The Corner (music blog)

Fashion shoot with Coup de Main - Coup de Main (online mag)

Who the f*** is Ruby Frost? Ruby Frost is a name you're about to start hearing more. The name was actually a pseudonym she created for creative writing in high school, and last December she won the MTV 42Unheard competition over the other 350-plus artists who entered. She scored a single release deal through Universal, a trip to play at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York, $5,000 to make a music video, and - believe us when we tell you this - the biggest bottle of vodka we've ever seen (BTW we still haven't got ours, 42 Below).

She says music is in her blood since she hung around with her parents' band practices when she was younger (her pops Mark de Jong is the CEO of Parachute Music), and once she picked up the guitar in her teens she hasn't looked back. She released her first EP 'How Long' when she was 19, and it looks like 2010 has a lot more in store for her.

What to listen out for:
She has the ear and smarts to know a good hook when she hears one, and her song 'Goodnight' is the sort of track that builds from a tiny melody, into something a whole lot bigger, especially when hearing it live. For the time being everything else is under wraps, so we're right here with you on waiting to hear what's next.

The latest:
Since the 42Unheard competition, she has been tripping back and forth from Australia to collaborate with people over there on her new material and she's currently prepping her new single which is scheduled for release in May. She has also been working on new songs with Evermore's Dann Hume; "he had so much energy and the ideas were bouncing around like a frantic game of table tennis!" she explains; and demoing a whole bunch of material for her debut album.

She says:
"It all feels a little bit surreal as this is the dream that I never quite knew how to stumble into. So I just want to work my face off and hope for the best."

We say:
We're unashamed pop enthusiasts, and considering there's a lack of great pop music coming out of this country, we're going to go straight ahead and back this one. She's young, attractive, and if she can back it up with good enough songs, then we hope she can take hold of this opportunity and run with it. - Real Groove (music magazine)