The Loft – Why Does The Rain

6th March 2026 · 1980s, 1984, Music

The Loft defined the mellow indie-pop Dunedin sound with their 1984 debut single Why Does The Rain – and prompty broke up.

Long before Travis posed the very same question, a band called The Loft walere wondering the same thing, just a little more cryptically; a little more poetically.
 
Led by Pete Astor, the quartet were standard bearers for that melancholy mid-’80s strand of Kiwi indie-pop known that came to be known as the Dunedin Sound.
 
Even though – I now discover – they were not from Dunedin. Or even New Zealand.
 
Their debut single, Why Does The Rain, came out in 1984, one of the first releases on Creation Records, and defined the genre with its jangling guitars, ’60s-influenced melodies and nonchalant vocal style.
 
 
The quartet of singer/guitarist Pete Astor, drummer Dave Morgan, bassist Bill Prince, and lead guitarist Andy Strickland, had first formed in 1980 as The Living Room.
They cleverly wooed Creation by changing their name to The Loft, the name of a venue owned by the label’s owner Alan McGee, playing there regularly until he took enough notice to sign them up.
 

Barely a year later, after one more single – Up The Hill And Down The Slope – and a support tour with Terry Hall’s new band The Colour Field, they broke up live onstage on the final night.

The first of many reunions came three decades later. They recorded a new single, Model Village b/w Rickety Frame and played occasional live shows – usually at five-year intervals.

Forty-five years after they first formed, The Loft finally recorded their debut album in 2025.

Aptly titled Everything Changes, Everything Stays The Same, it lived up to its title by capturing the same energy and jangle of their early days, married to the hard-won wisdom and confidence of age.

Why Does It Rain was a big favourite of the late Radio 1 DJ Janice Long, who championed the band, earning them an appearance on a long-forgotten BBC TV music programme, The Oxford Road Show, alongside another up-and-coming Creation band, The Jesus And Mary Chain, also performing their debut single.

After the initial breakup, Astor and Morgan formed the similar-sounding Weather Prophets and continued working with McGee, recording albums for Creation and his major-label enterprise Elevation.

Meanwhile, Strickland formed the also very similar-sounding band The Caretaker Race and Prince continued making music with The Wishing Stones.