This isn't a second career.
It's where everything converged.

Phil Yates has been living inside 1950s rock 'n' roll culture his entire adult life.

Not as a casual fan. As a genuine participant.

He co-created and ran The Hellbilly Hop — a live rockabilly music event series in Auckland featuring live bands and DJs across five events. He designed every poster and every piece of branding himself. He hosted The Grits and Grease Show, a weekly one-hour rockabilly radio show on Rocking247Radio — a station owned by Tom Ingram, the legendary figure behind Viva Las Vegas, the largest rockabilly festival in the world. He has performed as a DJ at venues, bars and barbershops across Auckland, including his own Grits and Grease On The Dance Floor nights.

He wears a full rockabilly pompadour every single day. He collects heritage reproduction clothing from brands like Pike Brothers, Buzz Rickson and Whitesville — Japanese companies who preserve 1940s and 1950s American culture with an obsessive authenticity that most modern manufacturers have completely forgotten. He owns a 1957 jukebox.

Alongside all of this, he spent over 30 years building a career in marketing and brand strategy.

Three years ago, he became a barber.

It wasn't a departure from everything that came before it. It was the natural destination.

What's Next

Phil plans to return to radio in 2027 — bringing Grits and Grease back to the airwaves alongside his barbering career.

Until then, you'll find him at Hava & Co. Sunday to Wednesday. 8.30am to 6pm.

The music will be on. The chair will be ready.

The Chair

Phil works four days a week — Sunday to Wednesday — from his chair inside Hava & Co at 1 High Street in the Auckland CBD. One of Auckland's finest barbershop environments, housed in a 1930s building.

Every client gets a proper consultation before a single scissor is lifted. Phil listens carefully, asks the right questions, and builds a cut around the person in the chair — their hair, their life, their style, and their ambition. Whether you want a sharp professional cut, a classic pompadour, a precision fade, a modern style, or something with genuine rock 'n' roll character — the result will be built specifically for you.

This is traditional barbering craft. No shortcuts. No rushing. No conveyor belt.

The Philosophy

Everything Phil does — the barbering, the music, the clothing, the events, the radio — comes from the same place. A belief that some things were done brilliantly once and deserve to be done brilliantly again. That craft matters. That authenticity can't be faked. That the details are everything.

That's what you get when you sit in this chair.

A haircut built with the same obsessive attention to getting it right that goes into every other corner of this world.