Biography

Shayne P. Carter is a New Zealand musician best known for leading Straitjacket Fits from 1986 to 1994, and as the only permanent member of Dimmer (1995–2012).

Carter is a member of the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame, and has been awarded the New Zealand Herald Legacy Award (with Straitjacket Fits at the 2008 New Zealand Music Awards), and New Zealand Music Awards for Best Group and Best Rock Album (with Dimmer, 2004).

New Zealand music critic Nick Bollinger told North & South magazine in 2019: "To me, Shayne Carter really stands head and shoulders above pretty much the whole of the Dunedin scene. I mean, there were some other brilliant musicians, don’t get me wrong. But that was the era when shoe-gazing was at its peak – they wore black jerseys, stared at their shoes, and strummed their meaningful, heartfelt songs. But Shayne was different. Shayne was a rock star, and he knew it. He was actually aware of his charisma and what it meant to be a performer."

Carter published his autobiography Dead People I Have Known in 2019. In May 2020 it won both the Royal Society Te Apārangi Award for General Non-Fiction and the MitoQ Best First Book Awards: E H McCormick Prize for General Non-Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

He was awarded an Arts Foundation Laureateship in 2020.