But he has been back a couple of times to play and record, and returns soon on a belated CD release tour under his band name, Yule.
"I left Dunedin in late 2006 to move to Auckland after graduating."
He said music took a back seat for a year while he started his career as a lawyer.
"I did manage to write a few songs and experiment a bit more in a similar way to what I had been doing in Dunedin.
"I also made a trip in early 2007 to lay as many finishing tracks as I could with my then drummer Glen Murray."
He says his first CD, Aaaarrrggh, was a while in the planning.
"Towards the end of 2007 I . . . got to work on putting a final mix of the songs that I had been obsessing over for too long."
Yule says completing the first CD inspired him to form a band.
"In about April 2008, I formed a band to support the release of what would be Aaaarrrggh. It was made up of two former members of One Million Dollars [Jonathan Goss and Alex Urlich], my brother Bjorn and me.
"Alex was also and still is a member of Batucada Sound Machine and was a driving force in developing the songs for live performance. So what we basically had was an experimental pop band with a funk rhythm section.
"We have been working consistently for the past year to translate songs I wrote and recorded on my own in my bedroom in a very isolated situation into a focused and effective live show."
In November, Urlich left the band and was replaced by former Dunedin resident Nic Roland (Rolly), formerly of the Taliband.
He says the album release tour is a bit late in getting started.
"The CD release officially went down on September 27 last year, but it has steadily gathered momentum since. We didn't really expect it to fly off the shelves because . . . no-one had heard of us. But we have been steadily chugging away, playing shows and trying to promote it, which seems to be starting to pay off around about now."
Yule says touring this album is a way for him to close a chapter.
"One of the main reasons I wanted to do the tour as well is to give myself some closure on the project that was writing the CD and releasing it. Most of the songs were written in Dunedin and started around the time my Dunedin band Yule and the Thundercats broke up.
"They were all essentially experiments in audio recording and composition and I did not start off with any intention of releasing anything. What I was aiming to achieve was to . . . find the limits of my capabilities as a songwriter, to hopefully in the future have like a toolbox of all sorts of different styles to draw on.
"Some of them started sounding pretty good so I spent way too much time on them and ... it basically became clear that I needed to release them in some form in order for me to be able to move on and write new material."
He says the band is planning more recording.
"After this tour we are definitely wanting to . . . record a few songs. We are really stoked with the few new songs we've been working on."
