Los Angeles based New Zealand musician Greg Johnson is heading back to his home country for a special tour, and is looking for local talent to help him get the show started.

The nine show tour, ‘Small Towns and Ball Gowns' begins at the end of May, with Greg making his way to Tauranga on June 10 at Mills Reef Winery.

Greg Johnson.

Greg says the last time he was performing in New Zealand was with Boh Runga in 2006, and is looking forward to the opportunity to tour back home.

'I always enjoy coming back,” says Greg.

'The trip this time is going with the small town vibe.

'We tried to look outside the box a bit, like in the South Island heading to Riverton and places I haven't been before which is cool.”

As part of his tour, Greg is holding an online audition, where local artists in the areas he is playing can send through their songs and one solo act from each town will be personally selected to open for his shows.

'I thought, ‘why don't we get an artists form the local area to have an opportunity they wouldn't usually get to play?'

'The key thing is we want someone that is up and coming.

'There are a lot of great well known solo acts in the area, but the idea is to give some young folks the chance to play in front of an audience that probably isn't their usual audience.”

Greg broke through into the kiwi charts with ‘Isabelle' in the early 1990s. He has since produced eight studio albums, and is renowned for his live shows of musicianship, intimacy and humour. He is a past APRA Silver Scroll winner for song writing and as Tui Winner for Best Compilation and Male Vocalist.

'It is pretty much a listening show – yes, it is at Mills Reef on a Saturday night so it might get a bit rowdy, but the audience come to listen, hear the words.”