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Oh, good. You're here. Come on. This is
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the center of performance. Whenever
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there's a top performance in New
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Zealand, it all comes from here. That's
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Lisa Carrington. She's been doing that
00:00:10
for days. That's the boys who got the
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hole in one in to
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Finn. How's the performance going?
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>> Top tier.
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>> Nice. This is our generate room. In
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here, you'll find our top performers
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helping Kiwis maximize their Kiwi Saver
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[music] investments. Get in here, Finn.
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>> Maximize. Generate. putting performance
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first.
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>> Don Mclashen, welcome to my podcast.
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>> It's great to be here, Don.
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>> It's an absolute honor to have you here.
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I need um full disclosure from the
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outset. I'm a I'm a fanboy. A
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>> look at this.
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>> Oh, that's a that's an old it's an old
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CD.
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>> This is um my CD of um The Front Lawn,
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and I think this is when I first
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discovered Don McGlashion. I I was too
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young for um Blam Blam Blam which came
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out in the early ' 80s. Um I think I was
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into commercial music um at the time and
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then um I I was I suppose I was 16 or 17
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and there were shows on TV like radio
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with pictures and another show that no
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one remember called CV.
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>> I don't remember that.
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>> I don't remember that either.
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>> Don't you with Mark Turney and Robert
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Rockety? Yeah. Yeah.
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>> And um that's when I um discovered the
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front lawn and it was unlike anything
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I'd ever heard. It was like
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unapologetically Kiwi and um yeah, I've
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just been I've been a fan of you and
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your journey and your music ever since.
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>> If you look at the back of that CD,
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you'll see that there's side one and
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side two cuz neither of us neither Harry
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or I knew. We didn't have a CD player.
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So, we didn't know that you you didn't
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turn the CD over. [laughter]
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>> I have noticed that. I wonder if that
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was a joke.
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>> It was not a joke. It was just us being
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really stupid.
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>> Um there was another really cute line in
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here in the sleeve. It's like um support
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New Zealand music, please don't tape.
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>> Yeah,
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>> cuz this was an era where people would
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buy the CD, buy a blank cassette tape
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and dub it across.
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>> Yeah, that's right.
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>> Um phenomenal stuff. Hey, we've got a
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lot to talk about. First of all, um
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Anchor Me, the Don Mclashian story, uh
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like a documentary um about you and your
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life. Um how did this come about?
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Uh I
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have to admit that um over the past I
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don't know decades there's been six or
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seven people that have uh wanted to do a
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documentary about either me or or the
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front lawn or the mutton birds or the
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blams and generally they call up and
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then they'll say um you know can we meet
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for coffee and I'll go yeah it'd be
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great you know and then we meet for
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coffee they take a box of clippings you
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know so they can start to do some
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research and then I and then a couple of
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months later, I usually get a call
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saying, "Uh, we can't get funding for
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it." So, so you can have your box of
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clippings back. And I must admit that
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when Shirley Horox, uh, called me up,
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and I I love Shirley's work. She's done
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some really beautiful documentaries
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about about, you know, people like my
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friend, uh, the the the visual artist
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John Reynolds and and or the poet Alen
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Kerno. I loved her stuff, you know. But
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I must admit, when she called me, I I
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didn't expect it to happen.
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>> So, I I sort of said, "Um, great. Uh, we
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can have a cup of coffee. I've got the
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box of clippings. It's still got the
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masking tape on it from the last person.
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Um, but I really didn't expect her to do
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it, but she is incredibly dogged and
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committed uh and really passionate about
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her work, so she made it happen.
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>> And the world premiere was at the Civic
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Theater. Um, yeah. How's that for you
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sitting there watching? Who are you
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there with? Who's in your inner circle
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that you're watching it with?
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>> I think my family came. I tried to I
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tried to uh stop people coming. I was
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tried to stop my my my family and close
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friends coming because I was I was
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pretty uh getting to the end of the film
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process. I was pretty ungracious about
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the whole thing and I thought, "Ah, man.
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This is going to be just an hour of
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watching me or an hour and a half of
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watching me. Um [snorts]
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>> self-indulgent or something."
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>> Yeah, man. So, I was I was I was in a
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really bad place, I must admit. And I
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was um you know, people would call me up
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and say, "We're going to come." and I
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would say, "Haven't you got anything
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better to do?" You know, um what's on TV
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that night? Um [snorts] but but when I
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watched it, uh I really enjoyed it
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because it was a time capsule. It was
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all this all this cool footage of um uh
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bands, other bands that were getting
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going around the time that the Blams
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were getting going. uh other theater
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groups uh the Richard von von Sturmer
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and the plague uh performing you know
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naked and painted different colors and
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it was just exciting and full of color
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and I got over myself and stopped
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stopped being such a winer.
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>> Yeah. How does it sit with you um in an
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environment like that like getting a
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round of applause at the end? I don't
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know. I wasn't there. Was there a
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standing ovation being the center of
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attention? Is it uncomfortable for you
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even though you are a a frontman of in
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response? It's extremely uncomfortable
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and I was trying to work out why. And I
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think it's because it's because there's
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a protocol when you're on stage and
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you've and you've holding a guitar, you
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got a microphone in front of you. People
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have come paid to come and hear the
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songs or hear a bunch of songs and that
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I can handle all of that. But just to be
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there without a guitar, without a
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microphone, without singing songs to
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people, I found really weird.
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>> How old are you now? You're 66.
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>> Yep.
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>> You're looking great.
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>> Thank you. You feeling good?
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>> I'm feeling really good. I was just uh
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out sailing. I went I went down to
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Christ Church to work on uh or that
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actually to do a Q&A after um a
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screening of the movie. Um and I also
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had a bunch of meetings and did some
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work with the the animation team who are
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working on Curry and Lou the feature
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film. So Curry and Lou is the the kids
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TV series that I've been doing with with
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my old mate Harry Sinclair from the
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front lawn for about the last eight
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years or so. But um
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>> yeah, miniature songs e like 60 seconds.
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>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a 60 seconds is
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long for a Korean loose song. But um in
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the middle of all of that, uh Aunt
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Elworthy, who's the the head animator,
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said, "If I could get you a a an old
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laser um and put you in the water in
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Littleton Harour, would you have a
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sale?" And I couldn't believe it. I
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thought it was so good. So, it was a
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really windy day, so I got to blast
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around Littleton Harour, which has
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always been kind of on my bucket list.
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So, Yep. Yep. Life is good.
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>> Have you Have you got your um gold card?
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Like do you get the bus in the ferryy
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for free?
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>> I do. I do. Um I I'm quite shameless
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about about pulling it out and getting
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to Wahhiki for free. I love that. I love
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getting on the bus for free. I'm a bit
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I'm not quite um habituated to uh to um
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going to Walworth and [snorts] doing the
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Tuesday
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5% off thing.
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>> Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, it's it's
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a thing. And um but what I've learned is
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that I can go really early in the
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morning on a Tuesday and just sort of
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sprint around, do all my shopping, get
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the 5% off and and you know, not feel
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like I'm part of a a large codery of old
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people
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>> cuz I still see myself inside as an edgy
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rock guy.
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>> Well, that's the man sitting in front of
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me now. Like I I I wouldn't um I
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wouldn't Yeah. put you in the elderly
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basket.
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>> Have you had your eyes tested lately?
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[laughter]
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No, no, but you're looking great. You're
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looking fat and healthy. Um, yeah, we've
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we've got like a I don't know what you
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call it, like a ramp thing here. And you
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you were about to jump up the ramp and I
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was like, "No, Don, Don, we've got
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stairs. We've got stairs." So, you've
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still you're still very mobile and fit.
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And actually, you've got longevity in
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your family. Your dad Bane passed away
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at 89.
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>> Yes.
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>> Yeah.
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>> Yes. Yeah.
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>> So, you've still got all going well, I
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guess, like another couple of decades
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left.
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>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and and uh I you know
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when you get to this age people around
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you are starting to retire which is a
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that's a hurdle in itself just to to you
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know I I think of myself as young um but
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to be you know having having chats with
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people who are retiring and wondering
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what they're going to do. Um I feel
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quite strange about that. I don't think
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I'll ever retire or if I do it'll be
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because people have stopped coming to
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the shows and that hasn't happened yet.
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[laughter] How many shows do you think
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you've done? Have you Have you ever like
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done a like a a a brain calculation or
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anything? What do you reckon?
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>> I did a timeline at one point just to
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just cuz I thought the the whole time in
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England with the Mutton Birds was such a
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whirlwind that it would be really good
00:08:30
to unpack it and to work out where we
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played because we we had some fantastic
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shows and uh it was kind of um we were
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blindingly busy the whole time. like you
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we'd do a show and then the manager
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would say, "Well, you all got to get in
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the van and drive to Belgium, do another
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show, and then drive all the way back
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and do a show in Dublin sort of stuff."
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So, I did um I can't remember the
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number, but it's it was, you know,
00:08:53
hundreds a year. Hundreds of shows a
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year. So, and and these days
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>> [snorts]
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>> uh because the the touring is is largely
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um around an album release. And I' I've
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never been great at putting out albums
00:09:08
really fast. It's about a foury year
00:09:10
average or and the at worst it can be
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like seven years between albums. Um but
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that's when everything sort of hypes up
00:09:17
and you get you get around the country
00:09:18
with your band. Um
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uh and of course over the last sort of
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six or seven years I've been busy busy
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with uh with the kids TV with uh writing
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hundreds and hundreds of songs for um
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for for Curry and Lou. So, I'm certainly
00:09:33
not slowing down in terms of writing
00:09:35
songs.
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>> Yeah. If you still got the energy for it
00:09:37
and the audience, why not?
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>> Yeah. Um, what I find with the with the
00:09:42
Korean Lou writing is that you'd think
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that there's a finite pool of songs
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inside you and you're just pulling them
00:09:48
out and it, you know, if if somebody
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asks you to write one for a kids TV
00:09:52
series or I'm trying to write one for my
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own album, that that diminishes the
00:09:55
overall number. But actually, it's the
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other way other way around. There's a
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there's a kind of a sense of being match
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fit.
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>> Uh and uh when I write a song for Curry
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and Lou, it'll it might take me a
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morning like Harry will send me like a
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rough idea and I'll tot with it for like
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4 hours and I stand up and there's a new
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song in the world. It's only little and
00:10:17
it's about a purple dinosaur. Um
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[laughter] but I love it and I kind of
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run around the room punching the air in
00:10:23
the same way that I would if I when I
00:10:25
finish one of my own songs and they can
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take months. So, it's sort of all it's
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all the same energy and it's and one
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thing feeds the other.
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>> How how have you avoided being um being
00:10:35
in this industry for like 50 years or
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even a bit longer and avoiding like
00:10:39
hedonistic self-destructive behavior?
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>> Um well, I have I have had my moments of
00:10:46
hedonistic self-destructive behavior. I
00:10:48
just haven't self-destructed. And that's
00:10:50
pretty good going. I'm pretty pleased
00:10:52
with that.
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>> How do you do that? How do you how do
00:10:54
you have controlled hedonistic
00:10:56
self-destructive behavior?
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>> Well, [clears throat] you you you you go
00:11:00
home at the end of the gig. You sort of
00:11:02
uh and I think I think because the
00:11:05
mutton birds started
00:11:07
>> [snorts]
00:11:07
>> um well, the blams didn't last very
00:11:09
long, right? And and then then then
00:11:12
there was this period where I lived in
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New York. Um and that was pretty wild.
00:11:18
Um and then I came back and we started
00:11:21
the front lawn. The front L was much
00:11:23
more a sort of uh really intense
00:11:26
[snorts] um uh sort of exploration of of
00:11:29
what what two people could do on stage
00:11:31
with music and storytelling. And we were
00:11:34
just hammering it away at each other
00:11:35
trying to
00:11:36
>> um you know just just arguing about
00:11:39
ideas. We we'd finish a gig, we'd get in
00:11:41
the get in the car, drive to the next
00:11:43
place, and the whole journey to the next
00:11:45
place would be an argument about what it
00:11:47
is to be an artist. So we kind of
00:11:49
learned a huge amount about each other
00:11:50
and about about making art. And then I
00:11:54
suppose came along. That was potentially
00:11:56
a hedonistic opportunity because it was
00:11:59
real rock and roll and major label and
00:12:01
we went to went to Britain. But we
00:12:03
started that band when I was already 30
00:12:07
and I I had two kids. I [snorts] had one
00:12:10
one we had one uh my boy Louie was born
00:12:14
when we made the first album and then um
00:12:16
Mo was born just a little bit later. So,
00:12:19
you know, when you've when you've got
00:12:20
two mouths to feed, you can't really go
00:12:22
on a bender. Well, you can, but it's got
00:12:24
to be a short bender. [laughter]
00:12:26
>> Yeah. And the kids um Yeah. Young kids
00:12:28
have no appreciation for a hangover, do
00:12:30
they? Zero.
00:12:31
>> No appreciation. And no none of the
00:12:33
excuses about, you know, I'm I'm doing
00:12:35
my art now. My art is incredibly
00:12:38
important to the world. And so if you
00:12:40
just could you just do without dinner
00:12:42
for a day or two, they're really really
00:12:44
um they're, you know, not interested in
00:12:47
that sort of argument at all. Yeah. So
00:12:48
the kids came along around about the
00:12:50
same time as um the Mutton Birds was
00:12:51
sort of blowing up. Um Giant Friend um
00:12:54
it's like a hidden gem. It's one of my
00:12:55
one of my favorite muttonird songs and I
00:12:57
was on radio in Palmer North. It was a
00:12:58
massive commercial hit. Is that um
00:13:00
what's it about? Is that was that
00:13:01
written for one of your kids about an
00:13:02
imaginary friend or
00:13:04
>> I was thinking Well, yeah. I mean
00:13:06
there's there was a time when I was
00:13:08
reading stories to them which are all
00:13:09
kind of Dr. use and Margaret Mahi and
00:13:12
wonderful imagin imaginative stories and
00:13:17
I think just the idea of having having
00:13:20
an imaginary friend a giant imaginary
00:13:22
friend was sort of big in my head at
00:13:24
that stage but like a lot of my songs it
00:13:27
got a it got its first start um a long
00:13:32
time before I was uh I think we were in
00:13:34
the front lawn or just after the front
00:13:35
lawn and I was uh I bought a car I
00:13:38
bought this old Pontiac uh from from a a
00:13:41
mate in in down near Wanuk or Queenstown
00:13:44
or something. And I I flew down and I
00:13:46
and I managed to get across country to
00:13:49
where I was going to pick the car up and
00:13:51
then I just drove it back all the way to
00:13:53
Oakland. And it was I think it was cold
00:13:56
because there was sort of frost inside
00:13:59
the windscreen. And I remember kind of
00:14:03
being a bit sleepd deprived and having
00:14:05
this song come into my head which was
00:14:06
that init that initial riff
00:14:09
Da da da da da da da. And it had some
00:14:12
words. Um, it might have even had the
00:14:15
idea of giant friend, but I I I didn't
00:14:18
have anything to write down write it
00:14:19
down with. So I I I um I I wrote it um
00:14:23
on the inside of the windscreen in the
00:14:25
condensation with my finger. And then
00:14:29
the next day, the windscreen was so
00:14:30
dusty I could still read it. So I wrote
00:14:32
I wrote it down in my journal. And then
00:14:34
that just sort of sat there for ages.
00:14:35
And then and then much much later once
00:14:38
the Muttonbird started we kind of had we
00:14:41
had some slow songs and I think we had
00:14:43
Dominion Road but I wanted something
00:14:45
really energetic. I wanted cuz Ross is
00:14:47
such a crash hot drummer. I wanted
00:14:49
something that really gave him a workout
00:14:51
and so um I sort of was looking through
00:14:53
old old sketches and that one came out.
00:14:56
>> Wow.
00:14:56
>> So yeah.
00:14:57
>> Oh man, this is going to be a hell of a
00:14:58
chat. Um I'm so excited about this. Um
00:15:02
there's there's a lot to unpack. Um,
00:15:04
we're going to have to skip some bits
00:15:05
and pieces because it's just been such
00:15:07
um, I don't know, such a such a rich
00:15:10
career. You would be here for days if we
00:15:12
had to uh, do the whole thing the
00:15:13
justice. But I can talk forever, so
00:15:15
don't worry about that. Um, we'll start
00:15:17
with the early years. Earliest memories.
00:15:19
What were you like as a kid?
00:15:21
>> Um, I was a a tantrummy, disorganized,
00:15:24
asthmatic child.
00:15:26
um they hadn't I don't think that uh the
00:15:30
notions notions about ADHD had sort of
00:15:33
got to the north shore of Oakland but
00:15:34
when I was little um actually New
00:15:37
Zealand sort of leads the world in in
00:15:39
ADHD treatment so they probably people
00:15:41
probably knew about it but our our GP
00:15:44
who is a lovely man didn't uh didn't
00:15:46
ever talk about that to my folks what he
00:15:48
did when I was um aged about seven he
00:15:53
prescribed this um green green green
00:15:57
gloopy medicine called anthsan which I
00:15:59
think's illegal now. I think it's like
00:16:02
used for horses or um or used it used as
00:16:05
a like a a skin cream if you got rashes
00:16:08
and stuff like that. But you used to be
00:16:09
able to drink it um in this big bottle.
00:16:12
Um and [clears throat] I would I think
00:16:14
you're supposed to have a teaspoon and
00:16:16
it stopped an asthma attack or stop
00:16:18
stopped uh allergies or something. And I
00:16:20
used to dose myself with a big dessert
00:16:22
spoonful before I went to school so that
00:16:24
I'd be I'd kind of be spacy but I
00:16:26
wouldn't get into trouble.
00:16:27
>> So [snorts] that's where the hen
00:16:28
hedonism begin. [laughter]
00:16:29
>> It is. It is. And I must if if in if in
00:16:33
the mutton birds they'd had lots of
00:16:34
bottles of uh of green medicine
00:16:37
backstage instead of you know bottles of
00:16:39
whiskey and and whole smoked salmon I
00:16:41
would have been in more trouble.
00:16:43
>> Yeah. And quite a musical family.
00:16:45
>> Yeah. Um yeah my mom uh you know was
00:16:49
well brought up. Played the piano as
00:16:50
most well brought up young women did uh
00:16:53
in those days. My dad um had
00:16:55
[clears throat] grown up in mining towns
00:16:58
with a tough dad, tough father. My
00:17:01
granddad uh would wouldn't let dad play
00:17:05
uh in the local brass band. So my dad
00:17:08
famously
00:17:09
dug a dugout in the backyard and covered
00:17:12
it with corrugated iron and crouched in
00:17:14
it on cold nights practicing his cornet
00:17:16
so that uh he could go and play with
00:17:18
sneak off and play with the local brass
00:17:20
band. So, I don't know what was going on
00:17:21
with my granddad and his chip on his
00:17:23
shoulder about brass bands. It wasn't
00:17:24
about
00:17:25
>> Was it not manly enough or
00:17:27
>> uh No, it was about class. Oh,
00:17:29
>> okay.
00:17:29
>> It was some weird some weird thing cuz
00:17:32
granddad was a mine engineer and that
00:17:34
and that most of the people in the town
00:17:36
were minors and minor families and they
00:17:38
were considered, you know, my granddad
00:17:40
must have thought they were a cut that
00:17:42
he was a cut above them and he wanted
00:17:44
his family to grow up like that. So my
00:17:46
dad um [clears throat] when I turned up
00:17:50
and I you know loved music he just he
00:17:54
would just any instrument that I said I
00:17:56
was interested in he would go out and
00:17:58
find a secondhand one and come home and
00:17:59
it would be it would be in the house. So
00:18:02
the house was just filled with stuff.
00:18:04
You know in the in the documentary I
00:18:05
think my my little little sister talks
00:18:07
about uh a big cupboard in the in the
00:18:09
hallway and you'd open that cupboard and
00:18:11
instruments would just fall out of it.
00:18:13
>> Incredible. Oh you never had a chance
00:18:15
did you? I never had a chance.
00:18:17
>> But why? Um so your older brother, I
00:18:19
believe, he got he got bullied for
00:18:20
playing violin at school.
00:18:22
>> Yeah, he did. He did. Um I don't I think
00:18:25
probably not really bullied. He was just
00:18:26
he he could read a room, my brother.
00:18:29
[clears throat] He would So he probably
00:18:32
went to school with his violin case and
00:18:35
saw a few people just raise one eyebrow
00:18:37
and he went, "Okay, this isn't cool. I'm
00:18:39
not going to do this anymore." Um and he
00:18:41
was he was a fabulous sportsman, so he
00:18:43
had had lots of other things he could
00:18:44
do. So yeah, the violin the violin case
00:18:48
came home and never went to school
00:18:49
again. Uh but it I was bad at reading a
00:18:53
room and I I um uh I would take any
00:18:57
instrument to school. So particularly
00:18:58
big one. So I I can imagine you know uh
00:19:02
this the sight of me really little with
00:19:04
bright red hair and a really bright red
00:19:06
face um uh struggling along to school
00:19:08
with the euphonium would have would have
00:19:10
been quite entertaining for the
00:19:11
neighbors. In in hindsight, were you bad
00:19:13
at reading a room or you just had like
00:19:15
um just supreme self-confidence or
00:19:18
self-esteem and you just didn't give a
00:19:19
[ __ ] what anyone else thought?
00:19:20
>> I was really I was sort of in love with
00:19:23
what I was doing at any given moment.
00:19:26
And if it had to do with an an
00:19:27
instrument, particularly a new
00:19:28
instrument, you know, it didn't have to
00:19:30
be brand new. It just had to be some
00:19:31
some challenge like a like I remember um
00:19:34
I suddenly thought, "Oh, the flute would
00:19:35
be good." Um, and I had a secondhand
00:19:38
flute and so I was just I just read
00:19:40
everything about flutes and I'd, you
00:19:42
know, look at pictures of them and play
00:19:44
them and then two weeks later that fat
00:19:46
had died. So I'd pick up something else.
00:19:48
You know,
00:19:49
>> it's [snorts] worth pointing out this is
00:19:50
pre- internet. So when you say read
00:19:51
everything about flute, you you're
00:19:52
restricted to what's under F in the
00:19:55
encyclopedia or or maybe there's a a
00:19:58
random book in the school library. Well,
00:19:59
there used to be uh there used to be a
00:20:02
um [snorts] a series called a tune a day
00:20:05
and um [clears throat] some some music
00:20:09
shops like there was a place called
00:20:10
Piano Traders. I think they're still
00:20:12
going in Oakuckland actually. Um you you
00:20:15
could go and there's this big shelf of
00:20:16
these these little books that sort of
00:20:19
like magazines,
00:20:20
but they were kind of the introduction
00:20:22
to every instrument and I think I worked
00:20:24
my way through a tuna day for
00:20:25
everything.
00:20:27
>> Incredible. Yeah. Have you worked out
00:20:29
how many instruments you can play?
00:20:31
>> Uh quite a few. I don't I mean I don't
00:20:34
play the string the you know violin and
00:20:37
stuff like that. I actually learned the
00:20:38
cello a bit when I was um about started
00:20:42
when I was about seven. Um but it was uh
00:20:45
I was kind of more interested in loud
00:20:47
noisy things like brass instruments and
00:20:49
and percussion. So I can pretty much
00:20:51
play most of the brass instruments. I've
00:20:53
just been teaching myself the trombone
00:20:55
because um one of the one of the kids TV
00:21:00
things that I'm working on now um it
00:21:02
seemed to need a kind of uh like a like
00:21:05
a like a band approach. So I thought I
00:21:09
kind of imagined a little band that
00:21:10
could play uh these songs and um uh a
00:21:15
trombone and an accordion seemed like a
00:21:17
good way to go. So I couldn't play
00:21:18
either of those things. So, I've been
00:21:20
learn been trying to teach myself those
00:21:22
things, which is great to open up some
00:21:24
open up some quirky brand sales. And you
00:21:26
know,
00:21:27
>> your older brother, who we mentioned
00:21:29
before, he's the the subject of um God,
00:21:31
this is my favorite song, Andy.
00:21:33
>> How many people come up to you and say
00:21:34
Andy's their favorite song.
00:21:36
>> It was never like a commercial
00:21:37
commercial hit, was it?
00:21:38
>> No, it wasn't. Um,
00:21:41
I I sometimes find that an album will
00:21:45
start with a slow song or a slow a slow
00:21:47
song which is which is kind of a deep
00:21:49
idea that I kind of need to get I need
00:21:51
to get out. Um, and then I'll go I got
00:21:54
two slow songs and that's not an album,
00:21:56
you know, people go to sleep. Um, so I
00:21:59
then have to write the fast ones. I then
00:22:01
have to think about the the the joyful
00:22:03
ones. Um, and Andy was a bit like that.
00:22:05
I think we uh uh we'd been we'd started
00:22:09
the front lawn
00:22:12
a couple of years before. Um and I was I
00:22:17
was uh starting some songs uh and then
00:22:20
taking them to Harry. We're working on
00:22:22
them together. Sometimes the songs would
00:22:24
be part of a of a story that we wanted
00:22:26
to tell and sometimes they'd be
00:22:27
completely freestanding. Um, and Andy
00:22:31
was the song that that initially I sort
00:22:33
of wondered whether it was about
00:22:35
Rojenomics. It was kind of like a it had
00:22:37
a like a country brother and a and a
00:22:39
city brother. Um, and there was a sense
00:22:44
of sort of grief and anger about the way
00:22:47
the city was going, about how the tall
00:22:50
buildings were going up, they're all
00:22:51
made of glass, all
00:22:52
>> they're making money out of money.
00:22:53
They're making buildings out of glass.
00:22:54
>> Yeah. Everything looked like it was
00:22:55
going to fall down in a couple of weeks,
00:22:57
but it didn't matter cuz they were, you
00:22:58
know, some people were were coining
00:23:00
[clears throat] it and the and the and
00:23:02
the small towns were being emptied out.
00:23:04
All the local banks and post offices
00:23:06
were being closed and I I sort of
00:23:08
thought it would might go along that
00:23:10
way. So, there was some sort of
00:23:12
scaffolding around the idea of the song.
00:23:14
Um [snorts] uh and then I wor we worked
00:23:17
on it for quite a while and then Harry
00:23:19
at one point said, "Look, this is this
00:23:20
is about your brother who died, isn't
00:23:22
it? Mhm.
00:23:22
>> Uh why don't you just make it about
00:23:24
that? Um and so I thought, oh yeah,
00:23:27
yeah, it's probably right. So, uh I
00:23:30
pulled out all the other stuff, sort of
00:23:32
weeded out all of the other references
00:23:34
and and it but kept the kept the
00:23:38
[clears throat] sort of mystery of it,
00:23:39
the idea that it's about somebody who's
00:23:42
talking to somebody who's not there. And
00:23:44
then
00:23:46
only at the very end of the song do do
00:23:47
you find out that the person's not the
00:23:49
person died or is is you know not there
00:23:52
at all.
00:23:53
>> Um [snorts]
00:23:55
>> yeah and and sometimes those mysteries
00:23:58
are important because um
00:24:01
you uh
00:24:05
songs can sometimes it's good if a
00:24:08
song's it's got some parts of it that
00:24:10
you don't even understand.
00:24:12
>> A little bit ambiguous.
00:24:13
>> Yeah. Yeah. And and um I you know I
00:24:16
don't analyze that that one very much.
00:24:18
You know, it came out um I performed it
00:24:21
a lot. Every so often I'll stop
00:24:23
performing it for quite a few years. I
00:24:24
just decide I don't want to do it. You
00:24:26
know
00:24:26
>> why?
00:24:27
>> Um
00:24:29
>> because it's too close to me or Yep.
00:24:31
Yep. Uh or because
00:24:34
um Well, I still I still dream about my
00:24:36
brother, you know, often. Wow.
00:24:38
>> Um cuz I was 15 and he was 20.
00:24:40
>> Yes. It's quite quite a big age gap, eh,
00:24:42
at at that age growing growing up. Um,
00:24:45
>> yes. Yeah. Who who was your brother?
00:24:47
What was he like?
00:24:49
>> Oh, he was great. He was um
00:24:51
>> His name's not Andy, eh?
00:24:52
>> No, his name his name was Alec. And uh
00:24:55
and in the family, we called him we
00:24:56
called him Sandy cuz that's in in
00:24:58
Scottish families quite often Alec will
00:25:01
be shortened to Sandy. Um [snorts]
00:25:04
but I changed the name because I didn't
00:25:05
want it to be too close to my family
00:25:08
story. I didn't, you know, I felt
00:25:11
worried that my uh you know, my family
00:25:14
would, you know, my my my sisters and my
00:25:16
mom and dad would would would it would
00:25:19
be painful for them to hear it, you
00:25:20
know. Um
00:25:22
>> and he was in it was in a like a
00:25:23
drowning a boating accident with two
00:25:25
others and you were being respectful of
00:25:26
the other families as well.
00:25:27
>> Yeah, that's true. That's true. Um uh
00:25:30
and um
00:25:32
yeah, I I uh see sometimes sometimes I I
00:25:37
go through periods where I I don't
00:25:38
perform that one. Um
00:25:41
um
00:25:43
but I think I think also it it it sort
00:25:47
of uh keys me back to, you know, living
00:25:52
in New York. Um cuz I went over there
00:25:55
after the after the blams and I kind of
00:25:58
didn't know what I wanted to do. I I I
00:26:01
um just soaked up all this amazing
00:26:04
stuff. Uh and I was going out to see
00:26:07
incredible bands and and performance
00:26:10
artists and all sorts of crazy stuff.
00:26:13
And I I I didn't know what I was going
00:26:16
to do when I came back to New Zealand,
00:26:18
you know. Um I didn't even know if I was
00:26:20
going to going to come back. But I I met
00:26:22
a girl who who uh was also in a kind of
00:26:26
agard
00:26:28
music ensemble. She was a um a singer in
00:26:30
a in a group called Steve Rush uh Steve
00:26:34
Russian musicians and um they did some
00:26:36
fantastic sort of minimal stuff like
00:26:38
repetitive
00:26:39
uh you know really avanguard sort of
00:26:41
stuff.
00:26:42
But at home in the apartment, we would
00:26:44
listen to old Irish folk tunes together.
00:26:48
And um and the the the stories about big
00:26:51
stuff and about loss and about love and
00:26:54
about family um they got they got deep
00:26:58
inside me at that point. and and instead
00:27:00
of staying in New York and being kind of
00:27:02
in a you know music and dance type world
00:27:05
or being in some sort of um cool groovy
00:27:09
band or something. Um,
00:27:12
I thought I'll come home to New Zealand
00:27:14
and I'll learn how to write songs. And
00:27:16
in a way that Andy was kind of the first
00:27:18
one.
00:27:19
>> Um, because because it it relates
00:27:22
musically to Irish folk or Irish or
00:27:26
Scots or English folk song, you know. I
00:27:29
think the melody it's it's a song where
00:27:32
for me uh and [clears throat] which is
00:27:35
quite atypical for me, the melody came
00:27:38
sort of first. I had a I had a melodic
00:27:40
line and a few words and then I finished
00:27:42
it from that was normally I work the
00:27:44
other way around.
00:27:44
>> Can you remember the first time um you
00:27:46
played it too or you um yeah your your
00:27:49
parents or your sister listen to it?
00:27:52
>> Uh I kind of I kind of yeah
00:27:56
probably but I probably uh
00:28:00
yeah I probably kind of avoided talking
00:28:02
to them about it. We we've talked about
00:28:03
it since, but I think I think at that
00:28:05
stage I was kind of like racing off
00:28:08
performing all over the place.
00:28:09
>> M
00:28:10
>> and uh and not being attentive enough to
00:28:15
what they felt about it.
00:28:16
>> Mhm.
00:28:17
>> So I I felt I' I've felt I've flipped
00:28:21
back and forth about that over the
00:28:22
years. Sometimes I feel uh really bad
00:28:25
that I didn't have a big family meeting
00:28:26
and say, "I'd like to write this song or
00:28:28
I've written this song. I'd like to
00:28:29
perform it." How [clears throat] does
00:28:31
everybody feel about that? But I never
00:28:32
did that because because in a way once
00:28:34
you've written a song it wants to come
00:28:36
out.
00:28:37
>> Uh and it wants to come out and it can
00:28:40
it can [clears throat] sort of ride
00:28:41
rough shot over anybody's feelings.
00:28:44
>> But they they've been really cool about
00:28:45
it. they've said to me, um, you know,
00:28:49
we're glad you did it and, uh, and it
00:28:52
means [clears throat] something to us
00:28:53
and, uh, you know, it's I guess I've got
00:28:56
that song and they've got pictures of my
00:28:59
brother all around their houses and I I
00:29:00
I tend not to do that. I tend to I tend
00:29:03
to keep it more inside.
00:29:04
>> Was it I'm a real literal guy. Was it
00:29:06
written the day after your 28th
00:29:08
birthday?
00:29:08
>> Huh. Um, yeah. I think the I think I
00:29:11
actually finished the song um, in
00:29:13
Melbourne. We were at the Melbourne
00:29:15
Comedy Festival. So, yeah, that would
00:29:17
have been that would have been around
00:29:18
then. Yeah.
00:29:19
>> And there's there's a line um you sure
00:29:21
missed a hell of a party last night. I
00:29:23
was just disappointed that the rest of
00:29:24
the family won't even mention your name.
00:29:26
Was that a thing? Was it like deliberate
00:29:29
avoidance or was that just for the sake
00:29:30
of songwriting? It was um it was
00:29:32
probably uh yeah that was probably from
00:29:34
the um from the [clears throat] early
00:29:37
scaffolding of the song which is more
00:29:39
about
00:29:41
>> uh where where the singer is more
00:29:44
annoyed with the with the person who
00:29:47
didn't turn up.
00:29:48
>> Um but it's also a smoke screen cuz if
00:29:50
you're going to have a reveal in a song,
00:29:53
you've got to lead people down the wrong
00:29:54
path. So I suppose I was going that way
00:29:56
with it. But I must admit um I must
00:29:59
admit with that one because because some
00:30:02
of the scaffolding fell away um it's
00:30:05
left with some odd corners in it that I
00:30:07
don't quite I don't quite understand.
00:30:11
>> That's good good to hear that the
00:30:12
songwriter doesn't even understand it.
00:30:14
It's the um Yeah. Do you still see him
00:30:16
on Tapuna Beach? That's a line in the
00:30:18
song on Tapuna Beach. I can still see
00:30:20
you. Do you Yeah. You mentioned before
00:30:22
you feel his presence around.
00:30:23
>> Very much. Yeah. Very much. I go I went
00:30:25
up uh Northhead uh the other day. Uh I
00:30:29
think Harry Harry Singley was in town
00:30:30
actually. We're doing we were doing some
00:30:31
work on on Kerry and Lou and we went we
00:30:33
went for a walk up North Head and
00:30:36
it just all flooded back. Um
00:30:40
uh and he because he was so much older
00:30:41
than me um I kind of looked up to him
00:30:44
sort of worshiped him but he was um
00:30:46
>> as I said he [clears throat] was an
00:30:47
amazing sportsman. uh he could uh
00:30:50
there's a famous family story where uh
00:30:52
they had the school sports and he must
00:30:54
have been year 10 I suppose he would
00:30:56
have been 14 to 15 and he um uh somebody
00:31:00
dared him to enter everything like
00:31:02
absolutely every everything and he did
00:31:05
and he and he qualified in everything.
00:31:07
So long jump, all the sprints, all the
00:31:09
distance, high jump, everything. And
00:31:12
then he was he hadn't been practicing so
00:31:14
he was so stiff and sore the next day he
00:31:16
couldn't couldn't get out of bed. So, he
00:31:18
couldn't he couldn't do the finals.
00:31:21
>> Can Can you remember um when you heard
00:31:24
the news? Like when you're 15 years old
00:31:25
and you hear about the the drowning?
00:31:28
>> Uh yeah, we we um we we went uh it was
00:31:33
it was late at night. Um
00:31:36
uh my dad and my brother-in-law Peter
00:31:38
and I went in the car down to Kawakawa
00:31:41
Bay and um and we uh you know we we met
00:31:46
the police and they told us that that
00:31:47
they told us that um you know two bodies
00:31:50
had been discovered and and uh and one
00:31:52
hadn't and so we went and and uh
00:31:55
identified [clears throat] him uh and
00:31:57
then we drove drove back in in silence.
00:31:59
My dad was a was a was a an old school
00:32:03
guy. So there was no hugging or talking
00:32:05
or crying or anything like that.
00:32:06
>> Yeah. It's a generational thing.
00:32:07
>> Eh. Yeah. Um
00:32:10
and it took me took me years actually. I
00:32:12
had to teach him to hug me and uh and
00:32:16
but we worked it out after when I was
00:32:18
about 30, I think, or maybe a little bit
00:32:20
younger than that. But it was it was a
00:32:22
big thing. you know, every time he did
00:32:23
it, he sort of had this smile on his
00:32:25
face as if as if he just um just learned
00:32:28
a new language.
00:32:29
>> Interesting. Because when I was when I
00:32:30
was googling um you for this this uh
00:32:33
podcast a couple of days ago, there was
00:32:34
a um a story on staff about your dad's
00:32:37
passing and the photo they have is one
00:32:38
of you two hugging.
00:32:39
>> Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We got we got good
00:32:41
at it after a while.
00:32:42
>> Yeah. But uh yeah, he was uh and he was
00:32:46
a gentle um
00:32:49
uh as I say old school, you know, he had
00:32:51
a sort of he had a way of coming into a
00:32:53
room and everybody would he would be
00:32:55
very very quiet. So people would just
00:32:56
chat and and but after a while he would
00:32:59
be the most important guy in the room
00:33:01
just but just because of a few things he
00:33:04
said because of a sort of quiet
00:33:05
authority he had. Um, I remember he used
00:33:08
to come down to the sailing club and
00:33:10
help me rig my boat when he was really
00:33:11
old. And um, he didn't say much at all,
00:33:14
but the other sailors just all really
00:33:16
loved him. They really liked him. So
00:33:19
>> yeah, a tragedy like that, I just can't
00:33:22
imagine how it rips the family apart and
00:33:23
also how it shapes you as a person at
00:33:25
the age of 15.
00:33:28
>> Yeah. Um well I I everybody
00:33:32
reacted in their own way and I think
00:33:34
what I did is I just uh I just exploded
00:33:38
in all directions at once and and and
00:33:40
you know wanted to be you wanted to be
00:33:43
the you know the best drummer and the
00:33:44
best French horn player and be in every
00:33:46
band and you know learn every every kind
00:33:48
of music you know and um and I I was
00:33:52
kind of uh kind of filled with the kind
00:33:56
of energy in a Okay. Um just as a
00:34:00
distraction just keeping you busy.
00:34:01
>> Yeah. And the lid had come off too
00:34:03
because the family I you know uh there
00:34:06
wasn't you know because my parents were
00:34:07
sort of in incapacitated by their own
00:34:10
grief they they weren't kind of um they
00:34:13
weren't kind of I don't know uh stopping
00:34:16
me doing things,
00:34:17
>> you know. So I was kind of marauding
00:34:19
around the neighborhood uh you know in
00:34:21
bands. Um, we we we were we
00:34:24
[clears throat] were an underage band
00:34:25
playing in an in a in a in an adult
00:34:28
venue. Um, that wasn't a good idea. Um,
00:34:32
>> um, [clears throat]
00:34:33
and um, and uh, yeah, everybody went in
00:34:36
in different directions. My my mom uh,
00:34:39
read all the books she could and and you
00:34:42
know, studied. she she uh stopped um
00:34:47
uh she she left a job as a high school
00:34:49
English teacher and and and retrained
00:34:51
and went to university uh to uh become a
00:34:54
guidance counselor. And so she was um
00:34:57
she was doing psychology papers at
00:34:58
university and I was at I was at uni
00:35:00
too. So we would meet in the calf and go
00:35:02
to lectures together and it was kind of
00:35:04
like she was learning how to be a young
00:35:06
person again. Um, and my dad
00:35:10
[clears throat]
00:35:11
he kind of um kind of retreated into the
00:35:14
world of things. He got the got the
00:35:16
driveway uh rec reconcated it and he uh
00:35:19
he bought three versions of a of a
00:35:22
particular old car and cannibalized the
00:35:24
engines to to make one of them that went
00:35:25
and
00:35:26
>> just just working really hard to avoid
00:35:30
thinking about things too much, I think.
00:35:32
Um,
00:35:33
>> and they they got a new property. they
00:35:35
they uh they bought um a a property up
00:35:38
north and and built uh built a a house
00:35:41
on it and put a huge amount of energy
00:35:43
into that. So So yeah, and I guess I
00:35:45
didn't really uh it didn't catch up with
00:35:48
me until I was in my 30s really.
00:35:51
>> Yeah. So I was all of that all of that
00:35:53
band stuff and you know being in the
00:35:54
Blams, being in front lawn and then
00:35:56
starting the Mutton Birds, you know, all
00:35:58
of that was kind of um me running to
00:36:00
escape it.
00:36:01
>> Yeah. Eventually you have to face it,
00:36:02
don't you?
00:36:03
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for
00:36:05
sharing that stuff. I'm sure you said
00:36:06
you still sort of feel him around now.
00:36:08
Like when when you dream about him, is
00:36:09
he is he is he 20 years old or is he 71,
00:36:12
which is what he'd be now.
00:36:14
>> Uh he um well, generally he's young. Uh
00:36:17
um it could be a horror a horror dream
00:36:19
about the event cuz I I relive that all
00:36:21
the time. But um but uh uh or it could
00:36:25
be uh it could be the two of us doing
00:36:27
something. Um, I'm trying to take some
00:36:29
rubbish to the tip and I go around to
00:36:31
his place and pick him up and we go
00:36:32
together and we both and you know he's
00:36:34
71 and I'm 66. Um, and [clears throat]
00:36:38
I'm fascinated by that because because
00:36:41
he uh, you know, he could have been
00:36:44
could have been all kinds of people. He
00:36:46
could have gone way over to the right
00:36:48
and we'd have huge arguments. He could
00:36:49
have been a Trump supporter or you know,
00:36:51
an ACT voter or whatever, you know. Um,
00:36:54
uh, but I'm sure whatever he I'm sure I
00:36:57
would still I would still have loved
00:36:58
him, you know, and we would still go to
00:37:00
the tip together and and, uh, you know,
00:37:02
have robust political debates if that
00:37:04
was the case.
00:37:05
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:07
>> Oh, yeah. Speaking of that, this is just
00:37:08
a random thought that popped into my
00:37:09
mind. Didn't you make some quote about
00:37:11
you'd rather like have sex with a
00:37:13
crayfish than vote for John Ke? Was that
00:37:14
a Was that Am I Am I imagining this?
00:37:17
>> Oh, you didn't you didn't imagine it.
00:37:18
You didn't imagine it. It was uh the the
00:37:22
in in my Yeah. the there was there was a
00:37:25
um there was a landslide victory uh and
00:37:29
um and [snorts] uh some wag at the at at
00:37:33
TBNZ. Um chose to put footage of the
00:37:39
National Party all celebrating and all
00:37:41
patting each other in the back. Um, and
00:37:43
they and they married that up with
00:37:45
anchor because because it says in the
00:37:48
middle of your deep blue sea. They
00:37:49
thought, you know, blue national. Um,
00:37:52
and um, I was horrified because I didn't
00:37:54
want anybody to think that I'd let them
00:37:55
use the song. In actual fact, they can
00:37:58
use whatever they like. Um, because it's
00:37:59
if it's a if they were going to play it
00:38:01
at their rally, then they'd have to ask
00:38:04
me and they'd have to pay, you know, and
00:38:06
I wouldn't let them. Um but um if um if
00:38:10
if it's just TV news that's covered by a
00:38:14
different rule. Somebody at TV news
00:38:16
could use could use whatever song they
00:38:18
want
00:38:18
>> or like a fair use thing. You can play
00:38:20
20 seconds or something
00:38:21
>> something like that. So I mean they
00:38:22
didn't have to ask me. So it was all it
00:38:24
was all kosher. But I didn't I didn't
00:38:25
want anybody out there to uh think that
00:38:28
I'd given my approval for that. So um
00:38:31
somebody asked me about it and I came up
00:38:32
with the crayfish gag. But and then I
00:38:35
got and then I got um I got trolled big
00:38:37
time. People people I got lots of you
00:38:39
know go back go back to Russia and all
00:38:41
that sort of stuff. Um and people would
00:38:43
shake their fists at me as they drove
00:38:45
past in the street. And I got quite
00:38:47
weirded out by it I must admit cuz it
00:38:49
was a uh it was a shock. Um, and this is
00:38:53
this is in the pre uh, you know, pre-
00:38:56
internet or pre uh, social media
00:39:00
>> um, sort of age that we live in now
00:39:02
where everybody is a troll by the see
00:39:04
sound of it. But it was kind of my first
00:39:06
it was my first taste of that.
00:39:08
>> And uh I was feeling really fragile and
00:39:10
I went out to a uh a restaurant like a
00:39:13
seafood restaurant in uh in Takapuna and
00:39:16
um
00:39:17
and uh they um I I went up and ordered
00:39:22
and they gave me uh the woman at the
00:39:24
counter gave me a little electric
00:39:26
crayfish and it was the thing that it's
00:39:28
the thing that's supposed to buzz so
00:39:30
that you come and Oh yeah.
00:39:33
And I freaked out cuz I thought it was
00:39:36
like a she was commenting on what had
00:39:38
just happened. I was
00:39:40
>> hyper sensitive about that given given
00:39:42
to Crayfish. I had to be talked down.
00:39:45
>> Wow.
00:39:45
>> Well, I've had him on the podcast even
00:39:47
though um you disagree with his
00:39:49
policies. Um hell of a nice guy, John K.
00:39:52
>> If you were sitting across from him, I
00:39:54
reckon um you'd have a you'd have a good
00:39:55
chat. You'd find some common ground.
00:39:57
>> Well, I'm sure. And uh I uh I I lament
00:40:02
about the way this country is going at
00:40:04
the moment. Um but I also feel that um
00:40:10
we need we need conservatives and
00:40:12
progressives. So we need both sides. I'
00:40:14
I've never been very good at um being
00:40:17
bipartisan. I because I I tend to have
00:40:20
knee-jerk reactions uh you know towards
00:40:23
looking after people and uh you know um
00:40:26
you know towards the government having
00:40:28
responsibility for people and things
00:40:30
like that which puts me puts me further
00:40:31
over on the left but but intellectually
00:40:35
I um I think we've got to be able to
00:40:37
hold hands across the you know across
00:40:39
the divide more and it's really hard
00:40:41
today at the moment you know really
00:40:44
really hard uh uh because but but but I
00:40:47
feel that Um, you know, like the the way
00:40:50
the the way the pendulum swung when I
00:40:52
was growing up, you know, between sort
00:40:54
of center left and center right, um, is
00:40:57
something that we can, you know, we
00:40:58
should be pretty nostalgic for now.
00:41:00
>> Yeah.
00:41:00
>> Cuz it was a good a good a decent sort
00:41:03
of stable time, you know, and and and
00:41:06
some uh some people got good stuff done
00:41:11
um by getting bipartisan support for it,
00:41:14
you know, like like the, you know, the
00:41:15
beginnings of the Wangi Tribunal. It's
00:41:17
um that's you know good people on the
00:41:21
national side putting their energy into
00:41:23
it because it was the right thing to do.
00:41:24
So you know I I uh I wish I could put my
00:41:28
money where my mouth is. Uh and uh and
00:41:30
uh you know I I regretted I regretted
00:41:33
the crayfish gag initially uh
00:41:37
>> because of the the fallout the
00:41:39
>> fall also but also because it it it also
00:41:42
because it slots into um a tribal way of
00:41:46
viewing
00:41:47
>> viewing politics and um I think we
00:41:50
should be a bit better than that here
00:41:52
but you know you know I'm sure I'm sure
00:41:54
if I was in that position again I'd
00:41:56
probably reach for the gag. Yeah. Um, oh
00:41:59
yeah, we'll move on from the politics
00:42:00
and we'll get back to the far more
00:42:02
interesting story of um, your musical
00:42:04
career, but there was Yeah, this is just
00:42:06
coming to my mind now. Yeah, you were
00:42:08
you were involved in the the Chris
00:42:09
Bishop thing at the last music awards.
00:42:11
Was that you?
00:42:12
>> Yes.
00:42:12
>> You told him off. Yeah. Um, yes. What
00:42:15
happened? So, so Stan Walker was
00:42:16
playing.
00:42:17
>> Yes.
00:42:17
>> Doing doing um Stan Walker was playing.
00:42:20
I was about to go on because we we I was
00:42:22
part of a like a like a big medley at
00:42:25
the end. And um uh somebody said, "You
00:42:29
want to just look at the what? Go go go
00:42:31
into the auditorium and look at the show
00:42:32
before you have to go on." So I went and
00:42:34
I was standing standing at the uh you
00:42:37
know by the wall and somebody said, "Oh,
00:42:39
there's a free seat over there. Come and
00:42:40
sit there." So I went and sat there and
00:42:42
then um and then Stan Walker started a
00:42:45
song um a huge amount of flag waving um
00:42:49
a sort of a a whole representation of
00:42:51
the Hikcoy came uh on stage. It was a
00:42:54
really uplifting moment. Um, and you
00:42:57
know, the audience sort of stood up and
00:42:59
cheered. And there was one guy that I
00:43:00
could hear and he'd been being more and
00:43:03
more upset sort of as the as that uh all
00:43:06
of that imagery started to, you know,
00:43:08
appear on stage. Um, couldn't quite work
00:43:10
out what he was saying, but there was
00:43:11
sort of like what a pile of crap and
00:43:13
everybody sit down and that sort of
00:43:14
stuff.
00:43:15
>> Um,
00:43:16
>> and I just thought he was a sort of out
00:43:18
of control heckler.
00:43:20
Uh, and um, you know, I sort of drew on
00:43:24
40 years of being uh, playing in pubs in
00:43:28
New Zealand and and dealing with out of
00:43:31
control hecklers. So I I I went over to
00:43:34
him and said, "Shut up, you dickhead."
00:43:35
Which was actually probably um, you
00:43:39
know, I think you can I think there's
00:43:40
better anti-Hickler lines, you know, but
00:43:43
that was that was all I could think of
00:43:45
at the time. And then um, and then he
00:43:47
looked at me he looked at me and said,
00:43:48
"What'd you say to me?" And I I I said,
00:43:50
"Shut up, you dickhead." And in that in
00:43:52
that moment, I realized who he was. I
00:43:54
realized who I was talking to the
00:43:55
speaker of the house. Um
00:43:58
uh but there didn't seem to be anything
00:43:59
more to say. I could have said, "Shut
00:44:02
up, you're honorable, dickhead." But
00:44:04
[laughter]
00:44:05
uh I didn't, you know,
00:44:07
>> have you have have you grown into being
00:44:09
this person or have you always been this
00:44:10
person that um you know sees something
00:44:13
that you strenuously disagree with and
00:44:15
calls it out?
00:44:16
>> I don't know. I don't know. Um
00:44:20
I am a bit shortfused and when I was at
00:44:23
at school all of my uh uh all of my
00:44:27
school reports tended to say things like
00:44:31
must keep smart remarks to himself. Um
00:44:33
must learn to express himself privately.
00:44:36
That sort of stuff.
00:44:37
>> It's always been in the DNA.
00:44:38
>> I think it's always been there. Yeah.
00:44:39
[laughter]
00:44:40
>> Okay. So you you leave school. Um
00:44:42
there's a bunch of band stuff. You're in
00:44:43
the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Um,
00:44:46
by the way, what's um what's the perfect
00:44:48
band size? You've been in duos,
00:44:50
threepiece, four piece, five piece,
00:44:51
orchestras. You've done just about
00:44:53
everything. What is the perfect dynamic?
00:44:55
I really like three
00:44:57
>> um because you can play really loud. It
00:45:00
can be it can be really intense,
00:45:03
but there's nobody that's kind of taking
00:45:06
a back seat. Everybody's soloing the
00:45:09
whole time. M
00:45:10
>> um I mean just the just the sort of
00:45:13
senuey
00:45:14
thing about about the Blams was really
00:45:17
great. I loved that. Um but then with
00:45:19
the Mutton Birds it was kind of obvious
00:45:20
that I couldn't be the lead singer and
00:45:22
play the drums at the same time. Um and
00:45:26
and then we auditioned a whole bunch of
00:45:28
drummers and and Ross Burge joined her
00:45:30
who was just this fabulous drummer who
00:45:33
the he's somebody once said he's the
00:45:35
only drummer that can make you cry
00:45:37
[snorts] which is true because you know
00:45:38
just plays the song you know so there
00:45:41
was we had to have four in the mutton
00:45:42
birds and initially I played bass and
00:45:45
tried to sing but unless you sting
00:45:48
that's really hard to do
00:45:49
>> so I had to stop doing that for a while
00:45:51
there but yeah
00:45:52
>> so Um, blam blam blam. Um, there's a
00:45:55
song There is no depression in New
00:45:56
Zealand. I've got some of the lyrics
00:45:57
here. Um, by the way, how old were you
00:45:59
when you wrote this?
00:46:01
>> I didn't write the lyrics.
00:46:02
>> Um, Richard von Sturmer wrote the
00:46:03
lyrics.
00:46:04
>> Um, I would have been 20 20 I suppose.
00:46:08
Um, and uh, and I was in a I was in like
00:46:11
a stage a stage production that Richard
00:46:14
put on and it was uh, it was a sort of a
00:46:18
like a protest against against Maldonism
00:46:20
about against sort of gray
00:46:23
gray complacent New Zealand. Um,
00:46:28
and uh, we had two characters called
00:46:31
Precious Little and Stuff All. And we
00:46:33
just used to complain about stuff the
00:46:34
whole time. And I I think I was Precious
00:46:36
Little or I might have been Stuff All.
00:46:37
And then we had two other characters who
00:46:39
were the Vegemmites who were like uh
00:46:42
Vegemite and Marmite two and we had uh
00:46:45
we just had enormous like Vegemite cans
00:46:48
with legs and we jumped around. In the
00:46:50
middle of all that there was a song
00:46:51
called There is No Depression in New
00:46:53
Zealand which Richard had given me the
00:46:54
words. Um, and uh, I wrote a sort of
00:46:58
jaunty
00:46:59
kind of like a vaudeville um, melody to
00:47:03
that
00:47:05
da da da da. And then a bit later we
00:47:10
were we got the idea to try it with the
00:47:13
band, try it with the Blams and we sort
00:47:15
of made it more sort of dark and bigger
00:47:17
and kind of more punky and um, yeah, it
00:47:20
felt great. on on Spotify. It's
00:47:22
currently on over half a million
00:47:23
listens, which is nothing to scoff at.
00:47:25
Wow. Um, but the Yeah, the lyrics like
00:47:27
for for a bunch of like 20-year-old kids
00:47:29
to be writing this, it's pretty it's
00:47:31
quite profound in a way, isn't it?
00:47:32
>> Well, Richard, that's that's that's very
00:47:35
much Richard's style. He's a poet and
00:47:37
he's a a writer. Um and he um as as as
00:47:42
sort of quite often happens, you know,
00:47:45
you can grow up as a writer in the
00:47:47
shadow of somebody that's that you look
00:47:49
up to um somebody that inspires you. And
00:47:51
so he was a bit older than me at school.
00:47:53
And um I just loved the way he wrote.
00:47:56
And when he when he wanted to write a a
00:47:59
song, like a pop song, um they'd all be
00:48:02
a bit like that. They'd all be he'd find
00:48:04
a negative character and he'd just rent
00:48:06
in the in the voice of that character.
00:48:08
So he had um he had songs um songs about
00:48:12
politicians
00:48:14
um
00:48:15
uh yeah all sorts of fantastic stuff and
00:48:18
he when he finished the plague which was
00:48:20
a sort of the precurs one of the
00:48:21
precursor bands to the Blams um he he
00:48:25
left a whole bunch of lyrics that hadn't
00:48:27
been used for plague songs and he sort
00:48:29
of gave them all to us in the Blams. So
00:48:31
when when we would jam for ages and then
00:48:34
we'd we'd look at this pile of of um
00:48:36
[snorts] typed lyrics that Richard had
00:48:39
given us and we'd say, you know, could
00:48:41
we turn this one into a song, you know,
00:48:42
and uh there's there's song called
00:48:45
Bystanders, a song called The Cow, um
00:48:48
song called Maids to Order, which is
00:48:50
kind of about kind of a rant a rant
00:48:52
about pornography, you know, all these
00:48:54
cool things which um we
00:48:57
we were just starting as writers. Mark
00:48:59
and Tim and I were just sort of getting
00:49:02
going, but we had this great template to
00:49:04
follow.
00:49:05
>> Yeah. I suppose you're finding your
00:49:07
identity, figuring out who you are.
00:49:08
>> Yeah.
00:49:08
>> And you look at your you look at your
00:49:10
elders for that. Like like you know, I
00:49:12
looked I looked to my older brother um
00:49:14
you know he the when he
00:49:16
>> when I first was a third former at
00:49:19
Westlake Boy High School um he gave me a
00:49:23
piece of advice which was which was not
00:49:26
um you know look out for that teacher.
00:49:28
He's a bully. Look out for those guys.
00:49:30
Don't don't go behind the the bike
00:49:32
sheds, whatever. It was it was roll your
00:49:35
have wear a long sleeve shirt and roll
00:49:37
it up to about an inch above your elbow
00:49:40
cuz if it's below there, it's it's try
00:49:43
try hard. And if it's up way up to your
00:49:45
arm, it's you look really awful. So that
00:49:48
was the best, you know, the best the
00:49:50
best advice. So I got, you know, I
00:49:52
looked up to my older brother for
00:49:53
advice. And then he all of a sudden when
00:49:55
I was 15, he wasn't there anymore. And
00:49:56
then I started looking up to to writers
00:49:59
like Richard and um and uh you know that
00:50:02
the first songs I wrote for Blames were
00:50:04
a little bit like a little bit like
00:50:06
imitation Richard songs.
00:50:07
>> Mhm.
00:50:08
>> Just while you're finding your own
00:50:09
identity, I guess.
00:50:10
>> Yeah. Yeah. Or getting comfortable in
00:50:13
your own skin. Um yeah, we'll move on to
00:50:16
the front lawn. So yeah, how would you
00:50:17
describe the front? I'm a huge fan, but
00:50:19
um assuming there's some people watching
00:50:21
this or listening to this that have no
00:50:22
idea at this point what we're talking
00:50:23
about, how do you describe the front
00:50:25
lawn? Well, we um we we both Harry and I
00:50:29
both were overseas for different
00:50:31
reasons. He was he was studying uh
00:50:33
theater in in Paris. I was in New York
00:50:37
um working as musician and I was I ended
00:50:41
up being a drummer for a a dance company
00:50:43
over there. and we came back. Uh I
00:50:48
didn't want to start another band cuz uh
00:50:51
I I kind of felt that bands had were a
00:50:54
bit restricting, you know. Um I I
00:50:56
thought it'd be really neat to start
00:50:57
something which was a bit like a band
00:50:58
and a bit had some storytelling or more
00:51:01
theatrical sort of possibilities. Uh he
00:51:03
didn't want to go back to being an
00:51:05
actor, which is what he'd been doing
00:51:06
before he left New Zealand. Um
00:51:10
and um so we kind of jelled, you know,
00:51:12
we'd been at school together. He was one
00:51:14
year behind me. We didn't know each
00:51:15
other very well, but we started this
00:51:17
thing which was kind of like if you went
00:51:19
to see a front lawn show. It was kind of
00:51:22
like watching two people trying to do a
00:51:25
Broadway musical but with no resources
00:51:28
at all. No chorus, no orchestra, no
00:51:31
lights, you know, just two people trying
00:51:34
to tell a story and play the play all
00:51:36
the instruments themselves. And we had
00:51:38
um generally it was electric guitar, me
00:51:41
playing electric guitar and him playing
00:51:43
like concertina, but we'd you know we'd
00:51:46
do all the characters and we'd also play
00:51:48
the score at the same time quite often.
00:51:51
So yeah, it was like it was uh it was
00:51:53
like a somebody said it was like um like
00:51:55
a Swiss Army knife of performance
00:51:58
>> and some some real funny songs and um I
00:52:01
I wondered if there was any connection
00:52:02
between like Flight of the Concords and
00:52:04
the Front Lawn and maybe being inspired
00:52:06
by it and there Brett McKenzie was on
00:52:07
your documentary. So who who inspired
00:52:10
you guys? Was it Fred Dag to a degree or
00:52:13
the Top Twins?
00:52:14
>> Um
00:52:15
>> who who was doing comedy songs before
00:52:16
the front lawn? Well, we we well, lots
00:52:19
of there's lots of answers to that. We
00:52:21
were um we there was a really rich sort
00:52:25
of theater and comedy sort of tradition
00:52:27
in New Zealand. There's sort of like
00:52:28
anarchic sort of things like like Rats
00:52:30
Theatrics and Demi and the Dum Dums, uh
00:52:33
Red Mole, um uh Fred Dag of course, but
00:52:38
um
00:52:39
because we never we didn't think we were
00:52:42
doing comedy, you know, we we um we took
00:52:45
ourselves like ridiculously seriously
00:52:47
and and when we when we first sort of
00:52:50
started working with some ideas, um you
00:52:53
[snorts] know, we'd we'd uh we'd come up
00:52:55
with an idea that was you know, I'd come
00:52:57
up with an idea that was kind of about
00:52:59
madness, you know, like like uh I I
00:53:02
remember that I remember the the
00:53:04
beginnings of this thing uh and I'd
00:53:06
bring it I'd bring it into to our
00:53:08
practice room and we'd start mcking
00:53:10
around with it and it was sort of like
00:53:11
[snorts] the the the guts of it was sort
00:53:13
of like when you have a conversation
00:53:15
like I'm talking to you.
00:53:17
>> Um
00:53:18
if I say, "How you doing, Dom?" and you
00:53:21
go, "I'm fine." Then you've reached into
00:53:24
the right bag. But if you go if I say,
00:53:27
"How you doing, Dom?" and you say, "A
00:53:28
rooster," then you've reached into the
00:53:31
wrong bag, haven't you? You know, and um
00:53:34
and so we we that was the beginnings of
00:53:36
this this idea. And
00:53:38
>> well, that's that's one of the songs too
00:53:40
called How How You
00:53:41
>> and that turned into that song. And so
00:53:44
and then we and then we we ended up with
00:53:46
this thing which is basically a
00:53:47
conversation that goes wrong, you know,
00:53:48
sort of it's basically how you doing?
00:53:50
I'm fine, you know. Where are you
00:53:52
living? you know, well, and instead of
00:53:53
saying, "Where you living?" Oh, I'm
00:53:54
living in, you know, Glenn Eden,
00:53:56
whatever. Um, the the one guy says,
00:53:59
"Well, you'd hardly call it living." And
00:54:02
then it goes into this, it's like the
00:54:03
wrong response. [laughter] And and then
00:54:05
we had a bunch of stuff like that and we
00:54:07
thought, well, what is this? Is this a
00:54:08
song or is it a is it a sketch or is it
00:54:11
a piece of a film or something like
00:54:12
that? And then we tried a few different
00:54:14
things. And then and then we tried it as
00:54:16
a dance. So when when we did that on
00:54:19
stage, we'd come out and we'd both start
00:54:20
dancing in rhythm. And then when when
00:54:23
the when the the uh uh when the the
00:54:27
spell broke and the wrong answer came
00:54:30
out, um we'd stop dancing
00:54:32
>> and then we start dancing again later.
00:54:34
So that that became the how you doing
00:54:36
dance. How are you doing? I think that
00:54:37
was the um the first um front lawn song
00:54:39
I heard. Um, I was on like a school
00:54:42
school running exchange going somewhere
00:54:44
and someone had the cassette and put it
00:54:45
on the minivan and it was like it was
00:54:47
unlike anything I'd heard before. Like
00:54:48
this was this was at a time where the um
00:54:51
for New Zealand music um it it was
00:54:54
aspirational to sound um as American as
00:54:57
possible. I think
00:54:58
>> um in terms of production values and
00:55:00
everything else and this was
00:55:00
unashameably Kiwi.
00:55:02
>> Yeah. We didn't we yeah we wanted to
00:55:05
just talk the way we talked and we
00:55:07
wanted everything to be about you know
00:55:09
if if there was a rhythm in in what we
00:55:11
did. We wanted it to be about about our
00:55:14
speech rhythm. So I remember we had a
00:55:15
really we had a really neat piece where
00:55:18
which was basically about two guys in a
00:55:20
car. one of them has been picked up and
00:55:22
they're just talking about the car and
00:55:23
it's sort of like [snorts] like I had a
00:55:26
a friend of my dad's who you know you'd
00:55:28
say to him uh what do you think of this
00:55:31
car and he said oh they're good these
00:55:33
things they're good donkeys good donkeys
00:55:36
you know and you just say um yeah yeah
00:55:37
yeah it's a good car trying to make
00:55:40
conversation and he'd just repeat he'd
00:55:42
just say yeah they're good donkeys and
00:55:44
it would just go on like that from and
00:55:46
and so we had a conversation which was a
00:55:48
bit like that [snorts] Um uh yeah. And
00:55:51
um and then then when we made that
00:55:54
record, we sort of thought initially I
00:55:56
think we made that record about three
00:55:58
times. We we tried one version where
00:56:00
where everything was a bit kind of
00:56:01
glossy and more like a pop song and I
00:56:04
could hear myself wanting to flatten out
00:56:06
the the accent
00:56:09
>> and you know cuz you know it's I wanted
00:56:12
it to be on the radio you know and
00:56:14
everything that was on the radio in
00:56:16
those days was was if if it was a Kiwi
00:56:18
song it was it sounded sort of American.
00:56:20
>> Yeah. Um, and after a while we realized
00:56:24
that that wasn't cool and it wasn't
00:56:25
going to work. And so we we tried it
00:56:27
again. And then we had the idea of going
00:56:29
down to Wellington and working with the
00:56:30
Six Vaults and just putting all of their
00:56:33
energy into it. And in a way that gave
00:56:36
us a license to be as weird as we wanted
00:56:38
to be cuz they are they put all this
00:56:41
lovely weird anarchic kind of energy
00:56:43
into it. And so it sounded like a
00:56:46
village band like the weirdest village
00:56:48
band that you've ever heard. You proud
00:56:51
of that that stuff now?
00:56:52
>> Really proud of it. [clears throat]
00:56:53
Yeah. Really proud. And it's not like
00:56:55
much else that I've ever been part of.
00:56:58
>> No.
00:56:58
>> So, and that that was that's been cool,
00:57:02
you know, like um
00:57:03
>> uh I've I've grown I've you know, I've
00:57:06
grown to respect it more and more as I
00:57:09
get older, you know, especially since um
00:57:11
Neil Duncan's passed. You know, the um
00:57:14
wonderful uh sax player with the Six
00:57:16
Vaults. um uh he um he died a few years
00:57:20
ago and uh and I I listen now to that
00:57:24
record and I hear I hear everybody's
00:57:26
energy but I hear his energy in it, you
00:57:28
know, and there's fantastic ideas like
00:57:30
all of that that beginning of Andy where
00:57:32
you've got the you got the the guitar
00:57:34
just playing one note and the bass
00:57:36
playing one note and these um gamlan uh
00:57:39
gongs going.
00:57:42
>> That was that was Neil's idea. [snorts]
00:57:44
>> So he put a lot into that record. You
00:57:47
guys got off at a TV show. Do you ever
00:57:49
you ever look back on that with a little
00:57:51
bit of regret or anything?
00:57:53
>> No. Nope. [laughter] Nope. Nope.
00:57:55
>> I think your body language is suggesting
00:57:57
otherwise.
00:57:57
>> No. Well, I'm cold. That's all.
00:58:00
>> Turn the ear off.
00:58:01
>> In the uh [snorts] uh in uh in the film,
00:58:07
Grant Campbell, the late Grant Campbell,
00:58:10
uh dear man who who uh who managed the
00:58:12
front lawn. Um, I don't think he's quite
00:58:14
right in that in saying that we got off
00:58:16
of this TV show in England and I turned
00:58:18
it down. It wasn't me. I think it was
00:58:20
Harry, but we can't remember because it
00:58:23
wasn't it wasn't what we wanted to do.
00:58:24
You know, we want we didn't want to
00:58:26
stop. We just wanted to to, you know,
00:58:28
keep doing new ideas. And um I think
00:58:31
also at that stage the front lawn as a
00:58:33
theater group had kind of run its course
00:58:36
and so we didn't want to be going over
00:58:39
doing greatest hits. he wanted to go off
00:58:41
and be a filmmaker and I I wanted to
00:58:42
start a band.
00:58:43
>> So that's probably it's probably
00:58:45
academic as to who turned it down. But
00:58:47
[snorts] anyway, I think it was him.
00:58:49
>> So after um The Front Lawn came the
00:58:51
Mutton Birds when you formed the Mutton
00:58:53
Birds. Um yeah. What did you want the
00:58:56
band to be?
00:58:57
Uh, I I felt that I'd I'd finished my
00:59:01
apprenticeship and I wanted I wanted to
00:59:04
write the best songs that were in me and
00:59:06
I wanted to put the best band around me
00:59:09
that I could. And um I did a lot of
00:59:13
thinking about what it could be, you
00:59:14
know, uh was it kind of um sort of
00:59:18
sparky and unpredictable like the Blams.
00:59:22
Um
00:59:24
uh and
00:59:26
more and more the stuff I was listening
00:59:27
to,
00:59:29
you know, it sort of moved into a um
00:59:33
uh a different kind of vessel, sort of
00:59:36
more like a more like a less like a
00:59:38
convertible and more like a family car.
00:59:40
And we kind I don't know why it went
00:59:42
that way. Maybe it was because I was a
00:59:43
bit older. maybe um the stuff that I
00:59:46
really respected um Paul Kelly's music
00:59:50
um Nick Cave's music um Bruce
00:59:53
Springsteen's music um uh and you know
00:59:57
and then there's also the fact that when
00:59:59
once you put a band together you've got
01:00:01
all of these differing opinions and very
01:00:06
few there's very few when you talk about
01:00:09
what bands you like in the van you're
01:00:11
driving along in the van you talk about
01:00:12
what bands you like Um quite often in in
01:00:17
a in a band people will agree on a whole
01:00:19
bunch of things and that'll be your kind
01:00:21
of pool of stuff. Let's listen to this
01:00:23
one. Oh yeah, we all like this. You
01:00:24
know, there won't be any arguments about
01:00:26
this one. But Mutton Birds it was there
01:00:28
was very few things that we all liked.
01:00:31
Like we all liked the Pixies and that
01:00:33
was there wasn't much else. You know
01:00:35
Allan at one stage really liked the
01:00:37
Smiths and I didn't like the Smiths very
01:00:39
much and you know um Ross really liked
01:00:41
Dinosaur Jr. But that was sort of too
01:00:43
too raggedy for me. Um
01:00:46
so it was uh there was that kind of um
01:00:50
sense of uh of rigor that came in um uh
01:00:54
because of everybody's different
01:00:56
opinions. Um but I think yeah I think I
01:01:00
think my only desire was to was to make
01:01:06
it a vehicle for the best songs I could
01:01:08
do. And more and more when I sat down to
01:01:11
write songs, um
01:01:14
it's not pop songs that came out. It was
01:01:17
um it was story songs or um songs which
01:01:21
probably
01:01:23
probably would have lyrically would have
01:01:25
fit fit a country or folk rock type
01:01:28
genre
01:01:29
>> because the because they are story
01:01:30
songs, you know. Um so that was a that
01:01:34
was an interesting thing about the
01:01:35
Mutton Boos, you We we you know we had
01:01:38
we had this sound which was um people
01:01:42
used to say was a bit like power pop a
01:01:44
bit like uh you know um
01:01:47
>> pop rock. Pop rock for sure.
01:01:48
>> Yeah. Yeah. Um um uh [clears throat]
01:01:51
um you know like uh early on people say
01:01:55
we said we sounded a bit like like
01:01:58
>> you know um but then in terms of the
01:02:01
stories I wanted to tell they were kind
01:02:02
of more uh more like what I what I'd
01:02:05
been what I'd been doing through the the
01:02:07
beginnings of trying to write songs in
01:02:09
the blams and then getting better at
01:02:10
writing songs through the front lawn.
01:02:12
They were more songs with characters in
01:02:13
them songs with
01:02:15
>> with you know New Zealand characters
01:02:16
telling stories. Um, so that was this
01:02:19
interesting, you know, the Mountain
01:02:20
Birds was this sort of strange beast.
01:02:23
>> You burst onto the scene. I remember
01:02:25
being in um top 40 radio in Palmus North
01:02:27
at the time at a station called 2XS and
01:02:29
you came out with um a remake of the
01:02:32
song Nature. Why did you why did you
01:02:33
start with a non-original?
01:02:35
>> Uh that was um the story about that was
01:02:39
that we were um I'd kind of run out of
01:02:43
songs. I think I think there was a
01:02:44
rehearsal and I I was supposed to bring
01:02:46
a song to a rehearsal. So, I I felt bad.
01:02:49
So, I said, "Why don't we just why don't
01:02:51
we, you know, I'll come next week. I'll
01:02:53
have a song, believe me. But this week,
01:02:55
let's let's just play let's just play
01:02:57
Nature." Um [snorts]
01:02:59
uh because Ross had worked with Wayne
01:03:01
Mason, the the guy who wrote Nature, guy
01:03:04
from the Formula. Um they'd been in a
01:03:06
band together.
01:03:08
>> Uh I loved the song. I off I kind of
01:03:11
wondered what it would sound like rocked
01:03:13
up, you know, played played really hard
01:03:16
and loud. Um, and so we just sort of
01:03:18
flailed away in the studio for a bit
01:03:21
basically marking time until I turned up
01:03:23
with a song
01:03:25
>> and then we put it aside and then and
01:03:27
then when when we made the album, we
01:03:29
sort of thought, oh, we could put that
01:03:30
on. It was a bit of an afterthought
01:03:32
really. And then that's that's the song
01:03:33
that became uh somebody started playing
01:03:36
it in in Wellington, a guy called Nick
01:03:39
Tanley. Um it started started playing it
01:03:42
and it wasn't even a single. He was just
01:03:44
playing it off the album.
01:03:45
>> Yeah. He was on the uh the morning crew
01:03:47
on CM. Yeah.
01:03:48
>> Yeah. So that [clears throat] became
01:03:49
that song became a hit and we had we had
01:03:51
no idea about it and uh and then and
01:03:54
then we sort of turned around and made
01:03:55
it quickly made a video of it.
01:03:56
>> Wow. What was that period like? So you
01:03:59
went from the symphony symphony
01:04:00
orchestra uh to blam blam blam like a
01:04:03
punk sort of band to this um fringe
01:04:05
comedy act the front lawn and suddenly
01:04:07
you're like this big mainstream
01:04:09
commercial pop star. Yeah. How do you
01:04:12
reflect on that period? Was it crazy
01:04:14
times?
01:04:14
>> It was pretty it was pretty weird. Um
01:04:17
[snorts] um we had we knew we needed
01:04:20
management. So we we had all all kinds
01:04:22
of different managers um helping us. Um
01:04:26
uh we we
01:04:29
uh we were being offered stuff. You
01:04:31
know, there's there was a a label in
01:04:32
Australia that wanted us to uh signed to
01:04:35
them. They were more kind of left field
01:04:38
label than than EMI. Um which is where
01:04:41
we we eventually signed. Um they wanted
01:04:44
us they they were called Redeye and they
01:04:46
they initially wanted us to put out a
01:04:48
thing Well Made as the first single and
01:04:51
so we would have been a completely
01:04:53
different kind of band. and they also
01:04:54
wanted us to move to Australia and do
01:04:56
lots of touring, but basically, you
01:04:58
know, treating that song as [snorts] the
01:05:01
sort of flagship Yeah. for the band.
01:05:03
>> Um, uh, and I think we just didn't go
01:05:06
for them because we thought we thought,
01:05:08
well, well, we've got one shot at this,
01:05:10
you know, we're not 20 anymore. um if
01:05:13
they're going to if if [clears throat]
01:05:14
EMI going to give us more money for the
01:05:16
album and push it harder [snorts] uh and
01:05:20
there might be the possibility of going
01:05:21
to the going to the UK um because at
01:05:24
that stage that was just a floated as an
01:05:26
idea
01:05:27
>> let's let's go with that so we made that
01:05:29
decision um and uh
01:05:33
and cool stuff kept happening you know
01:05:35
like Peter Gabriel came to New Zealand
01:05:37
and and we opened for him and normally
01:05:40
um when you're open for a big act like
01:05:44
that, they're away having dinner when
01:05:46
you're doing your set or they're you
01:05:48
know miles away nowhere near you. Um and
01:05:53
he was side of stage just watching just
01:05:55
stood there with his arms folded
01:05:56
watching watching us the whole time and
01:05:58
he came out came and saw us after the
01:06:00
after that and before he went on and
01:06:01
said that was really beautiful. Can you
01:06:03
come can you come and do uh you know do
01:06:06
womad? Um and so we had we we had a um
01:06:11
uh you know we kind of had an inn and we
01:06:13
had a few other ins like that. Few other
01:06:14
sort of real wonderful things just
01:06:16
happened and the you know the guy that
01:06:18
had been um the guy that had been
01:06:21
engineering uh the Crowded House Records
01:06:24
uh a guy called Chad Blake um um really
01:06:28
wanted to work with us and so he he
01:06:30
ended up mixing the the second album. Um
01:06:34
and yeah so we just we
01:06:37
>> just momentum eh
01:06:38
>> good things started to happen momentum
01:06:40
and and and you know the fact that we
01:06:41
had we had management at that stage um
01:06:45
>> yeah we just um we just went for it. Um
01:06:48
it was really scary because because the
01:06:51
kids were little. Um
01:06:54
but we we went we were in Canada for uh
01:06:56
a big chunk of time for about maybe
01:06:58
maybe 3 4 months uh cuz uh cuz um EMI
01:07:02
Canada wanted to release us. Um and then
01:07:05
we ended up in in the UK uh and we were
01:07:09
co-managed by uh
01:07:12
a UK manager called Steve Hedges and he
01:07:15
he had been managing Gabriel before. Um,
01:07:18
[snorts] and so he he got us all these
01:07:21
amazing gigs like Glastonbury and all
01:07:24
the major gigs in Europe when we were
01:07:26
nowhere near big enough to get those
01:07:28
gigs. So we we sort of arrived with a
01:07:30
real Russian aura.
01:07:31
>> How was Glastonbury?
01:07:32
>> It was fantastic. It was fantastic. We
01:07:34
were
01:07:35
>> Was it just Was it Kiwis you were
01:07:37
playing in front of or? Well, we we well
01:07:39
there were when we [clears throat] we
01:07:41
had an early gig um and I think I I seem
01:07:44
to remember that when we started there
01:07:46
was more or less an empty an empty um uh
01:07:50
field that we were playing to and there
01:07:52
was a tent in the middle middle of the
01:07:53
field and we started playing and a
01:07:54
couple of people
01:07:55
>> got out of the tent and rubbed their
01:07:56
eyes and we'd woken them up but then by
01:07:59
the time we'd finished playing it was
01:08:00
full of people so I don't think they
01:08:02
were Kiwis.
01:08:03
>> Oh that's cool. That's what you sort of
01:08:05
hope for I I I I saw um 660 at a gig in
01:08:08
Hammersmith a few years ago and it was
01:08:09
just like drunk Kiwis in the audience.
01:08:11
Um which is great great to have a crowd
01:08:13
to play to but I'm sure the idea of the
01:08:14
gig for them was to try and you know uh
01:08:17
attract some you know some sort of new
01:08:19
audience rather than just expats.
01:08:21
>> Well when we were um we were there for 4
01:08:23
years we lived there for four years. So
01:08:25
I think we we got away from the or we
01:08:27
got you know we were still playing to
01:08:29
there were still Kiwis coming to the
01:08:30
gigs but we also built a bigger audience
01:08:33
cuz we we did a lot of did a lot of work
01:08:35
in all over the UK but yeah I you know
01:08:38
that expect things is cool. I remember I
01:08:41
remember going to
01:08:43
uh see Dave Dobin um and we we hadn't
01:08:46
been there for very long. We'd been in
01:08:47
the in the UK for maybe
01:08:50
uh maybe a year, I guess. And he came
01:08:53
and he played to this, you know,
01:08:55
[snorts] big expat audience in a in a
01:08:57
gig on Tottenham Court Road. And I knew
01:09:00
him a bit, you know, we I'd in the front
01:09:02
lawn I'd got I', you know, I'd stayed
01:09:05
I'd gone to see him at his house in
01:09:07
Sydney when he was living over there. So
01:09:08
I knew him a little bit and we we traded
01:09:10
songs. He would play me a new song, I'd
01:09:12
play him a new song. But this was a real
01:09:14
epiphany because he uh I think John
01:09:17
Alamu had just had just arrived in the
01:09:19
All Blacks and um and he Dave would he
01:09:23
started his song um whailing and there's
01:09:26
a line in I feel like Jonah and the
01:09:28
audience just went crazy you know and
01:09:31
instead of going instead of going um
01:09:35
could you just quieten down please this
01:09:36
is my song and the Jonah I'm referring
01:09:38
to is Jonah and the whale not you know
01:09:40
the
01:09:41
>> biblical Jonah.
01:09:42
>> Yeah. Uh, and um um but he just he just
01:09:46
stood there and he took it and he soaked
01:09:49
it up and instead of letting it go away
01:09:51
on him and losing the crowd to their own
01:09:54
party party time, you know, stuff. He
01:09:57
just turned it and I just thought I just
01:10:00
thought this man is born to be in front
01:10:02
of people and I'll never have that. I'll
01:10:04
never have that uh that that ability to
01:10:08
to to kind of make people feel this. The
01:10:11
wonderful thing you can do on stage is
01:10:12
you make you you you make people feel
01:10:15
that they're in a community and they all
01:10:17
belong together. Uh and he he could do
01:10:20
that. And I remember I just remember
01:10:22
feeling really acutely
01:10:25
acute sense of of um kind of awe about
01:10:29
the fact that he could do it and a
01:10:30
really strong sense that I could never
01:10:31
do it. Um, I'm a diff I'm a different
01:10:34
kind of performer. Um, and and then, you
01:10:37
know, I must admit,
01:10:39
you just practice at it. You know, I I
01:10:42
was watching I was watching a guy who
01:10:44
had been in the business longer than me.
01:10:46
Um,
01:10:47
uh, and, you know, now I think I think I
01:10:54
could do I could do something like that.
01:10:56
I wouldn't not the same. I mean, if I
01:10:58
had a song that had a had the name of an
01:10:59
or black in it accidentally [laughter]
01:11:01
and the and the crowd went crazy, um I
01:11:04
would probably lose it,
01:11:07
but I wouldn't storm off the stage. But
01:11:09
just that that sort of grace that he
01:11:11
that he he has. Um uh um that was a kind
01:11:15
of a big a big moment moment for me. Um
01:11:19
and nowadays sometimes I'm on stage and
01:11:22
and I we have a really great time with
01:11:24
an audience as a heckler. we have fun
01:11:25
with the heckler. Um, introduce a song,
01:11:28
stop a song in the middle, have a chat
01:11:30
to the audience. And I can feel that
01:11:33
that wonderful sense that we're all
01:11:34
gathered.
01:11:35
>> Um, you know, I don't, you know, I don't
01:11:38
believe in an in an external God like
01:11:41
Dave does. So, he's got he's got the man
01:11:42
up the man upstairs to help him
01:11:44
>> in that situation. But but it's still
01:11:47
there's something that's a bit religious
01:11:48
when it when you're in when you're in a
01:11:51
when you've got a crowd and everybody
01:11:53
feels gathered and together and whether
01:11:55
they're listening to a song they love or
01:11:57
or or they're sharing an idea or sharing
01:12:00
a thought or something like that. You
01:12:01
know,
01:12:02
>> it's funny funny that you'd say that
01:12:03
because I would have I would have um I
01:12:05
would have put you in the same league as
01:12:06
like Dobin and Neil Finn in terms of ah
01:12:10
like just um songwriting, stage
01:12:13
performance ability, all the all the
01:12:16
measurables.
01:12:17
>> Um well, that's very sweet. Um I I think
01:12:20
that kind of things for for posterity to
01:12:22
sort out, you know, it's not uh um it's
01:12:27
uh there's a lot of amazing
01:12:31
people on the stage in this country. Um,
01:12:35
and uh, I've I've always felt
01:12:40
really glad to be rubbing shoulders with
01:12:42
him, you know, and and you know, um,
01:12:45
that that cliche that you you you know,
01:12:47
this the stage tells a story, you know,
01:12:50
when you
01:12:51
>> when you walk out onto it, you can feel
01:12:52
all the people that have stood there
01:12:54
before you.
01:12:55
>> I really feel that in this in this place
01:12:57
and amazing people doing amazing work
01:12:59
and and the lovely thing about this
01:13:01
place is that they're your mates. like
01:13:02
we know each other.
01:13:04
>> Um and we you know you you you help you
01:13:07
turn up when they're doing a benefit.
01:13:08
You know you um whereas one of the one
01:13:13
of the things that that I found living
01:13:14
in England for those four years was how
01:13:17
all the relationships were sort of
01:13:19
guided by intermediaries.
01:13:21
So you you instead of going out and
01:13:24
meeting meeting somebody in the pub, you
01:13:26
know, and just talking about music, you
01:13:28
know, your your publicist might arrange
01:13:30
a meeting for you in a pub with that
01:13:33
band or whatever, you know, and uh I
01:13:35
just found that I found that really
01:13:37
really tough. Um you know, like one
01:13:40
stage we wanted to have a video for
01:13:43
something or other. Um, I think it was
01:13:46
the song She's Been Talking. And I'd
01:13:48
been uh um I'd met the woman who
01:13:51
directed the the the the video for Nick
01:13:54
Cave's Red Right Hand. I don't know if
01:13:56
you've ever seen that. It's beautiful
01:13:57
clip where they're the whole band are
01:13:59
just in a darkened room. Um, and they're
01:14:02
just they're just grooving without their
01:14:03
instruments. So, it's as if they're
01:14:05
holding their instruments, but they they
01:14:06
don't have them. And they're all wearing
01:14:07
suits. Um, and [snorts] uh, and it's all
01:14:11
black and white and sort of wonderful
01:14:12
and scary. And um, I said to the record
01:14:17
company, can we can we work together?
01:14:20
You know, I've met this I've met this
01:14:21
woman. Uh, you know, we could uh, she
01:14:25
could do the song. I think she likes the
01:14:26
song. And the record company said, "No,
01:14:28
no, not at all. Um, we have to make that
01:14:30
decision. Uh, it can't be that you've
01:14:32
met somebody in a pub. It has to be we
01:14:34
have we have systems for that. [snorts]
01:14:36
>> [clears throat]
01:14:37
>> Not the Kiwi system. No [laughter]
01:14:40
text.
01:14:40
>> Read British. Yeah, very British. I
01:14:42
>> I found a quote from you. Um
01:14:44
>> and I don't know if you want to
01:14:45
elaborate on this or not. Um I wasn't in
01:14:48
great shape for some of the mutton bird
01:14:49
stuff. There were things I hadn't worked
01:14:51
out in terms of my own mental health.
01:14:53
>> Oh yeah, very much so. I think I think
01:14:55
what happened was you can turn the air
01:14:57
con on if again if you want. It's it's
01:14:59
uh I see what you mean. It's all or
01:15:01
nothing, isn't it?
01:15:02
>> It's warm in here. Yeah,
01:15:03
>> that's right. It's it's it's Brisbane or
01:15:06
or [laughter]
01:15:07
or Oakland Island.
01:15:08
>> Or maybe it's just my inter
01:15:09
interrogative interview style.
01:15:11
[laughter]
01:15:12
Um
01:15:12
>> how are you doing by the way?
01:15:13
>> I'm good, mate. I'm really good.
01:15:15
>> I am really enjoying this chat.
01:15:16
>> I am too. Um uh yeah. So what So you
01:15:20
know in in uh in in England um we were
01:15:26
uh you know the the record we were
01:15:29
struggling. The record company wanted
01:15:30
more hits. Um we we we we got really
01:15:34
good reviews. [snorts] Um and we were
01:15:36
building an audience. Um but you know
01:15:39
they they are major label. They they'd
01:15:41
put a lot of money into us. Um um so
01:15:45
there was a sense of pressure uh sense
01:15:48
of pressure to try to write a song that
01:15:51
would that would work. Um and I kind of
01:15:55
folded up. Um and um there were times
01:15:58
when um you know I just I had a little
01:16:02
uh we had a garage next to the next to
01:16:05
the house that we lived in and uh it
01:16:07
wasn't insulated. It had a kind of
01:16:08
concrete floor and um I would uh
01:16:12
sometimes I would go out there to work
01:16:14
and if it was really cold I'd sort of
01:16:15
have everything that more or less all
01:16:17
the clothes I owned. Let's start with
01:16:18
pajamas and put stuff on over the top
01:16:20
and then a great coat. Then I like a
01:16:22
balaclava and gloves and socks and I
01:16:24
looked pretty um I look [clears throat]
01:16:26
pretty breaking and entering. [laughter]
01:16:28
Um
01:16:30
uh and uh um I'd just go out there to
01:16:33
try and work and sometimes I just
01:16:35
couldn't. Sometimes I just sort of curl
01:16:37
up on the floor and [snorts] um and not
01:16:39
be able to move for quite for quite a
01:16:41
few hours. And so, um, I think at that
01:16:45
stage I probably was [clears throat] I
01:16:47
probably was aware that it was
01:16:48
depression and I I I thought, well, this
01:16:51
is no good. I've got [snorts] I got
01:16:53
mouths to feed, you know. Um, I got to
01:16:56
get on stage every night, you know. Uh,
01:16:58
cuz we were we were still touring a lot
01:16:59
even even when once the record company
01:17:01
dropped us, we we still made another
01:17:03
record and did heaps of touring around
01:17:05
Europe. Um
01:17:08
and um so I I started buying books and
01:17:12
going to the library and getting books
01:17:14
on depression, sort of how to get out of
01:17:15
it yourself, you know. Um never thought
01:17:18
never told anybody about it. Never
01:17:20
thought uh to go and get help. And I
01:17:24
think that was a big mistake. I just I
01:17:26
think I felt like I didn't have um I
01:17:28
didn't really have my sort of family
01:17:31
wrap around me. Didn't have a like a GP
01:17:34
of my own. Um, and so, [clears throat]
01:17:37
um, I think I I'd sort of teetered
01:17:41
through that period, um, without
01:17:44
anything too bad happening.
01:17:45
>> Um, but, um, certainly when we came
01:17:48
home, um, I was in a pretty shabby
01:17:51
state.
01:17:55
>> How did you How did you fight your way
01:17:56
out of it?
01:17:58
>> Um, did any of the books help? What were
01:18:01
what did you find helpful?
01:18:02
>> They did. There was a book there was a
01:18:03
there's a book um by an Australian
01:18:05
writer called Dorothy Row which
01:18:07
[clears throat] turns it on its head. I
01:18:09
don't I don't think I I don't think I'd
01:18:11
recommend it nowadays cuz it was a bit
01:18:13
stern. But it basically says
01:18:16
uh you know this
01:18:19
you know this this this what this
01:18:20
depression is doing now. You know
01:18:22
[snorts] it's making you go I'm not
01:18:24
going I'm not going to go down to the
01:18:25
pub and meet those people. I'm not going
01:18:26
to go to that party. I'm not going to,
01:18:28
you know, when when I take my kids to
01:18:31
school, I'm not going to chat to the the
01:18:33
uh the other people at school. I'm just
01:18:35
going to sort of keep myself to myself
01:18:36
and run home. Um how is that benefiting
01:18:39
you?
01:18:40
>> That's what she asks that in in in this
01:18:43
kind of therapy. It's like um okay,
01:18:45
well, it means that you're
01:18:48
you're kind of curling up and shutting
01:18:49
out the world. Um so it's maybe it's
01:18:53
giving you an opportunity to heal or
01:18:54
something like that. Um, but she had he
01:18:57
had all of these all of these things
01:18:58
which you you normally think are are
01:19:00
just, you know, bad things that you're
01:19:02
doing, but she was sort of saying, why
01:19:03
don't you flip it on its head and say,
01:19:05
you know, how is it how is how is it
01:19:08
perversely
01:19:09
you're trying to help yourself? But I
01:19:12
found that kind of useful. But, um, I
01:19:15
think I think just talking cures, you
01:19:19
know. Um um uh I you know I think the
01:19:26
I've never done any kind of long-term
01:19:28
therapy or anything like that but I
01:19:29
think it would have been helpful around
01:19:30
then uh it probably it probably would
01:19:33
have been good. Um, but as sometimes
01:19:37
happens to me and and if you talk to
01:19:39
other writers and artists, you might
01:19:41
find echoes of this in what they say as
01:19:43
well is that is that um you don't kind
01:19:46
of want to there's an there's an aspect
01:19:48
of you that doesn't want to fix yourself
01:19:49
up
01:19:50
>> cuz you think your work might shrivel
01:19:52
up, you know, cuz you think from an
01:19:54
artist perspective.
01:19:55
>> Yeah. think um you think well cuz
01:19:57
basically ever ever since I've been
01:20:00
vaguely an adult you know from about 16
01:20:02
I've had these journals which I just
01:20:04
fill with ideas and a lot of them are
01:20:07
questions a lot of them are things I've
01:20:09
noticed during the day you know I you
01:20:11
know I was in this little studio and I
01:20:12
was talking to this guy Dom you know and
01:20:14
uh he was really weird and I might write
01:20:16
that down and um and then that might
01:20:18
turn into a song he knew way too much
01:20:20
about me
01:20:21
>> yeah he seemed [laughter] to he seemed
01:20:22
to know more more than he should about
01:20:24
me Um but um but basically that's your
01:20:29
kind of storehouse of stuff to stuff to
01:20:32
write about and that's only on the
01:20:33
surface and then there's all the sub
01:20:35
subconscious kind of storehouse of
01:20:37
things you see in passing but you don't
01:20:39
note
01:20:40
>> um that's all sitting there in your
01:20:42
subconscious and I think there's a sort
01:20:44
of superstition and I've probably felt
01:20:45
it. um a superstition that I if I fixed
01:20:48
myself up and became really normal um I
01:20:52
wouldn't have access to any of that good
01:20:54
stuff anymore and I wouldn't you know I
01:20:56
wouldn't write I wouldn't write the
01:20:57
songs that I want to write.
01:20:58
>> You couldn't wouldn't be a tortured
01:21:00
artist anymore.
01:21:01
>> Well, that's one way of looking at it. I
01:21:04
think it's more um
01:21:06
I think it's more that the the the the
01:21:10
bag of or the the the resource
01:21:14
of um things you've seen um might not be
01:21:21
as interesting or as deep. Janet Frame
01:21:23
used to say this thing that um if she if
01:21:27
she was at a writer's conference or or
01:21:29
you know traveling somewhere to another
01:21:32
country and she was and she had to
01:21:34
travel across town she used to say that
01:21:36
if she if she went by taxi
01:21:39
um she'd arrive with nothing sticking to
01:21:41
her and uh I love that because it it you
01:21:45
know suggests that if if you go for a
01:21:47
walk or you're in the bus or something
01:21:48
like that all these impressions stick to
01:21:51
you. um
01:21:53
>> like a like a you're a you know you're a
01:21:56
a wolf pile and there's all these
01:21:58
barnacles growing on you or something
01:21:59
like that. And I think that um it's our
01:22:02
job part of the job of being an artist
01:22:05
or writer is to is to go through life
01:22:07
with as much stuff sticking to you as
01:22:09
possible
01:22:10
>> so you can you can make stuff about it,
01:22:12
make songs about it.
01:22:14
>> How's your mental health now? Are you
01:22:16
happy?
01:22:17
>> Yeah, really happy.
01:22:18
>> Yeah. When do you think you've been
01:22:18
happiest?
01:22:20
Um, I am
01:22:24
I'm I'm best when I'm uh when I'm in the
01:22:28
middle of writing a song actually. Uh,
01:22:30
and it's like um it's like a like a like
01:22:36
a bathroom uh door, you know, with a
01:22:38
frosted glass. So, I can kind of see an
01:22:41
outline on the other side of it. And it
01:22:43
might be a character in the song or it
01:22:45
might be uh it might be a a a view down
01:22:48
a road or a tree or something like that
01:22:50
that's going to be in the song and I'm
01:22:52
at that stage where I've started it and
01:22:54
I know it's going to be I know I'm going
01:22:57
to like what it's going to be okay. It's
01:22:59
going to be a good song.
01:23:00
>> [snorts]
01:23:00
>> But that's really early on and there's a
01:23:02
lot of work to do, you know, but I'm and
01:23:06
I'm following that path towards it
01:23:09
>> that I get really happy when I'm I'm in
01:23:11
that sort of state. Um
01:23:15
uh and of course there's just the
01:23:17
physical happiness of of being alive,
01:23:20
you know, like as you get older and
01:23:22
people start getting sick around you,
01:23:25
you know. I'm I'm really lucky because
01:23:26
I'm I'm healthy and uh you know my
01:23:28
wife's healthy and we we have a really
01:23:31
physical life where we go kaying and
01:23:34
sailing and you know all that sort of
01:23:35
stuff.
01:23:36
>> You look great.
01:23:37
>> Um something you said there sorry for
01:23:39
spending so much time in the rear view
01:23:40
um focusing on your past but yeah you
01:23:42
talked then about characters and songs
01:23:44
and one of your iconic songs Dominion
01:23:46
Road Yeah.
01:23:47
>> is a character-driven song uh Jane and
01:23:49
some guy in there. What's um what's
01:23:51
this? It couldn't be a podcast with Don
01:23:54
McGlennon without talking about Dominion
01:23:55
Road. What who who are those people?
01:23:57
Who's Jane and the guy in Dominion Road?
01:24:00
>> Well, then they're not real people.
01:24:01
They're they're um I was living just off
01:24:04
Dominion Road at that stage. Um and I'd
01:24:08
been out just going up and down the
01:24:11
road. Um I think I'd been on an errand
01:24:14
and I coming back in the bus. And in
01:24:17
those days, you know, Dominion Road did
01:24:20
have did have uh halfway houses. Um some
01:24:24
many of them got closed because of like
01:24:27
policy changes. Um um but you did see
01:24:33
people on on the footpath on on the road
01:24:37
who who didn't behave like people
01:24:41
working, you know, walking purposefully
01:24:43
to walk or to work or walking to the
01:24:45
shops to get their groceries. They
01:24:47
they're people who kind of were plugged
01:24:49
into a different voltage. Mhm.
01:24:51
>> And I saw one of these guys and he was
01:24:56
um sort of shuffling along and he was
01:24:58
about my age or older actually cuz I I
01:25:01
sort of projected him uh cuz when when I
01:25:04
wrote the song uh I realized that it was
01:25:06
writing it was about somebody who you
01:25:09
know had had some sort of life and then
01:25:10
there had been a then there had been a
01:25:12
major watershed change like a big shift.
01:25:15
Um, and um, I I wanted to write write
01:25:19
his story and then I kind of put it put
01:25:22
it down in the in the my journal and
01:25:24
then I went home and and for months sort
01:25:27
of nothing came out because I didn't
01:25:29
want to pity him and I didn't want to I
01:25:32
didn't want to write a kind of a you
01:25:34
know streets of London type song you
01:25:37
know you know that song uh take you by
01:25:39
the hand the streets of London
01:25:40
>> we we we're it's all about empathy you
01:25:43
know it's all about the but something a
01:25:45
bit sort of sappy about it. I didn't I
01:25:47
didn't want to write anything like that.
01:25:48
And I I wanted I somehow felt that it
01:25:51
was going to be an energetic song. And I
01:25:53
had this image of people jumping up and
01:25:55
down in a pub spilling beer on each
01:25:57
other, singing the song. Not
01:25:58
deliberately spilling beer on, you know,
01:26:00
accidentally. Um and um
01:26:03
and and the the big shift was when I
01:26:07
when I realized that it was um
01:26:11
I I sort of saw that he that he had a
01:26:14
spark of hope in him
01:26:15
>> and that there was, you know, there was
01:26:16
things had gone wrong. He' had a he he'd
01:26:19
been through some bad things. Um uh
01:26:22
>> but it's getting better now.
01:26:23
>> But it's getting better now. And I think
01:26:24
I think that phrase, it's getting better
01:26:26
now. Um uh I think once I got that into
01:26:30
the song, it all kind of wrote itself.
01:26:33
>> Um and then um much much later
01:26:38
um it's the song took a long time to to
01:26:40
get to get right. I mean it it's not a
01:26:43
normal song with a normal structure. It
01:26:44
doesn't have a normal chorus and it's
01:26:46
got all sorts of repeats that aren't
01:26:47
always the same. And I think I drove the
01:26:49
band crazy changing it and then you know
01:26:52
I' I'd add another bit and Ross would
01:26:54
say, "Oh, another [ __ ] bit." Jesus
01:26:56
Christ. [laughter]
01:26:57
Um, you know, he's
01:27:00
poor Ross, he had to put up with a lot.
01:27:03
Um, [snorts]
01:27:04
um, but then much much later,
01:27:07
uh, not that, you know, only a few years
01:27:08
ago, I suppose, I thought, wow, that's
01:27:11
cuz some I I thought that's kind of
01:27:13
precient because I did I I did have a
01:27:16
marriage breakup. I did spend some time
01:27:18
sort of wandering around in the
01:27:20
wilderness after that, you know, um
01:27:23
staying on, you know, living in various
01:27:25
flats and
01:27:28
um wandering up and down the street
01:27:29
probably looking a bit lost. Um and
01:27:32
>> so in a way you were you were
01:27:33
potentially projecting.
01:27:34
>> Yeah. Yeah. And and [clears throat]
01:27:37
there's
01:27:39
there's a few songs like that. I don't
01:27:41
know that you that I don't know that
01:27:43
songs to foretell the future, but I
01:27:45
think that um [snorts] I think that one
01:27:48
of the one of the hidden things in songs
01:27:52
um is is that you're um you know when
01:27:56
you're young and you write a song about
01:27:58
an older person, even if it's not not
01:28:00
you, emphatically not you. Um on some
01:28:03
level it is because you're the you're
01:28:05
the closest person to you. Um, and in
01:28:08
the same way that, you know, they say
01:28:10
when you dream about, uh, a house, uh,
01:28:13
you're really dreaming about yourself.
01:28:14
So, if you're dreaming about a house
01:28:16
that's that is an old house that you
01:28:18
used to live in years ago, and you go
01:28:20
back to it and you and you go, "Oh, it's
01:28:21
it's a beautiful house. It's still
01:28:23
looking really good. How weird." You
01:28:24
know, um, that you're kind of dreaming
01:28:27
about
01:28:28
>> you're revisiting your young self and
01:28:30
finding something good there. Or if you
01:28:32
if you if you dream about an old house
01:28:34
you used to live in and and it's all
01:28:36
dilapidated,
01:28:37
>> then then maybe you're dreaming about a
01:28:40
part of your young self that you've
01:28:41
abandoned,
01:28:42
>> a part of your young self that you
01:28:44
should be kinder to.
01:28:45
>> Um it's fascinating,
01:28:46
>> you know, and I think that that I think
01:28:48
that
01:28:49
>> I think that comes into songwriting
01:28:52
somewhere along the line if you if
01:28:53
you're writing songs um that really
01:28:55
click with your subconscious, you know,
01:28:57
you're not just writing, you know, I'm
01:28:59
going to love your baby all night long.
01:29:00
I wish I could write that, by the way,
01:29:02
because I'd be I'd certainly have a
01:29:04
better car if I'd uh or or come on, come
01:29:07
on, Barbie, let's go party if I
01:29:09
[laughter]
01:29:10
What about that? If I'd written that
01:29:11
one, but you know, if if you're writing
01:29:13
stuff that that that you you really care
01:29:14
about, then it is possible maybe that
01:29:17
you're projecting into the future and
01:29:19
writing about your future self. I don't
01:29:20
know.
01:29:21
>> But you've written a successful um pop
01:29:23
songs that that you believe in.
01:29:25
>> Um
01:29:25
>> successful pop songs, you reckon? Yeah,
01:29:27
I suppose so. I mean, I I I see my my
01:29:30
songs Why would you why would you second
01:29:31
guess that?
01:29:32
>> Well, I see my songs as not being really
01:29:33
pop songs. They're kind of um kind of
01:29:36
unpopular pop songs. I think like um and
01:29:39
what you know the things that the the
01:29:41
thing that I really um care about, you
01:29:44
know, is when people come up to me after
01:29:46
a gig and say such and such a song
01:29:49
helped me through this time or such and
01:29:51
such a song really really locks me to
01:29:53
this place. you know, like like a song
01:29:55
like White Valiant, people will come up
01:29:57
and tell me exactly the location of it,
01:30:02
you know, and it's there. It's in their
01:30:03
heads the location of it. They're not
01:30:05
they don't come and ask me what the
01:30:07
location was that I was thinking about.
01:30:08
they come and tell me that that and um
01:30:12
that I kind of that matters to more to
01:30:15
me than than somebody saying, "Well,
01:30:19
this this this record, you know, sold
01:30:21
this this number of units or won these
01:30:24
awards or whatever." Um
01:30:26
uh because, you know, there's lots of
01:30:29
lenses you can look through. you can
01:30:30
look at your own career through a
01:30:32
business music business lens, you know,
01:30:34
and um I haven't sold that many records
01:30:37
really, you know, and when you you know,
01:30:39
when you if you look at, you know, the
01:30:42
number of plays on Spotify, there's lots
01:30:44
of lots of Kiwi acts with much bigger
01:30:46
numbers than me. And um
01:30:48
>> and I think you do your head in just
01:30:51
looking at looking at yourself through
01:30:52
that lens, but it's just one of the
01:30:54
lenses you can look through. And uh I've
01:30:56
I've always found the the best one to
01:30:58
look through if I can be asked looking
01:31:01
through any lens at my own life. Um the
01:31:04
best lens is the one about about trying
01:31:07
to make things that'll last. You know, a
01:31:09
song trying to make a song that
01:31:11
>> people will go um that that helped me or
01:31:14
I love that song or I got married to
01:31:16
that song or something like that.
01:31:17
>> You you must hear that a lot like Anchor
01:31:19
Mey. But by the way, if if you wouldn't
01:31:20
refer to anchor as a pop song, what
01:31:22
would you refer to it as?
01:31:23
>> Well, I don't know what it is. I really
01:31:25
don't know. It's not um it's a pop song
01:31:28
like when I was when I was a kid uh um I
01:31:32
listen to you know Ray Davies and the
01:31:35
Kinks or the Beatles or the Stones or
01:31:36
something like that. There's songs in
01:31:38
that in that set of songs which are not
01:31:43
standard pop songs at all. You know, a
01:31:45
song like like Waterloo Sunset or um
01:31:49
uh or or the the Stones Wild Horses. M
01:31:53
great song.
01:31:54
>> It's a fantastic song. But is that a pop
01:31:56
song? It's a It's more of a It's more of
01:31:58
a story song. It's like a It's like a
01:32:01
song of uh saying telling somebody that
01:32:05
you you're um
01:32:08
that you were you were together a while
01:32:09
ago. Um and these are my thoughts now
01:32:12
that we're not together anymore. But
01:32:13
it's really and it's got big landscape
01:32:16
in it. Um a song like Maggie May, you
01:32:18
know, um is that a pop song? That's a
01:32:21
story song where where a guy is going
01:32:25
>> uh telling talking to his lover who's
01:32:28
still asleep
01:32:29
>> and imagining this future where he might
01:32:31
not be with her.
01:32:33
>> Um uh again, it's it's it's expanding
01:32:36
the boundaries of what a normal pop song
01:32:38
is.
01:32:39
>> Um and I guess that's what I've always
01:32:41
[snorts]
01:32:43
>> wanted to do. I've always thought I
01:32:45
guess I've ended up some somebody once
01:32:47
said, "You're a short story writer. you
01:32:49
you you should be a short story writer,
01:32:51
but you're shoehorning these short
01:32:53
stories into this these three and a half
01:32:55
minute pop songs. You know, who who do
01:32:56
you think you are? And um and I I think
01:33:00
that's Yeah, I'm kind of guilty as
01:33:01
charged on that.
01:33:03
>> What What's the story behind Anchammy?
01:33:05
How how long does it take to write? Is
01:33:06
it one of those ones that comes to you
01:33:07
like a lightning bolt or are you are you
01:33:10
polishing it like a like a greenstone
01:33:12
for months or years [laughter] or
01:33:15
um
01:33:17
it uh there was this early sketch an ear
01:33:21
an early idea which was kind of like um
01:33:25
what would it be like to write a love
01:33:27
song? See, some some of my some of the
01:33:30
sketches that I put in my journal are
01:33:32
are are questions. Like they're not it's
01:33:35
not it's not a bit of lyric or a bit of
01:33:38
melody. It's a question. So I remember
01:33:40
there's a there was a question way way
01:33:42
way back maybe before the mbird started
01:33:45
maybe at the end of the Blams or in the
01:33:47
even in the front lawn days. What would
01:33:49
it be like to write a love song
01:33:51
that that was all about the sea, but uh
01:33:56
it didn't it didn't use
01:33:58
um images like safe harbors and plain
01:34:01
sailing and warm winds and like a song
01:34:04
about,
01:34:06
you know, a song about somebody about
01:34:08
being in love with somebody. Um, and it
01:34:10
was all about storms and fear and danger
01:34:13
and you know cuz at the sea more often
01:34:17
than not it's dangerous. You know
01:34:19
>> I I spend a lot of time on the sea and
01:34:22
[laughter]
01:34:23
um there's plain sailing and safe
01:34:25
harbors and all that sort of stuff but
01:34:26
that they're kind of the exception to
01:34:28
the rule I think. Um and also I was
01:34:30
thinking too about
01:34:33
how people must how you know both lots
01:34:36
of settlers
01:34:38
both both lots of um you know voyages
01:34:40
coming to this place Aliodora you know
01:34:42
sort of the brilliant Polynesian
01:34:46
navigators coming here for the first
01:34:47
time and and then later on the the um
01:34:50
settlers and their ships coming. Um it
01:34:53
must have felt like going to outer space
01:34:56
just the sheer immensity of it and
01:34:59
traveling for months and you know um you
01:35:03
know so I was thinking about that that
01:35:05
sense of vastness um [clears throat] and
01:35:08
um
01:35:10
and more and more the song wasn't wasn't
01:35:14
going to be just a it was never going to
01:35:16
be just a plain love song. was going to
01:35:18
be I've made this promise or I'm in the
01:35:20
process of making this promise. I'm
01:35:22
really scared of it. Uh, and I thought
01:35:25
initially I thought that's not going to
01:35:27
be a pop song. That didn't sound much
01:35:29
fun. Um,
01:35:31
and then I think I turned up at the
01:35:33
practice room with the verses.
01:35:36
Um, and I like the I like the way the
01:35:39
verses went. I like the bridge. There's
01:35:41
all this sort of mystery and chords
01:35:43
moving in a weird way. Um, and I think
01:35:48
uh I think I [snorts] can remember um
01:35:51
playing it to the band and then putting
01:35:53
a kind of placekeeper chorus in like
01:35:56
then then there's a chorus. It could be
01:35:57
something like anchor me in the middle
01:36:00
of a deep blue sea, you know, with
01:36:03
simple chords. Um, but then I then I
01:36:05
said I'm going to change that. That's
01:36:07
too simple cuz it's it's too different
01:36:10
from the rest of the song. probably that
01:36:11
chorus needs to be darker and weirder.
01:36:13
And I think I think Allan
01:36:15
[clears throat] said, "No, you should
01:36:17
keep it like that."
01:36:18
>> So they kind of they kind of pushed me
01:36:21
into keeping that. And then and then I
01:36:23
think I went home and just played the
01:36:25
thing and I and I realized that
01:36:28
after all the uncertainty and
01:36:29
instability of the verses and the bridge
01:36:32
and that that the release and simplicity
01:36:35
of that of that chorus is a good thing.
01:36:38
>> But it took me a while to get there.
01:36:42
you. What's it like a song like that
01:36:44
that you wrote, I don't know, 25 25
01:36:46
years ago and people sing it back to you
01:36:48
to this day?
01:36:51
Well, I'm lucky. I I don't Some some uh
01:36:56
singers and writers, you get the
01:36:59
impression that they're kind of dragging
01:37:00
around the hit song like an albatross,
01:37:02
like a dead dead bird around their neck
01:37:04
and I wish I hadn't written that thing,
01:37:07
you know, stop calling out for it. But
01:37:09
I'm I'm lucky in that I've never I've
01:37:13
never felt that, you know. I've always
01:37:15
uh
01:37:17
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I've got this
01:37:19
trick that I do. Paul Kelly's got this
01:37:22
thing. He's he's um he's become a friend
01:37:25
and and I love his work so much. But he
01:37:27
he he's got this thing called the
01:37:29
pretendies, which is when when you get
01:37:31
up on stage and you go and in your mind
01:37:33
you're going, I'm the wrong person.
01:37:35
>> You've all come to see somebody else.
01:37:37
Imposter syndrome. Yeah, I can't play
01:37:39
this guitar. I I don't know these songs,
01:37:41
you know. Um, and I've got a trick that
01:37:44
I do whenever I feel like that, which is
01:37:46
sometimes not not, you know, once once
01:37:50
every 10 gigs or something, I'll feel a
01:37:52
bit like that. Um,
01:37:53
>> and I've got a trick to do, which is I
01:37:55
go, okay, here's here's this song. Where
01:37:58
was I when I wrote it? Who was I when I
01:38:00
wrote it? I just go back to that moment
01:38:02
>> and I just sing from that place. and
01:38:05
[snorts] um and it always works and and
01:38:10
it always stops me from feeling
01:38:13
uh like disconnected with the the song.
01:38:16
And when people there's a thing that
01:38:18
sometimes happens in gigs uh over the
01:38:21
past maybe 10 years in New Zealand where
01:38:24
I start playing anchor me and I play it
01:38:26
really quietly and the audience sings
01:38:28
along really quietly. So, it's [snorts]
01:38:30
um it's not a rousing kind of, you know,
01:38:33
like
01:38:34
drunken anthem sort of thing. It's it's
01:38:36
sort of almost whispering it.
01:38:38
>> And um and I never feel that I never
01:38:43
feel that that's kind of a um
01:38:46
uh like a trick or or a you know, like a
01:38:51
you know, something something I do to
01:38:54
make the show better. It's um it's it's
01:38:58
always a new and and quite spine-
01:39:02
tingling sort of feeling.
01:39:03
>> Um
01:39:05
yeah, that's the answer. I suppose that
01:39:07
that I I've never felt um
01:39:11
I've never felt that that that um
01:39:13
whatever song it is, you know, if it's a
01:39:16
something that people know know well, um
01:39:20
uh I never feel that I'm just covering
01:39:22
it
01:39:23
>> uh in front of them. And I think I I
01:39:25
think I'm lucky like that.
01:39:27
>> Does it it still Yes. Radio Air Play. Um
01:39:30
streams a lot on Spotify. Does Does it
01:39:32
Does it pay all right still to this day?
01:39:34
>> Oh, don't ask me about money. I don't
01:39:36
know anything about money. Um [laughter]
01:39:37
>> you get an $8 check every year from
01:39:39
Spotify about that. Um
01:39:41
>> are you in a good way or a bad way?
01:39:43
You're just not interested in it. Don't
01:39:44
care about it.
01:39:45
>> I'm less interested over over time. Uh
01:39:48
the the uh uh uh the streaming streaming
01:39:52
thing has has um in some ways it's cool
01:39:56
because you you can have great
01:39:57
conversations with your mates and you
01:39:59
you can be in the van and and you you
01:40:02
hook up your phone to the to the the
01:40:04
stereo in the van and everybody can talk
01:40:06
about the the the favorite songs and
01:40:09
it's um I love that aspect of it. But
01:40:11
for musicians, it it's um it's pretty
01:40:15
much meant that except for a small
01:40:18
number of people um there's very little
01:40:21
you can't you you you you your your
01:40:24
record probably won't pay for itself,
01:40:26
you know. So um and that's um that's
01:40:29
just changed the whole scene. It's mean
01:40:31
it means that you've got to put much
01:40:33
more emphasis in touring
01:40:35
and um you know rather than kind of rail
01:40:38
against that or be angry about it I just
01:40:40
I just go well that's the world you know
01:40:42
I I actually love touring so um my my my
01:40:47
main thing is just to write write all
01:40:49
the songs that are in me and you know
01:40:52
looking forward to the next batch and
01:40:53
then looking forward to getting out and
01:40:55
closing the circle having that lovely
01:40:57
sense of completeness when when you when
01:41:00
You've written a song, you've thought
01:41:01
about it, and you actually play it to
01:41:03
people, and you see their faces light
01:41:04
up, and you go, "Ah, that's this is what
01:41:06
I'm here for. It's why it's why I do
01:41:08
what I do." [snorts]
01:41:10
>> My god. I Yeah, only like 1% less than
01:41:13
1% of the population will know what
01:41:14
you're talking about and get to
01:41:17
experience it.
01:41:18
>> Yeah, it's a it's it's a wonderful
01:41:20
thing. Um, it's a gift
01:41:22
>> and I I'm learning more as I get older.
01:41:26
I'm learning more that um you you you
01:41:30
travel around the country uh and in a
01:41:34
way
01:41:36
the the the the
01:41:38
smaller scale tours that I do are kind
01:41:40
of better for this and the bigger scale
01:41:42
tours cuz the um I've got into this
01:41:44
habit over the over the last few years
01:41:46
of putting out an album, doing a big
01:41:48
tour up the country with the band and
01:41:51
then waiting for a few months and then
01:41:53
doing and then doing everywhere else
01:41:55
like playing all small venues like
01:41:56
playing Gleni and Barry Town and you
01:41:59
know um
01:42:01
uh you know um Tyour places um and then
01:42:06
when you do that you kind of breathe in
01:42:08
the country uh I don't quite know how to
01:42:11
describe it apart from that you sort of
01:42:12
it's like respiration you kind of
01:42:14
breathe in the country and then stand on
01:42:16
stage and breathe it back out again
01:42:18
>> and um and at the same time you know in
01:42:21
those kind of venues there's more of a
01:42:23
sense of connection with the people You
01:42:25
can uh at the end, you know, you got a I
01:42:28
got a table where I sign whatever we've
01:42:31
made tea or [laughter] whatever. Um I
01:42:36
could talk to you about teetails for
01:42:37
quite a long time actually. Um, but
01:42:39
people do come up. Um, [snorts] and
01:42:41
unlike like the power station where
01:42:43
there's thousand people, you've got 200
01:42:45
people and they're probably all going to
01:42:47
come up or big chunk of them are going
01:42:48
to come up and tell a story, tell their
01:42:51
own story about where they were when
01:42:53
they heard such and such a song. And
01:42:55
then that just that goes into the memory
01:42:57
banks and and enriches that song next
01:42:59
time I sing it, you know.
01:43:02
>> Yeah. I can't imagine how gratifying
01:43:03
that is.
01:43:05
>> Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yeah, it's
01:43:06
pretty amazing and it's a great um if
01:43:08
you're tired on the road. I find if I'm
01:43:10
tired on the road um I come out of a
01:43:13
session like that and I'm suddenly not
01:43:14
tired anymore.
01:43:15
>> Invigorated.
01:43:16
>> Yeah.
01:43:18
>> Um I've got a card here called
01:43:19
miscellaneous. There's some
01:43:20
miscellaneous miscellaneous.
01:43:22
>> This is for particularly for me or for
01:43:25
or for other guests.
01:43:26
>> Just just just bits and bobs really. Um
01:43:29
yeah, I I'd say maybe the most
01:43:31
successful song you've ever written
01:43:32
would be Bathe in the River. Would that
01:43:34
be would that be fair to say? ultimate
01:43:36
success. Yeah, I maybe. Yeah, I mean
01:43:38
>> 37 weeks in the top 40. I had to Fraser
01:43:41
on the podcast at the beginning of the
01:43:43
year. What a lovely man. Gentleman,
01:43:45
>> great guy.
01:43:46
>> So, according to him, he he met with
01:43:48
you. He played you a song by I can't
01:43:50
remember what the song's called, but a
01:43:51
song by Whitney and Mariah.
01:43:52
>> Yeah, it was it was it was he said, "I
01:43:55
want something that's a bit like this."
01:43:56
Something like a song was called
01:43:58
Impossible or
01:44:01
some Yeah, it's it's a big it's a really
01:44:04
big song. really like big in the sense
01:44:06
of of huge orchestral arrangement.
01:44:09
>> So then you go away, you listen to that
01:44:11
Whitney and Mariah song, then then you
01:44:14
write Bathe in the River. Like who are
01:44:16
you writing it for? Are you are you
01:44:17
imagine are you imagining Holly Smith
01:44:19
when you write it? Who are you
01:44:21
>> I didn't know about Holly Smith when I
01:44:23
wrote it? Um uh uh the um the thing
01:44:27
about that song is is that they they
01:44:30
wanted uh the they hadn't they hadn't
01:44:32
started the shoot yet, but they wanted
01:44:34
in the final scene of the of the film,
01:44:37
they wanted people to play that song in
01:44:39
their backyard barbecue and sing along.
01:44:42
>> So the song had to be written before the
01:44:43
shoot.
01:44:45
>> Um
01:44:47
and [clears throat] so I I I was in a
01:44:49
big hurry. I had to I only had like a
01:44:51
week or something to write it. Um and um
01:44:57
uh I uh I had a sketch. I had a really
01:45:00
old sketch. Uh again, it was like a
01:45:03
question. It was like is like could you
01:45:04
write could could you write a gospel
01:45:06
song which had all of that lovely energy
01:45:09
and power of a song like Oh Happy Day or
01:45:12
um one of the one of the great big
01:45:14
gospel songs, you know. um
01:45:16
[clears throat] um the kind of kind of
01:45:19
song that makes you want to stand and
01:45:21
speak in tongues and clap your hands and
01:45:23
fall on the ground. Um but could
01:45:25
[snorts] you write it so that so that it
01:45:26
wasn't uh about Jesus or God, it was
01:45:30
about it was about the world. It was
01:45:33
like instead of saying I want to, you
01:45:35
know, I want to be wrapped in the arms
01:45:36
of Jesus, it was sort of like I want to
01:45:38
be wrapped in the arms of the world of
01:45:40
humans and I want to enter the world of
01:45:42
humans and and swim in it like a river.
01:45:46
>> Um [clears throat]
01:45:48
uh and I kind of had I'd had that little
01:45:50
sketch, no no lyrics or anything. Um,
01:45:54
and [snorts] then there was a Walt
01:45:55
Whitman poem about um wanting to wanting
01:45:58
to swim in the sea of humanity like like
01:46:00
a fish, you know, just I sort of wrote
01:46:02
that down as well. Maybe it's a bit like
01:46:04
that as well. So I had this I had this
01:46:07
song over here somewhere which was um
01:46:09
one day going to finish and to just sort
01:46:11
of gave me the sort of gave me the
01:46:13
permission to do it and I'd read the
01:46:15
script for the film and I sort of the
01:46:17
film's
01:46:19
this sort of beautifully drawn uh story
01:46:22
about a family and about all the energy
01:46:24
that all the force fields uh and lines
01:46:27
of force that that connect family
01:46:29
members. um and great sort of color and
01:46:32
life in it all held together by this
01:46:35
fierce old uh granny. Um and um uh in a
01:46:42
way that kind of um script and all of
01:46:47
those characters um gave me the kick I
01:46:51
needed apart from you know the fact that
01:46:53
I had to finish it in a week. Um,
01:46:56
uh, it meant that I could really I could
01:46:58
really get that song right and and, uh,
01:47:00
and I could I could finish that sketch.
01:47:04
Um, and then I played it to tour. Um,
01:47:09
uh, we made a kind of, uh, the we made a
01:47:14
recording of it. Um,
01:47:16
uh, with a few different players. Shan
01:47:19
Donnelly played bass. Um Will Scott who
01:47:22
was playing drums for Anika Moore at
01:47:24
that stage played drums. Um
01:47:26
>> [snorts]
01:47:26
>> uh um [clears throat]
01:47:28
a wonderful guy called Steven Small uh
01:47:30
came and played piano on it. Um and I
01:47:33
got the the uh jubilation choir uh that
01:47:37
uh came and sang it. Um um Bella Cololo
01:47:42
sang it. She sang the lead the lead
01:47:44
part. Um, and that was the version that
01:47:46
we sort of kept through the making of
01:47:48
the film. And it wasn't until about
01:47:51
[clears throat] maybe 8 months later, 7
01:47:52
months later, when the film had all been
01:47:54
shot, we'd had that version cut into the
01:47:57
film. The whole idea about people
01:47:59
singing it in the backyard had all that
01:48:02
had all gone by the wayside. So, I I
01:48:04
didn't need to hurry. I could have
01:48:06
written it eight months later. I'm glad
01:48:07
I did have to hurry, though. Um, and
01:48:09
then um to to just said, "Look, I've
01:48:11
heard this fantastic singer. maybe she
01:48:13
should sing it, you know. And and I was
01:48:15
like, well, it better be good cuz Bella
01:48:18
does a wonderful job on it. Um, and then
01:48:21
he I heard Holly and uh she was just
01:48:25
fantastic. And she came up, she flew up
01:48:28
to Oakland. We had a setup in the studio
01:48:32
and uh she wouldn't talk to me and I
01:48:35
thought, "This is this woman's really
01:48:36
weird. Have I offended her or something
01:48:38
like that? Or or was she just Wellington
01:48:40
cool and and uh and I'm or I'm not only
01:48:44
old but I'm Oakuckland uncool, you know,
01:48:47
>> when I had pale male stale.
01:48:48
>> Yeah, pale male and stale. I felt I felt
01:48:50
sort of monumentally pale and male and
01:48:52
stale. Um and um and uh and then um we
01:48:58
we just I just said, "Well, okay. Do you
01:48:59
want to sing this? You know, we we'll do
01:49:00
a run through." We pressed go and she
01:49:03
went, "Hey, hey, hey." And those are the
01:49:08
first sounds she made. And I found out
01:49:10
later that she was saving herself. She
01:49:12
was so shy and so nervous that she
01:49:16
didn't want to she didn't want to make
01:49:18
any sounds that weren't going into that
01:49:20
record.
01:49:21
>> Oh wow.
01:49:22
>> Yeah.
01:49:23
>> Is it difficult for a um a songwriter to
01:49:25
give give, you know, you do you do a
01:49:27
piece of work and then you have to hand
01:49:28
it over to someone else. Is that
01:49:29
difficult? Um, I imagine it is. I I
01:49:33
haven't done much of it. Um,
01:49:35
>> but you did it in this case.
01:49:36
>> I did in that case, but but it was a
01:49:37
film and and a film, you know, there's a
01:49:40
few rules about, you know, you writing
01:49:42
the score for a film. You you you're not
01:49:46
your own boss. You know, there's other
01:49:48
there's there's a director. Um, the
01:49:50
director has to sort of, you know, say,
01:49:52
"I want a bit bit of music here." And
01:49:54
then you you come up with a sketch and
01:49:56
they say, "Yeah, I like that." Or,
01:49:57
"Yeah, I don't like that." So, it's much
01:49:58
more of an employee type situation,
01:50:00
>> a gun for hire sort of.
01:50:02
>> Yeah. Um, and um, [snorts] I also knew
01:50:05
that
01:50:07
this wasn't my song to sing. It was it
01:50:09
was uh, you know, it it had to be a a
01:50:12
real somebody who could really get the
01:50:14
notes and really, you know, like lead a
01:50:16
gospel group. And I I don't have that
01:50:18
sort of voice. Um, although I love
01:50:20
singing that song now. and and it's had
01:50:22
another it's had another life with with
01:50:24
its translation into you know um
01:50:27
>> yeah to even mentioned when he was on
01:50:29
the podcast that you um yeah when you
01:50:30
got married you were in Canada but you
01:50:32
you did like a video recording of it
01:50:34
which was played at the ceremony
01:50:36
>> that's cool
01:50:36
>> yeah yeah yeah that was that was amazing
01:50:39
and to uh to be able to do it
01:50:42
bilingually now if Holly and I sing it
01:50:44
together we'll quite often do the first
01:50:46
verse in today and the second verse in
01:50:48
in English and um you know one of the
01:50:51
things about that song is um you know um
01:50:55
uh I I found out that it was it was uh
01:50:59
it had been picked up by various
01:51:00
Kapahaka groups and the the um uh
01:51:04
sometimes a group would somebody would
01:51:06
ring me up and say we want to use it um
01:51:08
we'll change all the words we'll make it
01:51:10
about something else but we're going to
01:51:11
use the the song and sometimes I
01:51:14
wouldn't even find out uh because um the
01:51:18
tradition in that in that uh sort of
01:51:21
space is to pick up a song that's on the
01:51:24
radio and just, you know, make your own
01:51:27
version of it. And at once one point I
01:51:29
was in New York, uh, and I was really
01:51:33
down and alone and, you know, wandering
01:51:35
around, uh, I'd just done a gig
01:51:37
somewhere and I was in Harlem and I I
01:51:40
saw this poster of a Kappa hucker group
01:51:43
on the wall. I thought, "What?" you
01:51:45
know, I thought I'd gone crazy and I
01:51:48
pushed open a door and it was this
01:51:49
little room which was kind of like a
01:51:52
like a like a Kapahaka group but based
01:51:54
in in New York and and this woman sort
01:51:58
of sat me down. I've met her since
01:52:01
actually and she she she said, "I knew
01:52:04
you I knew who you were. [laughter] I
01:52:06
knew you were in trouble." So, she sat
01:52:07
me down. She said, "Oh, you need to see
01:52:09
something." and she just put a video on
01:52:11
and it was a group that I'd never seen
01:52:12
before, a big Capahaka group
01:52:15
>> doing a version of Bathe in the River uh
01:52:17
in a in a and I was so far from home,
01:52:20
you know, I just sort of burst into
01:52:21
tears and I was She had to scrape me up
01:52:24
off the floor. Incredible.
01:52:25
>> Yeah.
01:52:26
>> Are you Yeah. Are you quite an emotional
01:52:28
man? Do you do you cry much?
01:52:30
>> Yeah, I probably do actually. Yeah.
01:52:32
>> As you get older, you find you're crying
01:52:33
more and more, I suppose.
01:52:35
>> Maybe I am. Yeah, maybe I am. Yeah, I I
01:52:38
um Oh, I guess the uh
01:52:42
I'm not very good in movies and planes,
01:52:44
[snorts] I must admit. Or or or or I'm
01:52:47
very good, depending on your your your
01:52:49
viewpoint, but I can sit there, you
01:52:50
know, that thing in airplanes where you
01:52:52
where you just you're daydreaming and
01:52:54
you're not and you you can't be bothered
01:52:55
watching your own movie, so you just
01:52:57
watch everybody else's. Well, I do that
01:52:59
and I find I get really emotionally
01:53:01
involved in them and I can't hear what's
01:53:03
going on. can't hear the dialogue, but I
01:53:05
can kind of see. And I've also seen the
01:53:06
same movie four times in the plane, so
01:53:08
I'll find myself balling my eyes out
01:53:10
over some uh rom romantic comedy.
01:53:12
>> I'm exactly the same. Any movie with a
01:53:14
dog and at altitude, uh I know it's
01:53:17
going to probably bring me to tears.
01:53:18
>> Yeah. What is it about the altitude?
01:53:20
Maybe it maybe it makes your emotions
01:53:21
closer to the surface. And I I watched a
01:53:24
documentary about the man who about the
01:53:27
the round um around the world yacht race
01:53:32
and I thought, well, this is safe. if
01:53:33
I'm not, you know, this is this is
01:53:35
yaching. I can watch, you know, I can
01:53:36
watch anything about yaching any day of
01:53:38
the week. Um, but uh it was so sad
01:53:41
because this this guy, you know, it's
01:53:43
about the guy who um who falsified his
01:53:47
coordinates um in in one of the round
01:53:50
the world yacht races. He his boat was
01:53:52
going to fall apart, so he just pulled
01:53:54
into shore and then kept radioing in
01:53:56
that he was on the on the right path.
01:53:58
And then he joined the joined the race
01:54:00
at the end. uh and uh it just made me so
01:54:04
sad but a beautiful story.
01:54:07
>> Has your definition of success changed
01:54:09
over the years?
01:54:10
>> Yeah. Yeah. Um
01:54:11
>> what is it now?
01:54:12
>> Yeah. Um,
01:54:15
I I think probably I've always had the
01:54:18
same internal definition of of success,
01:54:21
which is that um if you write something
01:54:24
that you really care about, if um it
01:54:29
will it'll last and you've got no
01:54:32
jurisdiction over h how how it will last
01:54:35
or where it will go or what it'll be
01:54:36
used for. Um
01:54:39
and at some point in in the you know you
01:54:45
know various different groups I've been
01:54:47
in you know where there's been this
01:54:49
tipping point where this this there's a
01:54:51
sense of wow there's people coming along
01:54:52
to this this is doing really well. um
01:54:54
other factors come into that and you and
01:54:57
you think, wow, you know, if we if we
01:54:59
just push this a bit bit harder,
01:55:01
[clears throat] it could it could go
01:55:02
great. But there's never been that's
01:55:05
never been a uh a deciding factor as to,
01:55:09
you know, why why I should write this or
01:55:11
write that or why I should do that gig
01:55:13
or not do that gig. In the mutton birds,
01:55:15
things changed because I had mouths to
01:55:17
feed and also [snorts] I had a strong
01:55:20
sense that I'd I'd gathered these people
01:55:22
together and
01:55:24
they um they needed their uh their their
01:55:30
um their commitment and the fact that
01:55:32
they put aside other things. This is the
01:55:34
people in the band [gasps]
01:55:36
and and you know and management and
01:55:38
other people that sort of gather around
01:55:39
you when you're when you're a band, you
01:55:41
know. Um, all these people had put, you
01:55:43
know, they could do other stuff. They
01:55:45
all really super skilled, brilliant
01:55:46
people that could go off and do other
01:55:48
stuff. And here they were, here they
01:55:50
were, you know, trap singing after me
01:55:52
and my little songs, you know. Um,
01:55:54
>> so during that period, I think I got
01:55:56
bent out of shape
01:55:58
>> a little bit. Um
01:56:00
uh and uh you know if you if you yeah if
01:56:04
you if you use a business l music music
01:56:06
business lens and you look at that
01:56:08
period um you could tell a story that
01:56:11
was completely um a a very standard you
01:56:14
know rock
01:56:16
story music story about nearly making it
01:56:19
you know about about all the good things
01:56:21
that happened the cool people you met
01:56:23
you know about you know you know being
01:56:25
on being following you know following
01:56:27
Van Morrison onto the stage and meeting
01:56:29
Elvis Costello backstage and all that
01:56:31
sort of stuff. Um uh uh and then and
01:56:35
then the disappointments and all that
01:56:36
sort of stuff. You could create a story
01:56:37
like that, but I've never I've never fel
01:56:41
felt the need to do that because um
01:56:45
>> uh you know, success is a very um
01:56:49
slippery notion.
01:56:51
um uh in when you're in a band and
01:56:54
there's a record company pushing you and
01:56:56
there's management um pushing you,
01:56:59
there's no there's no point at which
01:57:02
somebody's going to say, "You've done
01:57:04
great. Just relax."
01:57:07
>> There's always more.
01:57:08
>> There's always going to say
01:57:09
>> there's always more blood in the stone.
01:57:10
>> Yeah. There's always more. you know, you
01:57:11
can uh you could, you know, you've just
01:57:13
finished this gig, but you could go and
01:57:15
do a tour with this guy who's come and
01:57:19
he's going to tour Scandinavia and
01:57:20
that'll be good, you know. Um
01:57:22
>> um and uh if you don't do that, there's
01:57:26
15 other bands that will,
01:57:29
>> you know. Yeah. you know, and that's and
01:57:31
that's the sort of the flip side of it
01:57:33
is that sense of that sense that you're
01:57:35
being you're surrounded by all these
01:57:37
people that are hungrier than you. And
01:57:39
uh and and there were times in in rock
01:57:42
and roll in the Mutton Birds, you know,
01:57:44
when things were going dark, you know, I
01:57:46
there were times when I sort of thought,
01:57:48
man, if there's all these people around
01:57:50
me that are hungrier than me, then they
01:57:51
should they should have it. They should
01:57:53
[laughter] they should get something to
01:57:54
eat. Yeah,
01:57:55
>> I should just disappear and, you know,
01:57:57
go go off and do something else.
01:57:59
>> So, you've won two Silver Scrolls. Um,
01:58:01
you're in the New Zealand Music Hall of
01:58:03
Fame. So, your your your space in New
01:58:05
Zealand music history is well and truly
01:58:07
cemented. Is Yeah. What does the legacy
01:58:09
mean to you? Is it something you think
01:58:10
about or care about?
01:58:12
>> No. Um, no. Cuz I mean the the main
01:58:16
thing is to look after those around you,
01:58:18
you know, try to be a good good partner,
01:58:22
good friend, good dad. That's more
01:58:25
important than anything like that. Um
01:58:27
and um uh and uh the other thing is that
01:58:33
you you've got no control over what
01:58:36
sticks around.
01:58:37
>> Like I was thinking the other day, you
01:58:39
know, I write writing [clears throat]
01:58:40
this uh song um the uh Harry Sinclair's
01:58:47
new uh kids TV thing. It's called Traala
01:58:50
and it's about um it's about a dad frog
01:58:52
and and her and his and his um child
01:58:55
frog. And so I I wrote this laabi for
01:58:59
the somebody to sing to the it's
01:59:02
actually the the ex ex-wife sings sings
01:59:06
it to the um to the child frog and um
01:59:11
and I sort of I wrote it and I thought
01:59:14
you know I started off with a sketch by
01:59:15
Harry and um I thought you you got no
01:59:19
control like I think that when I sit
01:59:21
down to write something sort of serious
01:59:24
you know about about me, my life, my
01:59:27
friends. Um, it's going to be on one of
01:59:29
my albums. Um, that's the center of my
01:59:32
work.
01:59:33
>> Uh, but but somebody coming along way
01:59:35
after me might go, you know, the best
01:59:36
thing that guy ever did was that la
01:59:39
about the frogs, you know. Um, and you
01:59:42
you you got no you got no um control
01:59:45
over that. And neither should you, you
01:59:47
know, cuz you you you
01:59:50
kick things kick the songs out of the
01:59:52
nest and they fly to all sorts of
01:59:53
interesting places.
01:59:55
>> Yeah. I suppose once once they're out
01:59:56
there, they're out of your hands, out of
01:59:58
your control.
01:59:58
>> They are. They are. And and um you uh
02:00:02
you and it's really cool to see when
02:00:07
people want to use them. I I was in an
02:00:09
airplane heading I I I'm half the time
02:00:12
here now and half the time in Canada um
02:00:14
because my wife lives in Canada and um
02:00:17
uh and I was on [snorts] the plane and
02:00:18
the the two main producers of um the uh
02:00:24
the Broken Wood Mysteries uh came up to
02:00:26
me and said, "Oh, we're using your songs
02:00:28
in the in the show." and and um and sure
02:00:32
enough, you know, I'm I'm now seeing,
02:00:34
you know, I get a little note from the
02:00:36
publisher saying that such and such a
02:00:37
song has been used in the show. And
02:00:38
they're not using hits. They're using
02:00:41
>> uh you know, kind of story songs from
02:00:44
from the from the solo albums. There's
02:00:46
uh
02:00:47
>> songs which um
02:00:50
uh I'm really glad are having another
02:00:53
life.
02:00:53
>> Mhm.
02:00:54
>> And and that sort of stuff's happening
02:00:56
more and more. That's so gratifying.
02:00:59
>> If your adult children, Louisie and I
02:01:01
were in in the next room talking about
02:01:03
you behind your back, what what three
02:01:05
words would you like them to use to
02:01:06
describe you? [sighs]
02:01:08
>> Oh god. [laughter]
02:01:12
Three different adjectives.
02:01:13
>> Yeah.
02:01:13
>> Oh, dear God. I don't know. [laughter]
02:01:16
>> I don't know.
02:01:18
Uh [gasps]
02:01:23
well, I know that I know that they um
02:01:26
[snorts]
02:01:27
I know that they suffered for many years
02:01:31
because I would do a lot of cooking in
02:01:33
the house and I know that they suffered
02:01:35
from there was a particular kind of uh
02:01:38
like like cheap veggie mints we used to
02:01:40
buy from from waitros in the in England
02:01:44
and um it was you could Um, it was uh
02:01:49
you could you could turn it into
02:01:50
anything. It could be like a like a
02:01:52
curry or you could make like a if you
02:01:54
add beans to it, it could be like a some
02:01:56
sort of gumbo or something like that.
02:01:59
And I used it way too much. And nothing
02:02:02
I did to it disguised the fact that it
02:02:05
was more like a building material than
02:02:07
like an actual food stuff.
02:02:09
And for some reason, I thought this was
02:02:11
normal. I thought, you know, you're a
02:02:12
parent, you make really cheap meals. we
02:02:15
had very little money and when we're
02:02:17
over there and and you know I just
02:02:20
consistent things would come out and
02:02:22
I've heard Louis and Mo um complain
02:02:24
viciferously about that. So if they were
02:02:27
sitting there and they wanted to
02:02:29
describe me now I'd like I'd like them
02:02:31
to say a better cook.
02:02:32
>> Okay.
02:02:33
>> Yeah. Cuz I think I have become somewhat
02:02:35
of a better cook now. And I can I can
02:02:38
kind of say come around or I can I can
02:02:40
say look I'll I'll come around. I'll
02:02:42
cook some food at your place. and and
02:02:43
and they don't um make excuses, right?
02:02:46
>> Their eyes light up just a little bit.
02:02:48
So,
02:02:48
>> Oh, that's cool.
02:02:49
>> Are you proud of yourself?
02:02:51
>> Yeah, I am.
02:02:52
>> Yeah, I am. Yeah, I am. I um I think I
02:02:56
think I'm lucky to to lucky to do what I
02:02:58
love. Um, you know, this in this
02:03:02
country, uh a lot of people who do what
02:03:04
I do have to do other stuff to make a
02:03:07
living and to feed the kids. Um, and the
02:03:09
the day job that I've always done or the
02:03:12
or the, you know, the the the other the
02:03:16
side hustle or whatever you want to call
02:03:17
it has always been about music. So, I've
02:03:19
done all these feature films and I've
02:03:21
written scores for this or that, but
02:03:22
it's always been music. I've I've rarely
02:03:26
done anything else. Never, you know, had
02:03:28
to go,
02:03:29
>> you know, do plumbing or whatever. Um,
02:03:33
but, um, and I think I think I'm really
02:03:35
fortunate in that. And your your
02:03:37
brother, who we talked about earlier, um
02:03:39
he's the subject of the front lawn song,
02:03:41
Andy. Um yeah, you you were only 15 when
02:03:44
he passed away. Um what do you think
02:03:46
he'd make of everything that that's
02:03:47
happened to his baby brother?
02:03:49
>> I think about that a lot. Um and I think
02:03:52
we would have had trouble cuz there's
02:03:54
that there's that Kiwi thing about
02:03:57
getting getting too, you know, getting
02:03:59
too big for yourself. And um and I think
02:04:02
um as a guy who was very as a young man,
02:04:06
you know, he was very aware of, you
02:04:11
know, not skiting, not not being too big
02:04:13
for your boots. Uh I think he would have
02:04:16
he would have gone through periods of
02:04:17
being really annoyed by my profile.
02:04:21
Um I think my dad he he Sandy was quite
02:04:25
like my dad in some ways. I think I
02:04:27
think my dad there was a time when when
02:04:29
uh you know he I'd bring him out to
02:04:31
front lawn shows and he would and he he
02:04:35
would be in a bad mood. We'd have dinner
02:04:36
afterwards and I'd pay for dinner
02:04:38
because we had a big audience, you know,
02:04:40
and I'd be like, you know, I'm treating
02:04:41
you mom and dad and mom would be really
02:04:43
really fine. She'd, you know, she'd just
02:04:44
love me to bits and and would enjoy the
02:04:46
show and think it was kind of uh you
02:04:48
know, a little bit a little bit wacky
02:04:50
but but interesting. Um but he I think
02:04:53
his feeling was was um this is not
02:04:56
substantial enough you know this is you
02:04:58
know if you know if if my son had been
02:05:02
an engineer or something like that he
02:05:04
would have actually done stuff that made
02:05:05
more impact you know and and improved
02:05:08
people's lives. So he I think he would
02:05:10
just he was just kind of annoyed at the
02:05:13
um at the sort of flimsiness of it and
02:05:16
the fact that and the fact that it was
02:05:18
successful
02:05:18
>> would have kind of bugged him [laughter]
02:05:20
a bit and um and I think my brother
02:05:22
would have might have gone through
02:05:23
things like that and we would have had
02:05:25
downtimes where we were wouldn't weren't
02:05:27
talking to each other and might have had
02:05:28
ruckuses but I think um I think there's
02:05:32
that great that what we were talking
02:05:35
about before that great Kiwi thing of of
02:05:38
of of you know guys doing stuff together
02:05:41
you know taking stuff to the tip
02:05:42
>> you know you know there's
02:05:44
[clears throat]
02:05:44
I need some work on on a retaining wall
02:05:47
you know can you come and help me and
02:05:48
that sort of um we would have done that
02:05:51
and uh and uh you know I uh I think we
02:05:55
would have been we would have been good
02:05:56
by now we would have been great
02:05:59
>> this has been a great podcast
02:06:01
>> it's been a lot of fun
02:06:02
>> I've really enjoyed this
02:06:03
>> yeah likewise it's so nice to connect
02:06:05
mate huge fan massive fan Cool. D
02:06:07
Mlesian, thank you so much. Thank you.
