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