Barnaby Weir is appearing in an episode of Waiata / Anthems.
Barnaby Weir is a singer-songwriter best known for his work with The Black Seeds and Fly My Pretties. Weir is appearing in an episode of Waiata/Anthems, the series where successful Kiwi musicians record a waiata in te reo Māori, and reveal their reo journeys to date. Waiata/Anthems launches September 6 on TVNZ+.
Doing Waiata/Anthems with my mother has been a really emotional journey for both of us. It's mainly Mum's story, because in the 1950s when she was a baby, my mum was adopted into a Pākehā family, which meant she grew up disenfranchised from her Māori roots. We always knew mum was Māori, and we felt a huge sense of pride in that, but we had no information about our culture. We didn't know our marae or our iwi or where we whakapapa to, so it's been a real honour to do this with mum. Then it became even more meaningful when we chose the song to translate - Family Trees - because we discovered so much through the language.
I grew up in a modern Wellington family with creative loving parents. Dad [Dick Weir] was a broadcaster and mum worked for The Listener before moving to Saatchi & Saatchi. Initially, it was just me and my older brother until, during a short stint in Dunedin when Dad did the breakfast show on 2ZB, we adopted my sister. The adoption process was quite complex but, after having us, Mum wasn't able to have another child. That was 40 years ago.
We moved back to Wellington when I was 6 and I went to Kelburn Normal School. While there, I was given amazing opportunities to discover my musicality, partly thanks to one of my teachers, Jed Bartlett. I didn't think I was good at music but Jed cast me in the school musical when I was 10. It was called Rock 'n' Roll Time Machine and had classic songs like Ruby Ruby and Blue Suede Shoes. I actually found performing quite scary, but that experience gave me confidence.
I've never been embarrassed of my parents. More than anything I'm grateful to them for always being supportive. I also loved how dad made radio and television for children. As well as being inspiring, we knew to be realistic about that line of work. Another cool thing about dad's work, it gave us access to the studios at Radio New Zealand and sometimes my teenage bands recorded there on these great vintage mics. We'd have half an hour with a sound engineer to do two takes of each song, then we'd have a demo to take away. It was such a gift to utilise resources that would've been difficult to come by any other way.
I was actually quite naughty in my teens. My friends and I all had older brothers, and we'd sneak out to go to dance parties. We were quite experimental and we tried things we probably shouldn't have been trying. But we also supported each other and learned a lot. I'm trying to be subtle here, but there were some potentially dangerous behaviours. I'm 44 this year, and I wouldn't think it was cool for young people to do those things now, but that was the reality when I was a teen.
Music was a huge part of our exploration, but I didn't study music through college. I was more into drama and theatre, and making little films and when I left school I studied theatre and directing, That gave me an insight into the light and shade of storytelling and that's how I learned to create by working with original ideas.
It wasn't till I was in my 20s that my passion for music grew. I started doing death till dawn shifts on Radio Active with my mate Will Harris and I also worked for the station making their ads, writing and recording them. I loved student radio and that's where I met some of the early Black Seeds members and the band started to evolve.
There's not a lot of glory on the road. There is satisfaction in being somewhere that you've busted your balls to get to, and playing to people who love what you're doing but touring can be hard. The Black Seeds schedules in the US were ridiculous, even on paper. If we lost 10 minutes here and another 10 there, all of a sudden we'd be seven hours behind the next day. Out of sleep, never catching up, doing the same show over and over and over. It's really tough when you're a self-driven and self-managed band with big ideas and small budgets. We punished ourselves with those schedules but we wised up as we progressed. We had to if we wanted to survive.
Rock 'n' roll can be about getting on the piss, and that's fun for a short time, but it's a fine balance. I've never been one to say don't get into it or party hard, but if I'm mentoring someone, I have to take responsibility and be honest about the mistakes I've made. I've had a couple of wake-up calls, health-wise, when I've not been taking care of myself, as I have been a big risk taker in the past. Of course, I've used alcohol and drugs, but I'm less and less like that now. Today it's all about the music because when you want every show to be amazing, you have to be well both physically and mentally. I know my limits now, and what I need to do to stay well.
I've had a few experiences with burnout. There have been some dark moments where I've needed to get back to reality after being in perpetual motion. Sometimes we'd come off a mega-tour after a few years on the road, and the record label would want an album when what we needed was a break, but we've kept on the right side of that line because you're not doing yourself any favours if you don't.
As a band, we've had so many incredible moments, like playing to more people in Berlin than we would in New Zealand. Having our song One By One on Breaking Bad was also a big help in terms of the American market, but no one thing has been a game changer. Instead, it's been a slow build and a team effort. We've just kept working and proving ourselves and because we've survived a lot, there's a lot to be grateful for. I'm really happy with where things are at today.
As an artist, I wear my heart on my sleeve. Good music requires a willingness to share intimate feelings or shed a tear, or just be happy, and a musician needs to be okay with that. I still feel nervous about being so revealing, but if you share honestly, no one can judge you.
Mum has been very brave to share her story for Waiata/Anthems and I'm so proud of how she's been so forthcoming about being adopted. This show is a celebration of language and even though making it was stressful at times, it's worked out strangely perfectly. It is amazing how language has its own life.
• Waiata / Anthems runs from September 5-11, to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of the Māori Language Petition and the series will also feature Tim Finn, Paige and the band Kora.
• Family Tree is released as a Fly My Pretties single on Friday, September 2.
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