Bernie Griffen: Finding salvation in song

Bernie Griffen is inspired by poetry and pulp fiction.

Graham Reid speaks to Bernie Griffen about his late-in-life career.

The title of the new album by Bernie Griffen and the Thin Men - which follows his 2011 Everything So Far debut with his longtime band the Grifters - says it all: Salvation.

"Yeah, that was how I felt," says the 63-year-old Auckland singer-songwriter. "That's the way I feel about music and my life to a large extent, I've been blessed."

By his own admission he's also been lucky and battled crippling self-doubt as a young man, which he says led to drug addiction. Clean now for 26 years - although afflicted with emphysema after an accident that burned his lungs, and a lifetime of smoking - he admits he doesn't do himself any favours.

"I'm quite self-destructive in many ways. I give up smoking for long periods and my voice improves a lot," he laughs.

But from a lifetime of experiences in and around music (he co-founded and ran the Global Routes label in 97, "always helping someone else get started") Griffen has, lately, stepped out as singer-songwriter and frontman with stories to tell.

After years of attending songwriter nights back in the days of the Java Jive and the old Gluepot Corner Bar in the 90s, the epiphany came when Global Routes folded in 2008.

"I was pretty upset but then just thought, 'Bugger it, I'm just going to play music because that's what I've wanted to do my whole life and now I can'."

And very quickly Griffen became a senior statesmen in the world of alt.country, which he largely attributes to the fan base built by his Border Radio show on 95bFM, which he has been running for 12 years.

"And I'm not afraid to put a show on or tackle a difficult problem, I'm only afraid when I'm exposed personally.

"Look at the Gunslingers Ball," he says referring to the popular touring shows he has created. "We've had 67 bands over three years play with us, and the idea was to give profile to people who didn't have one. And have fun. We'd always have the Grifters, Heartattack Alley or Tami [Neilson] who had some profile, so we knew we would pull 50 people ... and suddenly there was 400. I think bFM was a strong player because we advertised to the university kids."

Today - with long-time partner, co-writer and singer Kirsten Warner - Griffen and his bands have opened for Justin Townes Earle, Emmylou Harris and Eileen Jewel, and tonight he launches Salvation at Auckland's Tuning Fork.

Songs on the album explore our pioneering history (Five Rivers) and his formative influences (the grinding cover of the Terls' tribute song Patti Smith) to the affecting I'm Crying Too, written with Victoria Bamford in the 90s. As a writer he's inspired by poetry and pulp fiction, "but the songs are all based on my own experiences", among them Girl with the Golden Arm, about a junkie he knew decades ago and presumed dead until she showed up a few years ago. There's also a contemporary murder ballad where he gets personal animosities off his chest.

But his career, dogged by self-doubt, has been a slow grower as he covered his fears with alcohol or narcotics. "The belief in myself didn't come from me but from other people. I had to stop listening to my own head, which was my destructive place.

"I'm still terrified at every show. But I've put on this suit of armour in the past 10 years to be the performer and songwriter that I am now."

Who: Bernie Griffen and the Thin Men
What: The album Salvation out now.
When and where: Playing Auckland's Tuning Fork tonight.

- TimeOut