With the prize money, Barker decided to shoot a trailer with his teammates Jared Kahi and Brendon Morrow for a TV series idea they had rattling around, and see if they could get anyone interested.
It was when The Down Low Concept (Nigel McCulloch, Ryan Hutchings and Jarrod Holt, who also created 7Days and Hounds) came on board that NZ On Air and TVNZ also came to the party with some funding.
"With The Down Low Concept's reputation, things finally worked out," Barker explains.
"Initially I thought of it as a music-based drama, and now it's got that Down Low stamp on it, it's taken a very quirky turn. They're great writers."
The show revolves around guitarist Matt Gibson (played by Barker), a musician who was on the cusp of international fame, only to have it pulled out from under him.
"Matt's a loser," Barker laughs. "He's his own worst enemy. He's trying to put his life back together after blowing his big shot. You see, Matt and Ivy had a band and they had a hit song, so they went to LA. Ivy got picked up by a record company, you know, sort of big-deal Kimbra or Lorde-type super-stardom, and Matt got dropped. So he comes back home, and feels like he's at the bottom of the pile.
"He's got a lot of money troubles, too - he's borrowed a lot of money from his brother, Alex (played by Matt Whelan) and so to make some money quickly, and try and pay off these debts, he starts the cover band called The Silhouettes. It's pretty much a last resort."
And then they practise really hard, and become famous? No. This is not your traditional fictional band story.
"The Silhouettes don't become successful, but they do okay. These guys don't get a break - it's all about being shit, at the bottom. If you want to put a heartfelt spin on it, it's about being together. Dreams of stardom and stuff are all a little bit fairy tale-ish, but the important stuff is being together with a bunch of friends, growing together, and looking after each other."
Joining Matt Gibson in The Silhouettes are his long-suffering, slightly geeky bassist brother Alex (Whelan), childhood friend and happy-go-lucky drummer Knuckles (Wesley Dowdell, who played Pascalle's borderline stalker, Aaron, in Outrageous Fortune), and off-the-wall-crazy lead singer Jukebox (Laughton Kora), who they discover getting totally wasted at a karaoke bar.
And, impressively, they all actually play their instruments and perform the wide array of Kiwi classics featured throughout the show. Barker has been a songwriter/guitarist for many years, and released songs as a solo artist and with his band The Aristocrats; Dowdell has been drumming with various bands since high school and has plenty of experience in the covers arena; Kora has fronted Kora (obviously) and The Heavy Metal Ninjas; and Whelan can play the tenor sax.
"Watching Matt learn to play bass guitar in two months was incredible," Barker smiles. "I first had the idea he could play my brother a few years back [they appeared together in Go Girls], and asked if he could play any guitar. He said 'No, but I play a bit of saxophone', so I thought, cool, that's good to know. And then finally two years later, I was able to pull him in for an audition and we handed him a bass, and said, 'This is a bass, and this is how you hold it, you've got two months', and off he went and learnt it!"
Whelan, Dowdell, and Barker all have substantial TV experience of course, but Kora was a bit of a left-field suggestion from the Down Low crew when they were struggling to come up with anyone from the acting world who could pull off a convincing rock'n'roll vocal performance.
"We'd been talking about all the different actors who are also musicians and wondering who could possibly fill this role, and when they mentioned Laughton, I thought that was a brilliant idea. They brought him in and we jammed Why Does Love Do This To Me?, and I was just like, 'Oh my God, he's next level, we'd be lucky to have him.'
"This is his first real acting role too, so for him the music stuff is a walk in the park, but he's taken to the acting side like, boom! Smashed it.
"He also did the cover band thing when he was younger [the Kora brothers knew about 350 songs by the time Laughton was 11], so he got the whole concept straight away."
All four of them agree the storylines in the show are pretty faithful to their own experiences playing covers - albeit a little exaggerated.
"My bandmates and I started a covers band when we needed to make some extra cash to buy some gear, and slipped into it for four years, playing a residency in Ponsonby to lots of drunk folks. Every two weeks, we'd go out and play, get boozed and end up at drive-through McDonald's at 4am going 'That was a good night!' So all the stories are very accurate, they're all based on experiences we've had, and then we've heightened them all."
And the four of them have had some almost authentic rock 'n' roll experiences while filming the show, too.
"There's one scene where we're playing on the back of a truck on top of a hill - it sounds rock 'n' roll but it's kind of shitty - but we were half way through Trippin' by Push Push and this huge gust of wind rolled through, and Matt turned to me with this look on his face, like, 'This is actually happening? I've got wind in my hair and I'm rocking out!'"
And in their final on-screen performance, playing Bliss by Th' Dudes felt like a real show.
"It was so f***ing cool. I was losing my mind. The funniest thing was that we had to keep telling the extras to calm down. They were getting so into it, and Laughton was giving it full noise - it's ingrained in him, but they wanted it to seem like a less successful performance."
Sounds like The Silhouettes could be New Zealand's next household name then - even as a cover band.
Watch the trailer for Coverband here:
App users: Tap here to view the trailer
Johnny Barker plays Matt Gibson, guitarist
"Originally, I was quite similar to Matt, but once the Down Low Concept got involved, they wrote him as this shameless dickhead. So I've been given licence to be a total knob, and that's been a lot of fun to play. So I'm going to say no, I'm not like Matt.
Wesley Dowdell plays Knuckles, drummer
"It's kind of a dream part for me really, to be an actor, and play music as well. They were the two things at high school which I thought I would never get work for."
Matt Whelan plays Alex Gibson, bass player
"Playing bass in a rock band is not something I thought I'd ever do. It's not an opportunity that presents itself often when you play saxophone, but playing with these guys has been a huge amount of fun."
Laughton Kora plays Jukebox, lead singer
"I've smashed a guitar, kicked in an amp and a drumkit, slept with six cougars, blown up a full lighting rig. One day I was kissing Theresa Healey for four hours and tipping over a van. It's been awesome."
What: New local TV series Coverband Starring Johnny Barker, Matt Whelan, Laughton Kora and Wesley Dowdell
Where and when: Screening on TV One, from Thursday, September 25 at 9.30pm
- TimeOut
