KEY POINTS:
Connan Hosford knew when it was time to get himself and his band the Mockasins out of New Zealand.
Don't get him wrong. He still calls this fine country of ours home and he's hanging out at his folks' place in Napier as we speak. It's just that he doesn't want his band, with their kooky, quirky and fun-loving brand of blues rock, to be on the receiving end of any negative publicity.
"There's definitely a tall poppy syndrome in New Zealand," says the quietly spoken frontman. "And I reckon if we'd have stayed another year we would have got to a certain point and slowly gone down and had to break up."
So, after releasing the mini album Uuu It's Teasy in May, the band, also made up of double bass player Ross Walker and drummer Seamus Ebbs, moved to London indefinitely.
They are back for Christmas and New Year, playing Hamilton's Sohl Bar tonight and the bStreet party (which is free) in Auckland tomorrow. They also play Rhythm & Vines in Gisborne on New Year's Eve and the Kings Arms in Auckland on January 20. Then they head back to Britain.
Hosford had been itching to go to London for a while but he wanted to make sure he had the right players to take with him. He found the perfect combination in Walker and Ebbs. Like Hosford, they were from Hawkes Bay but the three only got to know each other when living in Wellington.
"I just wanted a simple three-piece band, either with an upright bass or a foot-organ bass played with your hand, or something like that because I don't really like the sound of electric bass. And I wanted a quirky drummer," says Hosford.
"I think we started pretty much as a blues covers band," he admits. "Now, and it's ever-changing, and we don't really play blues any more, so I guess you'd just call it alternative music."
The band's new song, There Goes Tane, which Hosford admits was written years ago, is a hokey tune that sounds like a classroom sing-a-long. But boy, is it catchy.
In the last six months they've made good headway overseas - playing gigs, networking and hanging out with Norman Cook (aka Fatboy Slim). Yes, believe it or not, Hosford's auntie is the former Housemartin's nanny and she gave him a copy of Uuu It's Teasy.
"I got a call from him at our flat and he invited us out to record some songs with him. It was such an awesome experience," says Hosford.
Those tracks will not appear on their debut full-length album, which is due out some time next year, but they plan to do a collaborative album with Cook.
Their time in London started out tough. They slept in tunnels in a park and Hosford says they were about a week away from having to come home when they found a flat in Shoreditch they could afford.
Then things started looking up. The Datsuns' manager Tom Dalton booked the band a few shows and they were invited to play other gigs after the response to those first outings. Then they scored a three-night residency at Water Rats Theatre in Kings Cross and built up a mini fanbase - and magazines, radio stations and record labels started getting interested.
These lads already wield some power. Hosford says Parlophone (Coldplay's record label) wanted to remix their seven-inch single. "We said, 'No, no, we don't want to'," says Hosford, "and now they're putting heaps of promotion into it and it's cool that they're letting us do it our way."
He's recording some new songs while in Napier to play to record labels in Britain before they decide on who to sign with for the album release. As well, influential radio stations like Radio One and Xfm are playing the song Sneaky Sneaky Dogfriend and the Mockasins will do a live-to-air on Radio One when they get back to Britain.
"So yeah, we're really happy with how we've done," Hosford says. "It was just hard work and being lucky."
* Connan and the Mockasins play Sohl Bar, Hamilton, tonight; bStreet, Auckland, tomorrow (free); Rhythm & Vines, Gisborne, New Year's Eve; Kings Arms, Auckland, January 20
Latest: Mini album Uuu It's Teasy, out now
