Tuxedo bringing the funk to Auckland

TimeOut

17 Sep, 2015 04:00 AM3 mins to read

Tuxedo Mayer Hawthorne and Jake One.

Friends bring their boogie funk fresh vibes to town.

Mayer Hawthorne and Jake One are a couple of pretty successful guys. A Grammy nominated retro-soul artist and producer respectively, they're both in demand and respected. So what brought them together? A shared obsession with early 80s funk bands like Chic, Shalamar, Plush and Zapp, and an easy friendship that lent itself to collaboration.

"We met back in 2006, and at the time we knew each other as rap dudes, but I think we were like the only two people that we knew that also listened to this early 80s boogie funk stuff - I didn't know anybody else who listened to that music," Hawthorne explains.

Conveniently they also got along really well.

"We connected on a personal level, too. And definitely when you start spending time in a studio or on the road together, it's important. I think we're both pretty low-key people," One explains.

Not that they were even thinking about collaborating when they first met. But One sent Hawthorne some tracks, and Hawthorne wrote some songs to them. Going from being major fans of the music to making it themselves proved challenging, particularly finding how to make it sound fresh.

"Initially we were a little too derivative. It wasn't until we put our own personalities in there, and Mayer found his voice within the tracks, that it really started to work."

"We're never gonna be able to do what a band like Zapp do, as good as they do it, so we have to do our own original thing, and I think realising that was the key to the whole project," Hawthorne adds.

They've played a show with Zapp though, and it turns out the band loved what Tuxedo are doing. "That was the best compliment we could have, they were definitely one of the groups that inspired this whole project, so to have them side of stage clapping for us when we came off, we were blown away," One laughs.

As for the name, Tuxedo, that was inspired in two ways - first, by Hawthorne's love of the outfit ("I'm online right now, looking for tuxedos as we speak, trying to get some more") and second, by the acts they admire.

"All of our favourite bands that we were influenced by, Chic and Zapp and Shalamar, they all have one-word names, so we knew we wanted a one-word name and then Tuxedo just sort of felt like it fit with the vibe of the music, the classy quality," Hawthorne laughs.

"As we say in one of our songs, you only wear a tuxedo when it's time to party.

"It's not like a regular suit, like you can wear a suit to a funeral, but you wouldn't wear a tuxedo. A tuxedo means it's time to celebrate. It's a celebration outfit."