By hook or by crook

By EMILY WATT

Dave McArtney, founding member of New Zealand rock band Hello Sailor, has seen some things in his time.

He's toured around the US in a bus owned by Prince's guitar player. He's partied it up in LA, living in a 15-bedroom mansion and being managed by a female impersonator by the name of "Tiny Tina". He's looted Keith Richards' burned-down house in LA, collecting clothes, polaroids, a collection of imported reggae records ("they were burnt around the edges but you could still play the inside tracks"), and a song book which later inspired his single Dying in Public ("We had to preserve the occasion of actually looting Keith Richards' house.").

He's also seen the shadowy underbelly of the rock scene - the excesses, the poverty, the dramatic plummet from the limelight.

Now, sitting in a grungy Auckland pub, McArtney is philosophical about his time, but every so often he gets caught up in his story and has a gleam in his eye as if he might just do it all again tomorrow.

And he still looks every bit the quintessential rock star - blue suit, converse All Star trainers, Arnette sunglasses ... and a glass of lemonade. They say rock'n'roll never dies.

And so it is that 19 years after his last album, he has returned with a tender solo offering - Hook.

The album has all the marks of a classic New Zealand rock album - witty puns, mercurial guitar riffs and nostalgic references to Jelly Tips and beach barbecues.

The tracks range from as far back as 1972 and include a funked-up version of his Hello Sailor hit Gutter Black, but most were penned more recently and if one can spot some hints of David Bowie or Neil Diamond, there are also more modern dance and hip-hop influences. They are songs that come from a period of life that he describes as "the untutored landscape of autumnal ideas".

If there is a sense of nostalgia among these tracks, it would be understandable. Hello Sailor were at the centre of the Ponsonby pub rock explosion in the 70s and spent much of the next decade living the rock'n'roll dream.

Heroes in their hometown, they moved in 1978 to LA, where they lasted for six months. McArtney says they were great times. "We did the schmoozing thing and we did get some good gigs. People were fascinated by the sound of the South Pacific rock'n'roll."

The myths of their LA excesses abound but McArtney denies that it was overindulgence that forced the band to return. "No, it's not true really because the drugs only affected about one third of the band. A lot of people like to compartmentalise things and say drugs killed Hello Sailor, but it's not true. It had a little bit to do with it but we just ended up in debt - it's the story of every band really."

They returned - "with our tails between our legs" - and decided to try their luck in Australia, but their debts continued to grow. "We ended up living on $5 a day - it was a shawarma at the Cross, and a schooner at the Coogee Bar Hotel a day. It was pretty hard for somebody who had been eating at vegetarian restaurants and drinking French chablis in LA. We just lost faith after that. It was a bit of a downward slide - it was no fun."

The band have gone through a series of break-ups and reformations since 1980, and still play the occasional acoustic gig even now. In between, he formed Dave McArtney and the Pink Flamingos, scooping major awards with their debut album in 1981, and tried his hand at producing, winning RIANZ producer of the year in 1984 for his work with the Narcs.

But by the late 1980s, tired of the excesses of touring, McArtney gave up performing and went back to university "to see if my brain was still intact". He completed his degree in Renaissance poetry, and ended up in Germany, teaching English, skiing every day, and recording demos in a Bavarian barn.

And he's been writing a book about the history of Hello Sailor, a project he describes as "a scandalous tome of debauchery and stupid behaviour". The book, due out next year, is filled with tales of the Sailors' escapades. "I wanted people to see the funny side of the band and the interesting side of the band, rather than the side that kind of failed. I don't regret it because it's all experience."

It is that experience he is now calling upon for this album for which he is artist, producer and record label, and his work is not yet over. As promoter, he believes he may have an uphill battle ahead. "I haven't been around for so long, and it's just that I'm too old. The industry's got real biases against people like me, unfortunately. I'm not 25 any more."

But one gets the impression that McArtney's not one to give up easily. He tells how he has nearly died - twice.

In 1967 he was knocked unconscious by a piece of concrete falling on his head from six storeys. He was sent home on the bus the next day.

Then in 1975, his heart stopped when he was electrocuted by equipment in an Auckland night club. He was brought back from the dead by bandmate Graham Brazier, who gave him CPR but not before he experienced a bit of astral travel.

"I had the old flying through a field of corn and bright light sort of thing and I wondered what the hell it was. There was some sound, I couldn't describe it, it was a scintillating, humming, bristling, sort of glistening kind of sound."

Oh yes, Dave McArtney has seen some things.