Chic song-making

By CATHRIN SCHAER

As with most first albums, this new, local offering named Tongan Chic was inspired by a variety of things - family, friends and other music.

But credit is also due to the likes of Captain Starlight. Who?

"You know, Captain Starlight," says Soane Watkins, who is responsible for the album but who has probably been best known around the country as a DJ. "Because I didn't want to end up a 50-year-old DJ turning up at some gig, hearing impaired, with a glitterball in the back of my car," he laughs.

"Basically," Watkins continues in a more serious vein, "being a producer, making my own album, just seemed like a logical progression to DJ-ing."

Watkins' career path from player of records to producer started around 1987 when the Tongan-born, New Zealand-raised Aucklander started working as doorman at one of the trendiest bars in town, Club Roma, owned by socialites and entrepreneurs Mark Philips and Peter Urlich.

"Once a week they would let me behind the decks," Watkins says.

"By the time the first warehouse parties started I was already DJ-ing under the name Big Daddy, mainly playing hip hop, funk and soul, together with guys like DJ Sir-vere and Manuel Bundy."

But where the latter two headed off mainly into hip-hop territory, Watkins played house music to a new generation of night clubbers.

Over the past few years the big, genial bloke has established himself as one of Auckland's most popular local DJs, playing the kind of soulful, funk-heavy dance music that's since been brought to the mainstream by acts like Nice'n'Urlich.

He's been responsible for three compilations of dance music and also remixed tracks for the likes of Che-Fu, King Kapisi, Bic Runga and Annie Crummer.

"I feel like a bit of a granddad actually," Watkins says of his 14-year career.

A visit by British DJs to New Zealand led to a friendship and then professional relationship with an UK-based dance music label Paper Recordings. It was there that he was encouraged to start producing his own tracks. Two and a half years of knob twiddling and computer composition later, the result is Tongan Chic.

"I can't read music. And I guess I'd have to admit I'm not a real musician," Watkins concedes.

But as he also says, with the technology available these days, you don't have to be. And why should making good music be limited to people who can play instruments, he argues.

Watkins explains: "The music developed like this. I might start with some samples and then I'd go to the studio, we'd feed them into the computer and make loops. Then we'd just kind of see where they went. Like, it would be nice to have some piano here or a bit of guitar there.

"As we've gone through I've called in friends who are musicians to come and play the various parts. Eventually we've lost the original samples and ended up with a more organic sound, made up of real instruments."

The result of this rather naturalistic approach to song-making is an album that seems to combine the many elements of Watkins' musical background - there's dance music, jazz, some Latin rhythms as well as liberal dashes of hip hop and pop. Such an eclectic fusion is probably also due to the people that have contributed to the tracks.

The first single, All I Need, features Boh Runga, frontwoman of rock band Stellar, singing alongside local rapper Feelstyle.

"Luke [Tomes, engineer] had worked on the Stellar album and Boh just popped in to say hi. She listened to what we were doing and said, 'Hey, this sounds pretty catchy'. She started humming a melody and we were like, 'Right, that's it, you have to sing on it'."

Hassanah Iroegbu, one half of long-defunct Sisters Underground, now lives in Florida but was here briefly re-recording her group's hit, In the Neighbourhood for the TV2 promo. "And my wife, who knew she was here, said, 'Hey, she might be good to sing on one of your tracks'. So we got her in the studio, she started vibing on this instrumental track ... all of a sudden we had these great vocals.

Watkins was also assisted by his fellow DJs Dick Johnson and Manuel Bundy on several tracks. And Watkins agrees that it's been a group effort.

"The whole album has happened that way. It's been pretty natural and almost a big fluke. As we've needed people to contribute, they've just turned up."

However the most important contributors to his work are still his family. The cover artwork was provided by his father-in-law, local print artist Denys Watkins. And the first track, Not Without You, was composed for his wife, Esther, on her birthday while another song was written for his 1-year-old daughter, Sesilia.

Even though her dad won't be playing much of his own music when he DJs around town - "I don't because I can always hear something I should have done better" - his daughter is also his biggest fan. "Sesilia recognises the track I wrote for her. She even starts dancing to it."

So where to next for the DJ-turned-computer-musician and album producer?

"Well, I thought I might start a clothing label. Because I'd like to be bigger than Puff Daddy," Watkins says before cracking up.

"No, really I just hope people are open to this record and that they like it. And I'd really just like to keep on producing more music."

Performance

* Who: DJ Soane

* What: Album Tongan Chic

* When: Tonight at Centro (Lounge), Wyndham St, Auckland City