Dave Dobbyn aims to move hearts around New Zealand

Dave Dobbyn. Herald file picture

WELLINGTON - Available Light, released earlier this month is Dave Dobbyn's first album in five years, and a further move away from the riotously energetic, hook-laden pop-rock that built his reputation during the late seventies and eighties.

The puckish, curly-topped star with an instantly identifiable tenor voice has -- over a decade or so -- morphed into a rootsy, contemplative chronicler of the changes in his own life and in New Zealand's heartland.

On the album, smaller towns and their people helped shape his songs more than on any other of his records, he told NZPA recently.

In the run-up to making the album, Dobbyn had a selection of songs roughed out but was eager to see how they would go down with audiences.

"I get a little impatient to get the songs out and amongst people," he said.

That impatience led him to round up old friends and veteran rock sidemen Bones Hillman and Ross Burge to form a three piece band and give the material a run in what to Dobbyn seemed like appropriate venues.

"We've been going out into the provinces and playing little places and working up the songs live. Little community halls seems to be a great setting for these songs to start their ride."

But Dobbyn says Available Light was very nearly shaped overseas, rather than in New Zealand.

"I thought I would be going offshore to LA, London and New York, but it just became apparent to me that I wanted to work with the best people that I'd yet to discover in New Zealand."

That meant working initially with Neil Finn, Burge and Hillman, before the album took a detour.

"I was half way through the record and I thought it would be a good thing to sort of take it somewhere and try working in a couple of other rooms and it struck me that I loved the music that was coming out of Wellington. It just seemed like a good idea to jump in the car and bring my stuff down."

Once in Wellington, he ran into a friend, ex-Muttonbird David Long, Black Seeds and Phoenix Foundation producer Lee Prebble, ex-TrinityRoots frontman Warryn Maxwell, Fat Freddy's trumpet player Toby Lang and Steve Roche of Six Volts and Plan 9 fame.

"As far as I'm concerned I went for the A team," he says.

Dobbyn says he had been particularly struck by Maxwell's work with TrinityRoots, describing him as "a very inspiring musician".

"There's something deeply essential about their music I loved.

"There's a resonance there for me because what struck me about TrinityRoots' music and a lot of the music being made (in Wellington) now is that it does have a good geography to it -- you listen to and think that could only happen in Wellington."

"Often you're not aware of what informs the music and then you go for a bit of a recce around these places and you realise that the songwriters are deeply connected to the land and the city around them."

The finishing touches and mixdown were completed at Prebble's Surger studio, which completed the record's journey.

"It feels like it started somewhere and goes somewhere else.

"It was crafted in Auckland and then tailored and finished in Wellington."

"It was just a perfect way to clinch a 100 per cent New Zealand made record."

Now the record is released, Dobbyn says it's time he, Burge and Hillman continued their trip around New Zealand.

"It strikes me to be an essential thing to do every now and again -- to have a checklist of little towns you can get into and move a few hearts here and there -- including my own."

He estimates he's toured New Zealand "a hundred and something times" but hasn't had enough yet.

"There's always a new bit of coastline or a town that's maybe imploding slightly because of urban drift, but there's still great stories and communities in those places."

In fact it's the coastal or riverside communities with their vulnerability that Dobbyn finds most appealing. One of his favourites is Whakatane, a town hit twice by serious flooding in recent years.

"When something happens that's bigger than what it is you're doing, you get quite deeply affected by that."

"You see people getting on with their day to day struggle of life and still able to rise above stuff against devastating circumstances."

"You get to play concerts in those kind of places to lift people's spirits and you can't help but lift you're own at the same.

"There's a kind of will for community that happens in those places. Things are happening in those places that are surprisingly good out of such bad times.

"People are often at their best when they're in the worst circumstances possible.

"When you're able to drift through a place and touch that and be affected by it then it tends to fuel your passion for your craft."

But Dobbyn, just back from North Africa, where he has been filming for the Intrepid Journey television series, believes even New Zealand's city dwellers retain much of their country cousins' character.

"We are really quite provincial and tribal by nature, and I'm in love with that kind of parochialism."

He believes New Zealanders' strong sense of identity is largely matched by their capacity to embrace immigrants.

"I'm an advocate for acceptance of communities beyond mere tolerance, and actually embracing other cultures and other religions.

"We've all got a migrant story -- whichever way you look at it, we all share that."

That's the theme of the first single off Available Light, Welcome Home -- a song inspired by an anti-racism march, which is more of a greeting to a new New Zealander than a celebration of someone's return.

But all this social awareness seems a long way from the drinking chants and big catchy radio hits of Th' Dudes and DD Smash which cemented Dobbyn's reputation and he is the first to admit he owes a lot to his best know party anthems.

"The fact that 'ya ya ya' (Bliss) and 'da da da' (Slice of Heaven) are the most memorable words I've ever written, there's a kind of poetic justice to that."

But he remains comfortable with those songs.

"Having lived that kind of life and being able to make simple, dumb rock and roll songs -- there's still a celebration in that kind of abandon where people are letting their hair down.

"I guess you've just got to go through that its growing pains in a way. Losing yourself in music fuelled by whatever -- there's always currency in that."

These days, however, Dobbyn says he's liable to be more restrained on stage, although to "have a knees up, shoot the breeze and open up a few hearts" remains one of his great passions.

"There's nothing quite like being in a room full of people, especially in smaller rooms, to have that connection directly with songs and be conversational about stuff with no airs and graces and get through a night's entertainment. It's a great thing to share and is very inspiring."

 

Dave Dobbyn plays:

June 25 Kati Kati Memorial Hall

June 26 Kihi Kihi Town Hall

June 28 Eltham Town Hall

June 29 Feilding Civic Centre

June 30 Blenheim Brancott Theatre

July 1 Kaikoura Memorial Hall

July 2 Rangiora Town Hall

July 3 Akaroa Gaiety Hall

July 6 Cambridge Town Hall

July 7 Opotiki Deluxe Theatre

July 8 Gisborne War Memorial Hall

July 9 Dannevirke Town Hall

July 10 Featherston Anzac Hall.

Available Light is out now on Sony BMG

- NZPA