Deja Voodoo - Beyond a joke

By CATHRIN SCHAER

Some things you have to sacrifice when you decide you're going to be in a serious rock band. One of them is smashing your bassist over the head with a burning guitar. Another one is - and some readers may find this surprising - playing when really drunk.

"Yeah, I've started playing quite sober," admits Matt Heath, guitarist for Deja Voodoo, without shame. "It's just that usually when you're waiting to play you stand around for hours and there are always beers. So even if you didn't intend to, you end up on stage a bit drunk."

And lately, because Heath and Deja Voodoo's co-founder Chris Stapp have been playing relatively serious rock gigs, supporting the likes of the D4 and betchadupa, Heath has found he needs to keep his eyes down and his fingers on the guitar strings.

As for the burning-guitar-head-smashing thing, that's mostly because of the origins of the band.

Deja Voodoo began life as the house band for Heath and Stapp's gleefully demented television series, Back of the Y, which has been variously described as containing "foul language, random violence, masturbation jokes and stupid stunts" and also as "cheap and silly".

Heath says Back of the Y was originally based on an infomercial focused on celebrated American chat show, David Letterman. The infomercial had a house band called The Critics employed to do things like play a quick riff at the start of the programme or when guests appeared.

Heath and Stapp had always mucked around with music and even written their own songs for film projects - like the soundtrack to a short film about an imaginary Dunedin student band called the Octagons. So as well as various roles on their new TV show, they also dressed up as a band and mimed along with a Casio keyboard at the beginning of the programme or when guests arrived.

When the time came to paint a name on the drum kit, Deja Voodoo just seemed like a good idea. And lo, a band was born - a pretty silly one where the musicians dressed in cabaret style suits and couldn't really play their instruments. But a band nonetheless.

"We used to play the odd gig and then we were offered a spot on the orientation tour," Heath says about how Deja Voodoo became a band outside the television studio. "Then we were offered a record contract. Which is kind of ironic because that's actually a lot like the Partridge Family."

And just as that wholesome, as-seen-on-TV group, The Partridge Family, had to fight against criticism in the 70s that they were frauds with no real artistic talent, Deja Voodoo has faced similar opposition this century.

"Oh, we were fully fake," Heath says, not exactly worried about that particular criticism. "And when we were totally shit and couldn't really play, we thought people who came to see us were either going to riot or want their money back if we didn't do things like we did on Back of the Y."

As a result there was a lot of setting themselves, their guitars and other objects on fire while onstage, as well as quite a bit of stuff being smashed up. That included the now-legendary Ten Guitars of Death tour where Tim Finn played while Heath smashed burning guitars over Stapp's head.

But those days appear to be pretty much over. At a recent gig at the delightfully seedy Las Vegas Strip Club in Auckland, with several other lesser-known bands, Deja Voodoo even turned down the opportunity to have the sole dancer on the premises perform during their set.

"I don't know, it would have been too weird," Heath muses. "Anyway, if we need a stripper, then I'll do it."

As it turned out they didn't really need anything but their own, fine suit-clad selves. Members of the audience expecting a Milli-Vanilli-style mime or even just depraved jokes about why the red velvet curtains were so dirty were disappointed.

Instead there was genuine rock'n'roll intensity from a trio clearly relishing the opportunity to play and throw themselves around, guitar-god style, on the small catwalk. Obviously they have learned a lot about performing from their days on the telly. And now they seem to be able to play some big fat guitar riffs, too.

Yes, Deja Voodoo, as Heath might have once said so ironically on his television show, actually do rock.

But fans of Back of the Y need not fear. Deja Voodoo are not quite ready to become Coldplay. Their debut album, Brown Sabbath, comes out early next year and features plenty of songs about drinking. Heath says it's a concept album about beer.

"And Chris has just got a new bass guitar and it's really pointy and angular. He throws it around on stage and then catches it and I'm always really worried one day he's going to shove it in my ribcage.

"Actually one day it's going to land on his head and do him a nasty injury. I hope someone's got a camera that day," Heath says thoughtfully. "Then I'll show the footage all round the world and make loads of money."

Performance

* Who: Deja Voodoo

* Where: Control Room

* When: tonight, supporting PanAm and betchadupa