Dobbyn talkin' 'bout his generation

Dave Dobbyn with the Checks (from left), Sven Pettersen, Ed Knowles, Callum Martin, Karel Chabera and Jacob Moore. Picture / Brett Phibbs

Dave Dobbyn wants to be known as the "established artist" rather than the "old fart". There's a pause and then he lets rip with a hearty cackle. He's joking. This old fart - sorry, established artist of New Zealand music - is past caring how old he is.

He does agree, though, that the "hot young things" tag suits North Shore band the Checks well. And they are. Look at them. Two of them - singer Ed Knowles and guitarist Sven Pettersen - have just arrived at Dobbyn's inner-city office and studio.

Eighteen-year-old Knowles is in a well-worn, cropped, canary-yellow shirt and is wearing tight white pants; while 19-year-old Pettersen's buffed hair alone indicates there's star material underneath.

They are here to have a chat with Dobbyn about all things musical. The rest of the band - guitarist Callum Martin (19), drummer Jacob Moore (18), and bass player Karel Chabera (17) - drift in over the space of half an hour for a photo shoot later on.

Walking from the foyer into Dobbyn's darkened studio, where jazz piano is playing, Pettersen pipes up with a confident: "Thelonius Monk. Is this Misterioso?"

He's right. Dobbyn is impressed and heads over to turn it up. And from then on jazz becomes a strong theme for the night, along with Howlin' Wolf, the Rolling Stones, and, of course, the glory days of Dobbyn's first band Th' Dudes.

"When I was in Th' Dudes I was 19," says Dobbyn, "I was living at tour manager Charlie Gray's place and he had the most amazing collection of jazz records - everything from Ornette Coleman to Coltrane to Lester Young. Really meaty stuff. I realised I got addicted to it back then but I didn't really explore it until a bit later because I got obsessed with pop and rock'n'roll music.

"But I come back to jazz because if you start the day with a be-bop record then your mind is sharp by the time you get to pick up the six-string. I like the ease of that music and it keeps restating itself; the same as rock'n'roll, I think."

Dobbyn dominates the conversation, which is only fitting considering he's got 30 years of stories and music experience over the Checks, who have just been nominated for their first New Zealand Music Award.

"You can tell me to shut up," he insists. Instead, the Checks ask him if he's deaf. "Because I'm a little bit deaf," says Knowles casually.

Dobbyn says both his ears are different - one is kinked, so it makes things sound different, and the other is more dull.

"But I've got a theory. If you make a sound that's really loud and horrible but you were expecting it then it's not bad for your ears. And distortion is good. Distortion is everything. I think that was one of the first times I heard you guys and your vocal was distorted," he tells Knowles.

"It sounded great, and there was this raucous racket and it sounded really good. Keep it up," he laughs.

Dobbyn first heard the Checks when he was renting a space in Neil Finn's building in Newton and the Checks were playing downstairs.

"It was so refreshing to hear guitars playing away all day long and it reminded me of what we used to do; play all day long, for weeks on end and when we weren't doing that we were doing gigs, four sets a night, six nights a week, for f***-all money and free beer," he laughs.

Before the Checks had released anything, the band's manager, Phil Moore (father of drummer Jacob), gave Dobbyn some recordings, and he liked what he heard.
"It was just exuberance and just the fact that these guys were listening to rootsy music that I loved as well. I'd been listening to Van Morrison in the early days and ... "

This raises a laugh from Knowles and Pettersen who are sitting politely on the couch. "We just spent the whole ferry trip [from the North Shore] talking about [Morrison's] Astral Weeks, the whole ferry trip," smiles Pettersen.

"Yeah, it's like a British, white, kinda blues tradition," continues Dobbyn, trying to explain the Checks' roots.

"It's British pop, you know, and I grew up listening to that and I loved it. And when you play in a band, I'd almost forgotten that it's the greatest fun playing that kind of music because it's got the rock'n'roll, but it's got soul without all the pointy guitars."

You can tell that the Checks remind Dobbyn of himself when - just out of school - he, Peter Urlich, Peter Coleman, Ian Morris, and Bruce Hambling formed Th' Dudes in the mid 70s. While Dobbyn didn't sing at first, it didn't take him long to be howling, yelping and strutting like Knowles does now.

On more than one occasion tonight he tells Knowles how being able to "howl your head off like you do is fantastic".

"There's something very essential about that kind of music - two guitars, bass, and drums. There's nice big holes in it so you can howl your head off. There's something really primal about it that's simple, but it's got a sophistication about it as well, and it sticks out like dogs' balls against the wash of generic, manufactured music.

"It's good to hear performances again and you guys have got that: 'Okay, let's cram as much we can into 2 1/2, three minutes, and get as much energy across as possible'. You don't even think about it; that's just what you do."

I ask if the Checks have ever covered a Dave Dobbyn song and Dobbyn butts in with a dismissive: "Not likely. I don't think that's going to happen," he says, as the pair quietly agree with him. You get the feeling the Checks didn't think it necessary to cover Th' Dudes' three-chord 1980 Kiwi rock standard, Bliss, like nearly every other rock band in the country.

"I think they borrowed a guitar,"says Dobbyn.

"It was that one, the red one," says Pettersen, pointing to one of many guitars lined up along the wall. "It was just the right sound I needed. I went through all these different ones and that was the one."

Although the Checks are not too familiar with Dobbyn's early work in Th' Dudes and DD Smash - they weren't born then - Pettersen knows Dobbyn's 1999 greatest hits album, Overnight Success. He played it a lot during his sixth-form year when he was in the photography darkroom at school.

"It was my darkroom album. I liked the new version of Be Mine Tonight," he says about the old Dudes hit that Dobbyn re-recorded in 1999.

The Checks may not have been born when Dobbyn was still boozing it up in his more rebellious rock'n'roll days, but the young band certainly evoke the spirit of live music of old.

"It's interesting that you still get someone howling his head off," he says, gesturing to Knowles, "and you're full of guitar angst and you're delivering. It's great. It's just fantastic, nothing beats it, and it's better than working in the bank."

"But 45 minutes on the stage is not usually enough," says Pettersen, "so you just go home and play for hours, so becoming a hermit at a very young age."

Knowles: "Sometimes when I'm practising I think, 'Why am I doing this? Why am I giving this energy to an empty room?' It's like it's a waste. It should be done to people."

"And that's the best attitude," agrees Dobbyn. "To keep playing to people because as soon as you don't do that you come up with all these hare-brained schemes, usually after midnight under the influence of something. But if you know the songs are the thing and the audience are connected to the songs the things that come along with that are people really digging the tunes and not getting sick of them and wanting more."

That audience is about to swell. The Checks are bound for Japan, in just under two weeks, to support the Hives ("They love screaming at guys like you," booms Dobbyn), and in November the band support Oasis in Australia. Oasis' Noel Gallagher made the decision about the support band after hearing the Checks' single What You Heard.

Dobbyn says, for Th' Dudes, Australia was the extent of the band's overseas aspirations. In contrast the Checks have not even toured New Zealand, yet they played a series of concerts in Britain during May on the NME New Music Tour.

The Checks have had a controlled approach to releasing music and not getting over-exposed. But Knowles and Pettersen admit they've dreamed of going to London since the fourth form.

"But it was a bit strange when we [finally] got there. We were walking down Carnaby St and expecting Eric Clapton to walk past and we were a bit gutted to see everyone dressed up in track suits and looking like they were [Mike Skinner] from the Streets," smiles Pettersen.

"You've got a whole fuel tank of spontaneity that's busting out all over. Put it on wheels and go for it," is Dobbyn's advice.

While Dobbyn has lost count of how many Music Awards he's been nominated for, the Checks are celebrating their first nomination in the breakthrough-artist category. They would have to be favourite to win.

"Getting nominated is fun," says Dobbyn, who uses one of his many trophies as a door stop. "I've kicked my toe on it many times."

He remembers the first time he won a music award for Be Mine Tonight in 1979. "We were touring Australia, skinny as rakes, living on beer; we flew back from stinking hot Brisbane and were presented with the award at the beautiful Mandalay, which isn't there any more. They gave us the award - a mock microphone on a piece of wood, it was quite neat - for Be Mine Tonight. I walked off stage, somebody grabs the award, pulls the sticker off with my name on it and puts another sticker on it for the next person. They had one award."

The organisers said they would send him a trophy in the post but he's still waiting.

Dobbyn is an old hand at this music-business thing, but he's reluctant to dish out too much advice to the Checks because "of all the mistakes I've made".

"But I feel very confident about music and that's the best thing about it because the music just gets better than what you thought, beyond your wildest dreams. I just get excited that people are out there doing it because there's got to be live music to pump life back into the community."