Double happy as Larry

Lawrence Arabia's eponymous album was his chance to do some weird stuff.

For a hippie bass player, Lawrence Arabia is pretty switched on. The 24-year-old known to his mum as James Milne has released two albums simultaneously.

First is the bent, 60s-inspired pop of his band the Reduction Agents on the album, The Dance Reduction Agents, then his trippy and outlandish Lawrence Arabia album.

"That one was just a way to get out a bunch of weird stuff that I could never have released with the Reduction Agents because we'd be too drunk or too under-practised to pull it off live," says Milne.

"It can be anything really. Hardcore techno, or one-note minimalist rubbish," he adds.

Once the interview is over, he admits sheepishly that Lawrence Arabia is his stoner album, but he doesn't want to promote it like that.

In the past year, as well as being a musician, Milne has had to be a businessman. He has his own record label, Honorary Bedouin Records, does his own marketing, stuffs envelopes with promo copies of his album, and organises his own interviews.

Not bad for someone who did a business planning course last year "to get off the dole". Then, earlier this year, he received a grant from Winz which helped to pay for the albums.

"That was just a huge capital expenditure that I could have found somewhere else but I got the grant and just went for it. It's great the way the music industry is breaking down now [because] it's relatively cheap to be an independent record label."

Milne played bass in kitsch-pop outfit the Brunettes. He says being in the band, recording with them, and touring countries like the United States was the perfect apprenticeship before going it alone.

"We did a lot of stuff that was enjoyable and eye-opening, but it was time to do my own thing. There were just so many songs I had written that hadn't been recorded," he says.

"I've been a musician for the past four years and I wasn't really earning money, but I was meeting people and networking. Essentially I'd built up a record company's worth of contacts so there was no reason I couldn't get in touch with people and market myself.

"It sounds quite mercenary but you build up these contacts, they're a valuable thing, and it allowed me to draw on these people to start my own record label."

He reckons by releasing the albums on his own label, with help from Auckland-based Lil' Chief Records for the Reduction Agents, he's making 10 times a unit more than an act on a major record label.

"Before it was about being on the dole and waiting for your pittance to come in each week, or waiting for the next Brunettes tour, or playing the odd support show.

"But now I really enjoy that sense of planning. And you need to plan and nail it down so hard because [music is] such an intangible career that you can lose sight of it so quickly. I can see why people just freak out and get a real job."

Milne grew up in Christchurch and wrote his first song at the age of 11 while at school. It wasn't until his mid-teens that he became more serious about music and started a band.

"I was into Oasis. We had a rockquest band and it was pretty bad. But it was also quite a rare thing because I wrote Beatlesy songs which was odd at the time because everyone was into grunge."

The Reduction Agents have a Beatles quality to them and there are also lashings of other influences, like Britpop, the Stone Roses, and surf guitar.

Lyrically, Milne also has a witty turn of phrase - from the mention of Montana wine in Mississippi Moonshine Girls to the outdoor vacuum cleaner in Urban Yard.

"When I'm coming up with songs, the obvious and stupid cliched lyrics come out but I just try to do the opposite.

"A lot of that stuff, like the outdoor vacuum cleaner, literally came from walking down a street in Mt Eden seeing someone sucking up leaves. It started something.

"I just like mundane images. I can't talk in those big, grandiose, summing-up-the-human-condition statements. I think the mundane stuff sums up the human condition better than an emotional statement about love, death and loss."

While not being mainstream, Reduction Agents' songs like 80s Celebration and Our Jukebox Run Is Over are infectious.

"It always sits in the back of my mind that the songs are really catchy, and they could be pop hits.

"But I just kind of look at the record industry and some of the things musicians have to do, and I just think about the compromises I'd have to make in public to get to that crossover point, and I think it's a bit yucky.

"It's a rare thing to not have to compromise to get noticed and I suppose a band like Fat Freddy's Drop are the exception. But I'm never going to be that popular and I'm not gutted about that. If I can make a living then that's fine," he smiles.

It's better than getting a haircut and a real job.