From family singalongs to 'thinking persons rock'

Donald Reid

Donald Reid says people like to pigeonhole things. This is one of the reasons the singer-songwriter can't escape comparisons to his brother James -- frontman for New Zealand rock band The Feelers.

Reid's debut solo album In a Taxi Home was released this year, prompting some to compare his solo work with that of his brother.

"It's very easy for people to try to draw parallels," he says.

"There's going to be something similar isn't there, you can't get round the fact that our voices are probably going to sound slightly similar, and our styles are probably going to be slightly similar.

"You can probably tell they might be from the same roots but we write differently and our sound is different and our structures are different."

It was those roots that led Reid into the music world, raised in a home where music was part of family life.

He began performing "as a little kid" at dinner parties.

"When your parents have had a couple of glasses of wine you'd get dragged into playing a song or doing a little skit or something like that," he laughs.

"My father's pretty musical actually, he's quite keen to pick up an instrument at the drop of a hat."

He describes his grandmother as "a damn good pianist" and says family singalongs were commonplace in the Reid household, so music was always going to be part of his life.

"I'm not sure if it's in the blood or if it's just a socialised thing, but its definitely there."

He is one of five siblings, all of who can play instruments.

Reid learnt the ukelele and banjo at age seven, the piano at 10 and taught himself guitar at 12.

But despite growing up surrounded by music, it wasn't a natural course to pursue it as a career.

"Our family was kind of conservative so to do music was considered to not really be a real job," he says.

"I used to get quite a bit of flak from the folks and friends -- they'd say 'that's all very well, but when are you going to get a real job?'

"I think a lot of musicians get that actually, especially in New Zealand."

But despite that songwriting was something Reid seemed destined to do. He wrote his first song at 12, and it was the first of many.

For In a Taxi Home he had the difficult task of choosing just 12 songs from a collection of about 200 original works.

After shortlisting about 30 he and brother James -- who co-produced the album -- tried to work out which ones went together best, to create a "journey" for the listener.

"I was very conscious that the songs needed to stand out on their own but at the same time they needed to stick together," he says.

"So that if you played them out of order they'd work, but also that they'd work together as an album and as a journey from start to finish."

Reid says his music could be described as "thinking persons' rock", but it can be difficult to slot it into any one genre.

"I'm not sure we've got a proper name for rock. When you think 'rock' you think heavy rock. When you think 'pop' you think kind of Spice Girls. I suppose it's acoustic rock," he says.

"Some people have said it sounds a bit like a cross between say Neil Finn and Sting -- if you were to give them a glass of wine and sit them on a beach and tell them to write a song".

He hopes his music is something listeners can revisit time and again.

"It will grow on you but hopefully its not going to date." he says.

"I'd like to think it isn't faddish, one of those things that you'll listen to in four years time and think it's still relevant."

With the album out and singles Forget Myself, All the Advice and You and Me My Friend doing well Reid is now all set to take his music to the people, with a nationwide tour kicking off in July.

He is joining forces with singer/songwriter Carly Binding to play "intimate acoustic shows" in relaxed comfortable settings around New Zealand.

"I'm looking forward to getting out and playing actually," Reid says.

He is happy to play in small centres as well as bigger centres.

"I think it's more about the audiences that are there, rather than the towns," he says.

"An appreciative audience of half a dozen people is far more fun to play to than 5000 people who are talking to themselves."

And after that Reid has another album in mind.

"There's so much more stuff to do and the new album is going to have a different feel completely to this, there's still so much more material its quite exciting getting in there and doing another one."

He hopes his brother would also like to be involved with the second album as they have fun working together.

"It's pretty easy actually. We get on really well, we don't really argue and if we do we get over it pretty quickly.

"I actually don't understand how people can fight and keep fighting and hold grudges for ages. Life's way too short."

- NZPA