Frontmen of the New Zealand music scene

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

We meet in a private room, one floor above Ponsonby Rd, at midday. They arrive more or less on time. Each time another enters and shakes hands, the room's charisma level jumps a notch. For they are a special breed: they are "frontmen". If they're not already world-famous in New Zealand, they soon will be.

We order food and beer and get down to talking. It's time for a chat about the business. A discussion about how the three relatively new faces - and one made man - are finding this business, this shady operation we call "New Zealand music".

After all, as we kept getting told, this is the month for it.

And the four have a job together coming up in a few weeks - a big show. So it's good they can meet beforehand, share some points of view, ponder what they've got in common, maybe make some suggestions about how this New Zealand musicbiz might become a legit operation.

Some introductions, then. To our right and doing most of the talking is Jon Toogood, the voice and one of the guitars of Pacifier - the band formerly known as Shihad. At the ripe old age of 30, having spent nearly a dozen years fronting his band, he's the oldest of today's crew. He's just back from Los Angeles and is now awaiting the band's next album to pop out the other end of the machine. He is - as always - full of beans, his gregarious demeanour seemingly at odds with being the leather-jacketed, black T-shirted Kiwi rock god. But that's frontmen for you. Always out to entertain.

Next to him is Milan Borich of Pluto, the Auckland art-pop/rock outfit whose debut album of last year Red Light Syndrome was hailed as a work of oddball genius. He's 28, angular, gangly, quick-witted and, you get the feeling, well-read - the sort of guy for whom being in a band was possibly not his only creative outlet, just the one he chose. He orders the vegetarian soup.

Then there's Damian Alexander of Blindspott. The young West Auckland rap-metal group's first singles - like the current S. U. I. T. - have made them the hottest hard-rock prospects in the country as they approach the release of their debut album. The songs also have Alexander pegged as the angriest young man in New Zealand rock. In Blindspott's videos he wears those scary contact lenses and hoods, on record he screams like his larynx has no tomorrow.

Today, he sports a black head wrap, a few days' growth on his face, a solid chain around his neck and a black T-shirt. He's slightly annoyed when he finds the venue doesn't serve common or garden brands of beer, but he makes do with that foreign muck. He may look a tough, blue-collar customer, but he's thoroughly easygoing.

And lastly is our quietly spoken but loud-haired hip-hop representative Donald McNulty of Nesian Mystik.

The New Zealand-born, ethnic Tongan MC doesn't drink and, at 18, is the youngest here. On this day the band's single It's On is sitting at number two in the national charts.

The band, which started at Auckland's Western Springs college - the breeding ground of Supergroove and Che-Fu - and was originally called "Tropical Penguins" has graduated from success in the smokefreerockquest high-school band competition.

At that night's New Zealand Music Awards dinner, the highly recognisable McNulty and the rest of Nesian Mystik crew spend a lot of their time signing autographs for the young ballroom waiting staff. Like Blindspott, it feels like Nesian Mystik are on the cusp of something big.

So let the discussion begin.

Herald: What were the New Zealand acts that inspired you to form a band?

Alexander: Supergroove, Head Like a Hole and Shihad. Probably more Supergroove. They were wicked, man. [Expletive] knows why they broke up - they were amazing

Toogood: I know why they broke up but let's not go into it.

Alexander: They were just inspiring, just hardcore New Zealand music. Just wicked.

McNulty: Mine was Supergroove, Dam Native

Toogood: I used to play cricket with Dam Native. Me and Danny. We were like best mates all through primary school and the next thing I knew I was in a rock band, and he's Dam Native.

Weird eh? But he's good eh? A good opening bowler, too. He was in the Wellington rep team. I was the captain and he was my weapon.

McNulty: And Che-Fu. When Chains came out that was a huge moment. And how it stayed in number one for ... ever.

Borich: Probably Split Enz. I didn't really listen to much Kiwi music because I didn't really know it existed when I was young. And Dragon were pretty wicked - and they were pretty much the Real McCoy I thought. Ponsonby was kind of a low-riding hell at the time. Junkie central.

Toogood: I had an interview with Peter Urlich this morning and now he is on George FM listening to Gay house music. [laughter]. Th'Dudes were amazing, they were like the New Zealand Rolling Stones.

Borich: Th'Dudes were cool.

Toogood: And just great songs. We were brought up on what was around at the time. I didn't consider Split Enz to be, like, a "New Zealand band".

Alexander: That's the good thing about being young as well - you don't differentiate.

Toogood: You don't go "I can't listen to this because it's going to be New Zealand shit". I did that with Flying Nun music when I was young. I thought all they are talking about is going down to the dairy and getting a bottle of milk and then I found out later there were bands like the Skeptics and Bailterspace and the Gordons.

Alexander and Borich together: And the Straitjacket Fits.

Toogood: But that wasn't music that was in your face, it was music that you had to discover. I didn't discover that until way later until I was into Slayer and stuff like that. I was thinking good rock'n'roll must only come out of America and Britain, but it's so not the case.

Herald: You're all in diverse bands. Does it worry you all get lumped under the banner "New Zealand music" and is it really worth having a New Zealand Music Month?

Toogood: I think it is, without a doubt.

Alexander: I think everyone should celebrate New Zealand music. For argument's sake, the people who have succeeded - Pacifier, Crowded House - they are the inspiration for the ones at home going, "Aw, I want to start a band, I'm a good guitarist but ... ". The way I see it is we should be celebrating those guys who have done it. They are inspiration for the next generation of musicians.

Toogood: I think it's good to focus the attention on New Zealand music so all of a sudden people who don't really think about it that much can go, "This is what I've got to choose", just to show them the options of what is out there.

Borich: I don't think we all sit around and wait for New Zealand music month to come along - I actually had no idea it was - but it's really really positive.

Herald: Given that it's usually ages before New Zealand acts see any tangible reward for their efforts, and that three of your groups [Pacifier, Nesian Mystik and Blindspott] hark back to your school days, how do you keep bands going for so long?

Toogood: It's got to be a family and you've also got to be prepared to live in a small space

Alexander: You're going to spend a lot of time together, eh.

Toogood: Yeah we know each other's faults and everything like brothers. Once you have learned those and you can accept it and you still love the person, that is what fuels the music ultimately.

What makes a band is the chemistry between all the people and there's been times when all the people in my band have wanted to kill each other, smash each other's faces in and grind them into the dirt, drill little holes in their kneecaps and pour salt in it and throw lighter fluid on them - but you come through that. And ultimately that is what makes a band special. You grow with each other.

Alexander: With us we are all focused on where we want to go. We all get on really well, we are all really good mates and we all come from the same neighbourhood really. All of us have got one goal, that is to succeed at what we were doing and for our love of music.

McNulty: In our group we are all individuals but we are all going in the same direction and we are all going together. So that is what keeps us together. We've been together since third form, we started jamming in music class and there were four singers and there were two guitarists and some of us figured we could rap, so we started rapping.

Borich: I guess we were all pretty much seduced by the music and seduction is the killer of all men's souls. But it's just the drive to do something that is timeless and that will be enjoyed when it's listened to again in years to come. That is our total goal - to seduce the future.

Herald: For those of you who haven't been recording your fifth album in LA, is it possible at this early stage in your career and this far away from the rest of the world to have an international focus?

McNulty: I want to take our music international to show that we have hip-hop down here and it doesn't have to be about the drugs, the sex, the cussing and everything, because we have like a positive kind of hip-hop.

Alexander: In New Zealand you can only tour so much before people are going to get sick of you.

Borich: We want to go overseas, but we first want to conquer this country - conquer is the wrong word - but we don't think we've reached as many people as we should have and we are still moving and hopefully we'll be moving somewhere else.

Herald: So what makes a good New Zealand band?

Alexander: Er, New Zealanders.

Borich: Determination. And honesty is another one.

Toogood: Love of music and also just to be able to be in a band over here and be up against the odds you're up against to actually make a living, which is pretty much the biggest in any country. And you still want to do it after that? Then it's got to be worth something, dude.

* Pacifier, Pluto, Blindspott and Nesian Mystik, among others, play the True Colours All-ages Extravaganza concert at the St James on Saturday June 1.