Hard work paying off for Greg Johnson

Greg Johnson

Greg Johnson is wearing some very nice Prada aviators.

"You think these are cheap?" he says.

Nope.

"Exactly. I need to block out that logo."

Johnson is not the sort to flaunt his wealth or pose as a fashionista, but if there is ever a musician who deserves to wear Prada it's him.

Despite six albums (including a Best Of) that have sold well in New Zealand and earned him Tui awards and a Silver Scroll, he's been through "some pretty hard times, personally and business wise" trying to break into the notoriously difficult music scene in the United States, since 2002.

Now he's home to promote his new album, Anyone Can Say Goodbye, do a little sight-seeing with his American girlfriend and perform. Or as he puts it, "See my friends and family, have a pie, then bugger off back."

After a three-and-a-half-year slog abroad, things are paying off. Johnson is particularly proud that Save Yourself, the first single from his last album Here Comes the Caviar, spent several weeks in the Top 50 Triple A Chart in the US.

"It was pretty amazing. I looked down that chart, and all the other labels were Epic, Sony, Atlantic, Capitol. Then there was Johnson Music America, which is basically me and Michelle [Bakker, his manager], working out of our apartment. For the radio promotion our place looked like a post office. Michelle's daughter was posting stuff out like a child of slave labour. So that was an achievement."

He reckons part of the song's success is down to its lyrics, "First you save yourself, then you save the world," which resounded with an American public fearing for the men they were sending off to the war in Iraq. Averaging 400 spins a week, the song prompted an ebay user in Boston to sell Save Yourself bumper stickers, not to mention several calls from major labels. But no one knew what to do with him, he says.

Then new indie label Baria Records offered him a deal to release Here Comes the Caviar.

"It's exactly what we were hoping to get. It's a small label but it's got funding. We're concentrating on the US at this stage."

He's not kidding. The last three months Johnson estimates to have slept in his own bed 10 times - don't get the wrong idea, it's all about touring. Songs from Caviar seem to have found a niche on sexy US reality shows such as High School Reunion, MTV's Sports Illustrated and, appropriately for this romantic, the E Channel's Modern Girl's Guide to Life. Hopes are also high his songs will be included on the Grey's Anatomy and The O.C. soundtracks, and that music he's writing for an upcoming film and TV show will make the cut.

Adding to the workload is the fact that on the other side of the world, he's pushing Anyone Can Say Goodbye, another self-assured collection of breezy guitar and piano-fed pop songs, featuring first single Now the Sun is Out.

"I actually thought it was going to be difficult to come up with a different album to Caviar," he says. "We took a slightly different angle on this one."

Johnson hooked up with his long-time collaborator Ted Brown, recruited soul singers to sing back-up and beefed up production by adding strings.

But the sun isn't out for long as the songs delve into darker emotional territory.

"This is not the kind of fight you can win," he vents on Venom. And on New Car Smell: "Maybe I'm just no good."

"For a while there we were clinging on by the skin of our teeth, financially," he says. "Then I had a few problems with the ex-girlfriend, which always helps writing a few dark tunes. She turned out to be kind of crazy."

The word "goodbye" also comes up a lot.

"The older you get, the more you do say goodbye to people," he reasons. "I've had good friends who've passed away; it's something I guess we all have to come to terms with - the finite nature of life. But it's not to say it's all negative, either. The title track is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. I just got absolutely sick of hearing all those songs about, 'If you leave me I'm going to die, my life's over. If you break up with me I'll kill myself, I can't go on another minute, my heart will stop beating'. That's bullshit. People get over everything, eventually."

On opening track California's Fine, he's more upbeat about his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, where he lives in a cosy Santa Monica apartment with Bakker and girlfriend Kelly and a garden producing tomatoes he'll miss out on eating.

But Mountains, about "sitting in traffic, going claustrophobic and mad", hints at how much he misses New Zealand. For now though, Johnson is committed to staying put.

"If you're going to do it, you have to take a long-term view. I realised quite a few years ago that I'm never going to do anything else. We've been saying for a long time, 'This could be the record that breaks massively and puts us in private jets'. But if it just does as well as the others and keeps rolling along, that's good.

"We make a good living out of it. I'm always striving for the next thing but if it wasn't for all the airfares I'd be bloody well off."

Watch out Prada.

Who: Greg Johnson
Albums: Everyday Distortions (1992), Water Table (1993), Vine Street Stories (1993), Chinese Whispers, (1997), Seabreeze Motel, (2000) The Best Yet (Best-Of 2001), Here Comes the Caviar (2004), Anyone Can Say Goodbye (2006)
Playing: A seated, dinner gig at the Carlton Ballroom, Auckland, July 14