Mall's well that ends well

By MIKE HOULAHAN

It wasn't much of a day when singer Rob Innes released his first record, but he still remembers it fondly.

He was busking in a shopping centre while wife Sandra tried to sell records to passersby. "We sold four copies, standing out in the Ellerslie Shopping Centre on a rainy, bitterly cold day, and we were rapt," Innes recalls. "We thought, 'This is great, what a good start'."

It may sound inauspicious, but things had to start well for the couple who had - quite literally - put everything they had into making Innes a singing star.

It was a dream he'd flirted with before. In 1969 he entered the television talent quest Studio One, the NZ Idol of its day.

While his rendition of By The Time I Get To Phoenix did get him through to the final, Innes didn't win and by the mid 70s he had called time on his singing career, mainly due to his increasingly unsuccessful battle with stage-fright.

"In the earlier days when I started, the nerves got the better of me and I just had to back away," Innes says. "I would be physically sick before I went on stage to give a performance.

"Back then, people used to say, 'You don't look nervous, you don't sound nervous', but I would tie myself in knots.

"I think it is good for you to just be on edge though, otherwise you're not going to give your best. It makes you dig that little bit further into yourself to bring out the best performance."

Over the next 25 years, Innes worked a variety of jobs, including travelling salesman, farmer and meat inspector. His singing career was nothing more than an anecdote.

However, corporate life was taking its toll on Innes, and he decided to rekindle his musical ambitions.

"Sandra had said, 'Hey, this is going to kill you, so give it up and concentrate on your music'," Innes says.

From there it was a short but scary step into a recording studio to make This Time, and then on to Remuera Rd in the rain. "We made the first record and then Sandra was made redundant, so we were literally thrown in at the deep end and it was either sink or swim," Innes says.

"We decided, 'Well, enough people out there seem to be enjoying my music and my voice', so we took the bull by the horns.

"It was very scary. It was a bit of an unknown whether my genre of music would be accepted but there was demand for a second record, and we thought, 'Well, a few thousand people are enjoying the music so we may as well get stuck into it'."

Innes funded and released his debut album, and was to have many more successful sales days than the first-day foursome. In fact, he sold an impressive 4000 copies of This Time from the boot of his car, a number which made major label Virgin Music take notice.

While there are any number of other overseas tenors trying to capture the middle-of-the-road market, and the albums of the singers Innes covers - such as Louis Armstrong and Tony Bennett - are readily available, Innes and the record label were convinced he could be more than a cottage industry.

"We're still not there, by any means. This to me is just a platform for getting going, working harder, and taking my music to as many people who want to hear it," says Innes.

"I think Kiwi music has matured to the stage where New Zealanders do want to go out and buy albums by local artists."

With his re-interpretation of established standards, Innes has found a ready audience on some radio shows.

Innes was the most-requested artist on Newstalk ZB's Nostalgia programme last year, and he had widespread play on community radio stations.

"Singing in malls, I reckon, was probably the biggest confidence-builder because, boy, do you come across some really challenging situations in malls," he says.

"People come along and put their fingers in their ears or give you the thumbs down - especially the younger set - but gradually you get there.

"I figure if you can make it there you can make it anywhere."

On CD

* Who: Rob Innes

* What: You Were There

* When: Out now

- NZPA