Music the bond of brotherly love

Donald Reid says the songwriting pedigree runs deep in his clan.

Donald Reid is more than happy to talk about his brother James - front man for Kiwi rockers, the feelers. And Donald, a singer-songwriter in his own right, will tell it to you straight.

"The difference between James and I is that I've put my name to my music, while he's still hiding behind the band," he smirks.

He's only half joking. Yet despite this subtle, but cutting comment, they are best mates.

Insists the older brother: "I wouldn't want to think that my music was all about me following James. That would be boring."

In the past month, Reid has been on tour around New Zealand with Carly Binding promoting his debut album, In A Taxi Home, which was released in April. His final two shows are in Auckland next week, on Friday at the Classic in Queen St and Saturday at the Masonic in Devonport.

Over a couple of glasses of wine, he gets slightly defensive when asked if he felt he had to step out of his brother's shadow when the album came out. "If in fact I was in his shadow to start with," he says.

"But I don't honestly think people listen to the music and go, 'I'm only listening to this because I know James'.

"And my music flirts with different subject matter and it is approached differently. I try not to use the generic power chords in the choruses. If I did, that would be too obviously the same thing James is doing."

This reasoned response is fair enough because Donald has been writing songs for years, too. However, it's only recently that he's been doing it full time. In 2002 he was working in Melbourne doing a job he didn't like.

"I was on the 42nd floor of a building in the centre of town, turning up every day," he says gloomily. "I'd walk into this huge foyer, get into the elevator, and it was so false, and I hated it.

"I sat there, looking out the window thinking, 'I suppose this is a really good job if you wanted to do it'. But I was just acting."

Then, also in 2002, he attended the New Zealand Music Awards because his song, Communicate, was nominated for best single. Although he didn't win - Che Fu's Fade Away took the honour - the brief visit home inspired him to leave his job and play music.

"But it did take me at least six months to a year to get the courage to say to myself, 'I'm not carrying on doing this'. Whether I've made the right choice ... I don't know, but it's been a lot more fun and it's not an act."

In A Taxi Home has sold around 1500 copies. Reid smiles and says in terms of letting people know about the album he's still at the "educational stage". But he's looking overseas and believes there's a market for his music in countries like Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, and even places like the United Arab Emirates.

Reid is a singer-songwriter but he likes to think his songs are "a little bit stooden-on" which gives them a slightly raw edge.

The album moves from the rocky and bent All The Advice, to the obscure Suicidal Friend to the catchy single, You And Me My Friend, which is one of the most played local songs on radio.

The songwriting pedigree runs deep in the Reid clan.

"James was probably more of an exhibitionist than I was," says Donald. "He had that younger child thing going on.

"He'd be lying in a pile of leaves while everyone else was raking them. But musically, when we were growing up, we used to play quite a bit.

"You sort of have romantic visions of a musical family sitting round all Patridge Family-like, but it wasn't like that, a lot of it was just writing stupid songs and making stuff up at family parties.

"We really learned by osmosis. It's not as if you learn by lessons," he says.

As the pair grew older, playing music together was a way of catching up on what each other had been up to.

"It'd be like: a bottle of wine, a guitar on either side of the table, and, 'Right, I've got one'. We'd do that for about an hour, swapping songs and then we'd go and have something to eat and have a proper talk. It was quite a cool way of communicating ."

Now the pair still play music together and sometimes go away on songwriting trips. During one of these musical holidays in Thailand they went on a two-day Mekong [Thai whiskey] bender and the result was a bunch of vampire-themed songs.

The brothers plan to release a joint album in the future. "They're not songs that would work for me, and they certainly wouldn't work in the feelers but they're ones we could do together," Donald says.

It's great to see brothers playing nicely.

* Donald Reid, on tour with Carly Binding at Deluge, Whangarei, Aug 3; The Classic, Queen St, Aug 4; Masonic Tavern, Devonport, Aug 5