On yer bike

Auckland band Steriogram have a lot to be proud of. Excellent mullets. Great punk pop and white-boy hip-hop. And a huge five-album deal in America. REBECCA BARRY reports


You don't get pies in America. Or V. It's only 10.30am but three members of Steriogram are getting stuck into both at their label's Auckland HQ. Soon the head honcho's office will reek of mince, a friendly reminder the boys are back in town.

Not that anyone needs reminding. Steriogram's rock'n'roll fairytale - getting a record deal in the most brutal music market in the world - has become as legendary as the Datsuns'.

"It was funny," says peppy guitarist Tim Youngson. "We were at the Capitol offices in LA and this guy I didn't recognise was chatting away to us and I was like, 'Oh, so, what do you do?' And he was like, 'I'm the president of the company'. I think they all think of us as the loud, crazy Kiwis over there."

Since signing the biggest international record deal in New Zealand music history, Steriogram have recorded a debut album with Paul McCartney's producer, played countless gigs and festivals across the United States and filmed an interview with MTV. Soon they're off to Japan before heading back to the States where Schmack! will be released next month. Yet the magnitude of all this doesn't seem to faze the band, who are following the laboured footsteps of experienced Kiwis Pacifier and Zed, both of whom had record deals here first. Steriogram didn't.

"It's really cool," enthuses Youngson. "We'll play a show and some of the people who've seen us will drive, like, 350km to see us again."

"The whole live scene over there is different, it's huge," adds vocalist/guitarist Brad Carter. "Everyone wants to see bands and they're really pumped by the time they get to the gigs. And in America people are really taken aback like, 'This is different, this is new,' 'coz there's a lot of angry-at-their-mum kind of bands, whereas we don't have anything realistically to get angry about."

"I love my mum," says Youngson. He gives her a birthday card wishing her a happy 21st every year.

You'd have to be a heavy-hearted cynic not to warm to their fun mix of punk-fused pop and white-boy hip-hop. They treat rock'n'roll with an ample dose of humour, penning songs about their puny figures (Fat and Proud), good-looking female flatmates (Schmack!) and their appreciation of mulleted Westie-dom (White Trash). Kennedy also sports a 'do to rival Kid Rock.

"In America there are sooo many rednecks," he says. "There are heaps of mullets and they really like that song."

While the lyrics don't take themselves too seriously, their record label does, investing more than $500,000 in their brilliant music video for second single Walkie Talkie Man, for which the band are moving knitted caricatures.

Steriogram can thank the internet and New Zealand's burgeoning music industry for their success so far.

Two years ago independent LA-based A&R manager Joe Berman, impressed by Kiwi breakthrough bands the Datsuns and the D4, was surfing for information on New Zealand music and found their online video for White Trash.

Sensing the next big thing was at his fingertips, he emailed the band immediately and asked them to send him some demos. The band were initially dubious but within weeks he'd generated interest from several quarters, including Madonna's Maverick label, and eventually the senior staff of Capitol Records, an offshoot of EMI.

Three days after the president of Capitol heard them, Steriogram had signed a seven-figure, five-album record deal without even leaving the country.

'We went through a lot of crap, a lot of good things and bad things before we got signed," says Carter. "And when we got to LA we were standing at the top of Capitol Records and it was like, I never cried or anything but it was like an emotional feeling inside. You know that feeling? You feel like, at least we're here now."

They've since been mistaken for Norwegians, Scots, Dutch and occasionally Louisiana natives, despite making a point of their heritage, introducing themselves at every show as a band from New Zealand. Even the knitted guitar on the cover of their album has their country's name sewn into it - and like Lord of the Rings, they're finding fans attracted to their underdog story as much as their music.

Steriogram formed five years ago when Carter and his childhood friend bass player Jake Adams moved from Whangarei to Auckland to hook up with Kennedy (originally a drummer) and Youngson. They started playing pub gigs and released two singles. White Trash did particularly well on radio ,and with Kennedy's frantic rapping over the top, they decided to move him to the mic permanently and bring in drummer Jared Wrennall.

But they soon grew tired of playing to small crowds in small venues and set out on a 17-week tour of high schools throughout the country to build up a profile.

"We weren't the best musicians," says Youngson. "And we thought we were funny. But New Zealand was the best training ground we could have asked for."

Now they've got a full-blown routine to survive their claustrophobic tour by van in the States.

"You travel, do the show, then you go to bed, travel through the night again and then you get a free breakfast when you get to your motel," says Kennedy.

"The thing is they're really for the businessmen who've stayed there the night before," adds Carter. "Between 6.30 and 9.30 breakfast is free. But we can't get up at 9.30, it's just not possible. So when we arrive we actually take a lot more than we're supposed to and put it in our hotel room and eat it later. We thought at every hotel we'd sign a petition for a band breakfast at like 1.30 in the afternoon. It's a weird lifestyle."

They're also getting used to Kiwis questioning their loyalty.

"We always thought that America would be more into what we do and our sort of style, but New Zealand definitely gets it but just because of the dynamic of the country it's so hard to really make a living by putting out an album," says Kennedy.

Youngson: "You'd be stupid to turn down something like this."

"All my favourite bands come from America," says Carter, who grew up with aspirations to become the next Bon Jovi. "It's exciting. People told us we couldn't do it and they said it just doesn't happen and that's cool, but I think there's two kinds of people in New Zealand. There's, like, [Sir] Peter Blake who's like, 'Nothing's impossible', and there's the Datsuns, who went off to Austin, Texas, off their own bat and did that South by Southwest [music trade fair]. Like I mean, seriously, I remember listening to the Datsuns doing a five bands for five bucks y'know, and they didn't pull many people, but they went out and did it and that kind of inspired all of us. We got a lucky break, but at the same time we were ready for that opportunity because of all the cool things we'd done in New Zealand."

* Schmack! by Steriogram is out now.