Pacifier are live and kicking

By GRAHAM REID

Jon Toogood of Pacifier - aka The Artists Formerly Known As Shihad - is having a break from life on the road in America. He's back home with his fiancee's family in Wellington.

It's a welcome, if somewhat unplanned, hiatus and Toogood is enjoying these few weeks off while guitarist Phil Knight is in Vancouver and drummer Tom Larkin and bassist Karl Kippenberger are in Melbourne. His return coincides with the reissue of last year's Pacifier album with a bonus disc of live acoustic tracks.

But the reason for the downtime is because their tour of the States ground to a halt in Las Vegas where the band they were opening for - the unfortunately named Stereomud ("nice guys but pretty heavy metal") - ran out of puff.

"We could have gone to LA and played the Whiskey-A-Go-Go by ourselves, but we opted for going to see friends in El Paso. And having a much better time," laughs Toogood.

They would then have sat around in LA for a few weeks, but the idea of going their separate ways appealed because they had been playing five or six nights a week for the past four months.

From this distance it might seem Pacifier are starting to crack the US at last: the single Bulletproof went to number 21 on the rock radio charts, their Pacifier album was produced by Josh Abraham (the Staind album he did went to No 1 recently), and they have been touring relentlessly making a name for themselves.

After 13 years in rock'n'roll, however, Toogood is a realist. They are actually starting from the bottom again for the fourth time. First was here as the high school kids coming from left-field in Wellington; second when they moved to Australia; third when they went to the States as Shihad; and now back down there relaunching themselves as Pacifier.

"It's exactly the same as our move to Melbourne. But while everyone hears about The General Electric going platinum, they don't hear about the two and a-half years we toured our arses off and played with the Pantera covers band at Wagga Wagga University. And America is bigger than Australia.

"I was watching Give It A Whirl the other night and listening to Th' Dudes talking about how they made it to the top in New Zealand, then went to Australia and gave it a go for three months. We went to Australia for three years and then started seeing results. It was hard work, but to be honest the shows started becoming electrifying once we stopped caring and just did it.

"Now we've got that thing back which we hadn't had for a long time, which was being able to walk into any situation and just turn it on. That only comes from four months of six shows a week, and I've actually missed that."

Toogood says being in LA recording Pacifier turned their whole ethic upside down. "We did a studio-based record, we changed our name, and didn't play live for over half a year.

"We lived in LA for eight months, but didn't really play that often. We spent the time in the studio, and for a band which won most of its fans by playing live it was pretty alien. We didn't do what we usually do."

He admits, too, that in the States the name Shihad didn't mean that much, so while we in New Zealand might have been attached to it, to drop it after September 11 because of the unfortunate connotations wasn't such a big deal for them, especially when they looked at the alternative.

"It's thrown people, and thrown us too. Maybe we would have got more bad publicity for being called the Holy War Against America, and got more press. But we didn't want people to be talking about that even though I know how the industry works - an angle is an angle, blah blah.

"But this music is probably some of the more uplifting and positive we've done, so I didn't want it to be overshadowed by us being called the Holy War Against America."

Toogood says being in America has been an oddly inspiring experience. He has mixed feelings about America and the war in Iraq, yet they were also taken in by people who showed them a great deal of respect and love.

"Now I've got more music in my head than I've had for years just because of being there at that time. So I've come back here and am supposed to be having family time, which I am doing, but almost subconsciously booked a studio and have been writing songs.

"I'm thrilled I'm doing it without people telling me to, because the last three or four years there's been a lot of outside influences saying we had to write songs or do this or that. You think about it too much and wonder what you are doing this for."

He acknowledges there were also mixed feelings about Abraham producing Pacifier and he wasn't his first choice of a producer because they weren't from the Linkin Park/Limp Bizkit end of the rock spectrum where he seemed comfortable.

"I was extremely cautious, but after talking to him it was clear he wanted to break out, and whether we succeeded or failed there are definitely songs on there like Run which I love, which could only be written by this band. And he did give us the space in a studio in LA to actually make that music. He got behind us.

"In hindsight, there are things I would have done differently - as there are on every record we've done. But every one is a learning curve."

Financially, the band is healthy. The publishing they sold for four albums has reverted to them, and by having a body of work built up over 13 years there are people interested in them. Having Bulletproof on rock radio certainly helped.

But they've learned too about touring life in the US: too many dates across a vast country means you get no chance to build a following, as they did when they stayed in Melbourne. When they get back together they'll be thinking about where to base themselves - he's keen on Portland, "which is like Wellington, there's waves and hills" - because none of them could live in LA, which he considers a soulless vacuum.

"It's important to make a place home. Los Angeles is not home."

The place which will always consider them a hometown band regardless of where they locate themselves should be in for a treat soon, however.

"I think we've got five shows in Australia and six or seven through New Zealand in late August, and we'll use them as an opportunity to play new music and some songs we've never played live off the older records, and do something different," he says with enthusiasm.

Pacifier have taken some knocks recently - not the least by local reviewers for the Americanisation of their sound on Pacifier - but Toogood is in excellent spirits. But ever the realist.

"It's hard work, we went through America and had some good times, had some bad times, and I think we've now got a clearer idea of what we want this band to do. We've made some mistakes, but we've learned along the way and now this band is going to make a powerful, ballistic rock record - and I'm absolutely excited about that.

"Sometimes it takes a kick in the teeth to do that, and that's basically where we're at right now."