Rocker now finds 'bliss' in quiet life

By REBECCA WALSH

Kiwi rocker Dave Dobbyn, the man who co-wrote one of New Zealand's most famous drinking anthems, hasn't touched the stuff for seven years.

Alcohol was once an "occupational hazard" for Dobbyn and he would regularly knock back a dozen beers or half a bottle of Scotch and then "behave like people who don't know how to behave".

He eliminated drink from his life after waking up one morning and realising it was the grog or his family.

"You fall in to this culture where you're playing in pubs to a room full of drunk people trying to forget their woes.

"To me there's something still noble about doing that, playing to them, having a good time. I think it's a great thing, but with it, I found out years later, comes a lot of responsibility."

Dobbyn says the life of a muso, going from gig to gig with your mates, living on virtually nothing, meant whenever anyone offered him a drink he would take it.

"When you're in a rock'n'roll band you drink like a fish on the road. It fills a gaping need for security."

He believes many New Zealanders still have an unhealthy attitude to alcohol, a hangover from the days of the 6 o'clock swill.

"There's this thing in our genes which says go to the pub, get really pissed and go home."

The 46-year-old doesn't regret his past - "I can't, I had a lot of fun" - but he never anticipated that Bliss, the song penned in the late 1970s in a Sydney bar for The Dudes, would be taken up as a de facto national drinking anthem.

"It was just a rebellious statement you make when you are that age, party up, party hard," he says. "It doesn't mean I have to pull Bliss off the record shelves and not let anyone play it again. That's bullshit. It's merely a document of what a young rock'n'roller was doing.

"It gets played at parties. Great. I hope they don't wake up at home with a hangover. I hope alcohol doesn't turn into a problem for them. [But] don't look at me and say I'm responsible for that behaviour. Look at the pushers not the users."

Dobbyn believes the beer barons and liquor companies need to be more responsible in the way they promote their products.

Although Dobbyn won't be touring this summer, he relishes taking his next album on the road to bars and pubs. "I'm happy for people to drink. I buy my wife a drink. I just don't drink myself because I can't."

Lyrical bliss

Words from the song written by Dave Dobbyn and Ian Morris:

Yaaaaaah ya ya ya ya

Ya ya ya ya

Yaaaaaah ya ya ya ya

Ya ya ya ya

Drink yourself more bliss

Forget about the last one

Get yourself another

Drink yourself more bliss

Forget about the last one

Get yourself another

Drink yourself more bliss