Tahuna Breaks boys like to go with the flow

AUCKLAND'S Powerstation looks very different with the lights on.

Instead of hundreds of drinking and jumping fans, there are a few people standing around waiting for the sound check to start. It's a little more laid-back than usual ...

It's a few hours before the Tahuna Breaks show with support from DJ Chris Cox. The boys - Marty Greentree (vocals/guitar), Tim Gemmell (drums), Jonny McClean (sax/percussion), Tom Charleson (guitar), Adam Fuhr (keyboard), Tim Baker (trumpet/synths) and Nick Taylor (bass) - are relaxing in their jandals, snacking on crackers and joking around with each other.

Tahuna Breaks is a band without a genre. They name their influences as "old-school funk, roots reggae, a bit of dance like Groove Armada, motown and some blues". But not one of these really sums up Tahuna Breaks.

After forming in 2005, the band has undergone many changes, with the addition of new members and the loss of others.

They've become immensely popular, which can be put down to their persistence and delivery of many great shows around New Zealand.

When faced with the choice, touring or recording, Baker, with Greentree agreeing, says: "When you go to a place where you're kinda unknown and you're trying to win people over, if you can not only make an impression with the mic, but you can also give them something to listen to afterwards ... I think they're about equal."

"But I think if I had to choose, I'd say the ability to play live is probably more important."

Live shows are what made Tahuna Breaks so it isn't surprising they have their calendar full for the upcoming summer. Touring New Zealand is not all that's on their minds, however. The first reply to "what's next for the band?" was Baker's "Glastonbury" - to shrieks of laughter from the rest of them - before Greentree's response that "we're just gonna write some new tunes."

"We're going to take more of a measured kind of studio approach this time. Our last album, especially, we just got into the studio for a week with our songs from the road and just laid them down and that was it, y'know ... so we've done it the old-school way and now let's try it the other way ... "


The Kiwi way of going with the flow and chilling out is not only reflected in their uniform of shorts, t-shirts and jandals, but also their way of writing.

Taylor says: "The boys are happy to take a few days somewhere remote ... a writer's retreat."

Greentree reveals the workings behind the songs. "Some are just jams, people lay a riff and we just kind of sit on it, mull over it and play it over and over again."

Baker admits to always having had the dream of being a musician while Greentree wasn't certain it would work out. "When I first started I thought I was a bit of a joke, just doing it for free beers ... and then, you know, slowly you start to get a bit of positive feedback and you think, `oh well, maybe I should pick my game up a little bit, justify the praise'."

"Slowly you think, `shit, I'm pretty lucky so might as well give it a good shot'. And that's how it's kind of worked out."

There might still be a few free beers thrown into a show but Greentree, along with the rest of the band, is playing for the love of music.

"It's pretty awesome, it's pretty mean. You can't complain ... it's pretty buzzy being able to play for people and have people turn up. That just dominates everything else. We are pretty privileged, I don't know about glamorous, but we're pretty lucky."

Kate Thompson, Year 13, St Cuthbert's College