Grant Haua, right, and Michael Barker played music every day during their month-long residency Photo/ Jenn Ocken Photography
Grant Haua, right, and Michael Barker played music every day during their month-long residency Photo/ Jenn Ocken Photography
FOR the month of April Michael Barker and Tauranga-based singer songwriter Grant Haua were based in Beauregard Town, a historic district in Baton Rouge.
"We spent a whole month in a quaint house in Beauregard Town. It's an old part of Baton Rouge and from there we wenton trips down to New Orleans and Lafayette and to small satellite towns," Barker says.
Swamp Thing had been invited to the festival after they caught the attention of former Baton Rouge Arts Council president Eric Holowacz at a festival in Australia.
"I got an email . . . he saw us play at the Woodford Folk Festival and we got chatting and sort of stayed in touch. He was the CEO of Baton Rogue Arts Council when contacted and asked if we would be interested in being artists in residence for a month. "It is quite an accolade to be invited to the birthplace of blues music to meet and perform and collaborate with local artists."
Barker, a long-time member of the John Butler Trio and touring drummer with Kiwi legends Split Enz who now teaches drums locally, and Haua, who works as a roofing contractor, met through mutual friends, and formed Swamp Thing four-and-a-half years ago.
Since then they have released two albums and toured Australasia. Swamp Thing are working on their third album, which will have a strong Baton Rouge flavour, Barker says. "While we were in Baton Rouge, we recorded with a brass section there- as ousaphone [a brassinstrument] player, a couple of trombones and a trumpet and clarinet so one of the songs will feature some brass.
"The guys we met there, they live and breathe it, it's their thing so it was actually a cool opportunity to record a song inspired by music from down in that region." Diving into the rich music scene was not the only goal of the trip.
Swamp thing Photo/ Jenn Ocken Photography
"It's not just the music, it's also meeting people and developing friendships. "I was hoping to open a corridor, not just for my band, but to also find a way to invite artists from Baton Rogue in Louisiana to come out to the region so they can have the opportunity to experience what we do here and also for musicians and fans of music to experience first hand that style and that knowledge."
Barker is no stranger to the life of a travelling musician, but rated the experience highly. "Louisiana is a very particular part of America, they are, and I think they pride themselves on being, a little bit old-fashioned.
They are very hospitable people and courteous and kind. "I've done a lot of travel, but not like that where you are based for a month in one town and you get to know the place but also forming meaningful relationships with people, being able to share meals, stories, music, laughter and getting to know the place. So that was really important and a really special time for Grant and I and my wife and Grant's wife, so we got to have a great life experience as well as an artistic experience.
"It was certainly a beautiful experience being able to play with the musicians we jammed with there. There was Smokehouse Porter, they had fantastic names, and Roosevelt Jefferson. They are straight out of story books and they have lived there their whole lives and they're really good people. They just play with so much soul, and they're lovely dudes." Swamp Thing played every day, Barker says, either in pubs, clubs, cafes, festivals, lounge rooms or the recording studio. They also filmed a video clip for their song Boom Town.
"We made a video clip there, we met a filmmaker, it was something we had on our agenda that we would like to explore. We did a number of photo shoots. The video clip was a real coup for us because the guy who made our video clip had done a Harry Connick Jr video clip so he was a big league guy.
"We filmed a bunch of stuff sitting in the back of a pick-up truck. There were many contrasting backdrops."
Barker says a highlight of the trip was playing at Teddy's Juke Joint. "A juke joint was a name for a venue that's actually someone's house so like a house concert, and they were places that had a whole lot of connotations to them because they sprung up during prohibition. The place was an Aladdin's cave. It was a country house down an old driveway and you go in and it's just bizarre- it's like a totally blinged up lounge bar.
Swamp thing Photo/ Jenn Ocken Photography
There was a lot of history there. It stood out as being something quite archetypal about Louisiana." He says being able to stay in the area for a month helped he and Haua understand the French, Spanish, Creole and Cajun influences and history.
"The human spirit is prevalent in that music because the formation of that society was based on slavery, which is absolutely hideous, and that melting pot of cultural
influences that arrived in that area at the time of the formation of Louisiana was very diverse.
Out of that human suffering came something so beautiful, it's in all of the music that we do; it's in popular music and in all the rhythm and energy based music we play here in New Zealand, and in most of the developed world." The band's creative juices flowed freely. "I wrote a few songs over there. Often the genesis for songs comes in the strangest of places and in the strangest of ways and you start to recognise what they are.
There were quite a few moments where I felt quite inspired to do things. Being in a new place and hearing new music and eating new food and meeting new people and having conversations was really stimulating and through those experiences ideas spring." But coming home and sharing those experiences is equally as fulfilling, Barker says. "I feel fortunate to be in my home town,to be able to pass on what I know and live in a beautiful part of the world."
