Listen: Merv Pinny - from dairy farmer to rock star

The Country Early Edition's Dom George caught up with former dairy farmer Merv Pinny for a chat about his new career as an award-winning rock musician with a message.

Kerikeri dairy farmer Merv Pinny has left the farm and turned to rock music. He's doing rather well in his new vocation winning Best Rock Song and Best Rock Video at the Akademia Music Awards at a gala event in Los Angeles in April.

Watch the official video below:

So how did this all come about? Merv posted his song OB Can you hear the children cry? on Facebook and it caught the attention of a Seattle DJ who nominated his tune for the awards.

After the nominations the song made it to the finals where it picked up the two awards. Merv has ended up with a lot of radio play not only in Seattle but all over America.

Pinny can play pretty much anything but his passion is rock and writing about world issues that he's "not happy about". OB Can you hear the children cry? is no exception, dealing with how war affects children. Merv says some people found the video for his song a bit confronting.

Merv made the change from one of Northland's biggest dairy farms to rock music to get his message out - he is pleasantly surprised with how far his message has travelled.

Listen to the full interview in the audio clip above.