The Black Seeds will be in the middle of their summer tour by the time they hit Whanganui's Sound Valley festival in February. Photo / Will Moore
The Black Seeds will be in the middle of their summer tour by the time they hit Whanganui's Sound Valley festival in February. Photo / Will Moore
Over the past two decades, Wellington roots heroes The Black Seeds have become part of New Zealand's musical DNA. Their mix of reggae, dub, soul, and funk soundtracks Aotearoa's summer months, and they have a firm fan base both at home and abroad, writes Mike Tweed.
A new Black Seedsalbum is set for release in 2021, but with any overseas touring plans off the table for the foreseeable future, what's the next best thing to an international tour?
A stop in Whanganui of course.
The band will play at the inaugural Sound Valley Festival at Cook's Gardens in February, and guitarist and singer Barnaby Weir said he couldn't wait to bring the eight-piece back to the River City.
"Whanganui's a great place to visit, and it has this really cool, arty centre to it," Weir said.
"We've played there a handful of times over the years. The first time was at a friend's bar on the main street in around 2000 I think, then we played at the old Whanganui Polytech. After that it was as part of a big street festival, and much later on we played on a stage in the centre of town.
'We're really looking forward to coming back, for sure."
A new single, Raised with Love, was released last month, with a new album set to drop in 2021.
Weir said it was good "to get the ball rolling again".
"It always feels good to exercise our musical limbs, and getting things that you're happy with finished is what it's all about. You share it with the world and hopefully people like it.
"Raised with Love is a very Black Seeds sounding song - analogue reggae from New Zealand. We're not trying to stray or over-experiment too much. We've established our own sound, and I think we can do that without repeating ourselves.
"We have to respect the history of the band, and this isn't really the platform to start doing really freaky noise art, you know?"
Barnaby Weir (fourth from left) says he and the rest of The Black Seeds are "pumped" to be returning to Whanganui. Photo / David James
New Zealand had been saturated by the "Kiwi dub sound" over the last few years, Weir said, but the Black Seeds was "something different from that".
"There are lots of bands out there doing well, and, that's awesome, people love it.
"I think we're a little bit more real, and a little bit more vintage. To younger ears it might sound really old school, but to us it's just the sensibility of style and tone, and things that we like.
"As long as you're a band still making things you like, that's the key. We might do the odd edit for radio, but we're not out there to change our feels and put out things we're not proud of."
Weir said before the band released Fabric, their sixth album, in 2017, they spent a period of time relearning their older songs, to make sure they were playing them "correctly".
"After a while you can get a bit lazy and just go 'Nah, we'll play it like this', when actually, it doesn't go like that. It's about respecting the songs and playing them as people know them. That's quite important for crowd satisfaction I think.
"I saw Bruce Springsteen in 2013 and he played the whole Born in the USA album, just as it is. It was really satisfying as a listener, and you don't want to try and change the keyboard tones to something a bit more snazzy.
"On the flipside of that, I saw Al Green once, and he played a really 'Vegas' version of Love and Happiness, which is one of my favourite songs. I was just like 'No, you've crucified it'".
The Black Seeds' summer touring plans looked pretty similar to other years, Weir said, despite the impacts of Covid-19.
"We'll play anywhere, really. We love playing smaller shows, bigger shows, whatever. New Zealand has a wealth of new festivals, and Sound Valley is one of them. I really hope that its first year goes well and it continues on into the future.
"The line-up (of Sound Valley) is really strong, and we'll be in the middle of our summer tour so we'll be sounding good."
Weir said people were "digesting music in a different way" to how they were 10 or 20 years ago, but he still enjoyed writing and recording "whole albums".
"I still believe in a band putting out a bunch of work and calling it an album, to show where they're at. To me, it's kind of like a current exhibition. It's still important, and me personally, I still buy vinyls.
"An album is still a great way of putting songs into a context. You lose that if you just release one song at a time.
"I know that's the modern way of doing things, and we're not fighting that, but it's always good to have a solid body of work, whether that's a long EP or a short album.
"A 35-minute album is probably perfect for people right now."
Before the release of their album Fabric in 2017, the band spent a period of time relearning older songs, to make sure they were playing them "correctly". Photo / Reef Reid
While it was "sad" to see the physical sales of releases decline in recent years, Weir said the Black Seeds had stayed strong in their "determination to be a band".
"The live thing becomes a much bigger part of your income, and of course that's impacted when there's a virus out there that's trying to kill you. You just have to adapt, don't you?"
Weir said by the time the Black Seeds hit Sound Valley they would be operating at full capacity, with at least one new song to showcase.
"It feels great when you've done a few gigs in a row and you're thinking in each other's heads. It's like this organic machine, and you're hitting all the right things without having to think about it.
"We're really pumped to be in Whanganui. That line-up is going to make for a great night, and we're stoked to be a part of it."
The Black Seeds will be joining Kora, Ladi 6, Tiki Taane, Kings, Krisy Erin, Ria Hall, JessB, and The Nudge at Sound Valley Festival at Cook's Gardens on February 20, 2021.
