SMOKIN' IN THE BOYS ROOM

Rip It Up, Issue 156, 1 July 1990, Page 10

SMOKIN' IN THE BOYS ROOM

Darren Watson Interview

Formed in Wellington in mid-1986, Smokeshop have earned their reputation as New Zealand’s number one blues band. They have toured the

country regularly and extensively with a show that has all the class and panache of a BB King revue.

There’s a high powered horn section, some of the

hottest thythm players in the country and, fronting the thole»thing, Darren Watson who, at 23, sings

and plays the blues with a skill and conviction that is more than impressive. It's scary. |

In late ‘BB they took three days out to record their first album, a strong set of new and old blues songs, mainly favourites from the band’s live repetoire. It was a fine debut, although it received criticism forits lack of original songs and the predominance of 12 bar shuffles. Their new album should appease those critics. Recorded in Marmalade overtendaysin January So Glad shows that an enormous amount of growth and maturing has taken place. As if to emphasise the changes, they have dropped the Chicago from the front of their name. , Chicago is, of course, known as the Home of the Blues, giving birth to the Chess sound in the 50s and housing the Alligator label today. Darren Watson believes it no longer gives an accurate indication of the band's style. “It was relevant when we started and we needed something to say we played blues,” he explains, “but people basically made the name change by themselves. We got called Smokeshop by most people.

Also, people in Australia and the States liked the band but couldn't handle the name, they couldn't picture it.” Nine of the new album’s ten tracks are originals and while they are filled with the feeling of the blues, they stretch well beyond the 12-bar format to show the influence of Stax soul, New Orleans funk, gospel and singer-songwriters like John Hiatt and Lyle Lovett. : Asked if he's pleased with it, Darren Watson gives an affirmative "yep”, followed by a self-effacing laugh. He needn't be bashful; the album’s of an international standard with excellent playing and arrangements centred around Darren’s fine songs, singing and firey guitar style. “| think it sounds more like | want Smokeshop to sound like than what we have sounded like,” he says, “the last album was already out of date - before it came out. This one's a lot more contemporary. A lot of the songs we're only learning to play live now. l's @ much more serious record and | hope it gets taken that

way.” : So Glad clearly has a more personal significance to Darren as well. “The album’s definitely got a theme fo it. If's all about one particular relationship. You could actualiy list the songs out in the way things happened, but we didn't. We didn't want an opera!”

The songs were written on and off the road over the past eighteen months. Some have ended up close to Darren’s original conception, while others have been drastically rearranged by the rest of the band. “| remember when | wrote Truth In My Life’ at the bottom of the page (I actually wrote it at 3 o'clock in the

morning!). | wrote “piano, guitar, - bass, gospel choir”. That's what | originally intended and that's what it came out like, only we couldn't afford a gospel choir.” : But “| Can't Live”, the album’s - bright, punchy, Stax-like single, ; began life as a country song. “Richard Te One basically came up with a feel that works. Things gradually evolve as you play with him. He's a great drummer. ‘Patient Little Boy' was going to be a straight blues. First Richard decided to shuffle it, because Richard wantstoturn =~ everything into a shuffle. Then Alan Norman (guest piano man onthe album) said “I'li play you my famous lick, see if it will sit.” The result? A wonderful New Orleans-style boogie that would suit Little Feat or Dr John. Darren is prepared for the crificism that, even in their original songwriting, Smokeshop are strongly derivative of American music. He ~ believes that his use of an R&B format makes his work no less valid than that of other Kiwi songwriters. “Sure, it's American music in lots of ways, but it's also Kiwi music because we wrote it and it's about things that happened to me. | listen to the so-called Dunedin sound and | think these guys are doing something that's unique in some ways but a lot

of it's taken from the Velvet : Underground, a lot of 60s English music, early Pink Floyd. Everyone's got their influences. It just seems that if you're playing R&B in this country you're more likely to have someone breathing down your neck saying “You've got to be an American, a Kiwi can't do it” or something.” Why the prejudice? i “I think a lot of that is due to the fact that people perceive R&B as something that's easy to play. You know, 12 bars, three chords, how hard can it be? People say it to me all the time. We know it's not that easy.” : In August Smokeshop are touring a new live show in which they showcase most of the material on So Glad. While they still guarantee a big dose of the blues, there is much more to the current set than straight 12-bars. How are the ‘Madison Blues’ hoons coping with the newer, subtler materiale “We might be losing a few of the diehards, but by the same token we're gaining a new audience. Now people who would go out and see a normal contemporary rock band will think about coming to see us. People are listening to us a lot more now that we're doing someting of our own.” ;

NICK BOLLINGER

conflicted with his notion of the New Zealand sound. Which, as we all know, is the Dunedin sound. That'sallin the past now. Headless Chickens have been working on songs for a new album and a more switched-on overseas distribution deal. And evidently somebody out there managed to get hold of some oftheirvinyl. Recently New York's Village Voice phoned RIU asking for photographs, while

American Rolling Stoneincluded the Headless Chickens in their list of “hot” New Zealand bands (“spunky

combos with steely guitars, warped pop charms and exotic monikers”).

Butthe Headless Chickens do want to go overseas and make some money and find some fame. They've sort of got nothing more to play here (they don't want to die of ;

overexposure). And as makers of dark, electronically induced dance music, they have less than zeroin common with the mass of local jangly guitar bands. “There's always been a

competitive thing,” says Grant, in

response to my question about Dunedinish bands versusthe Headless Chickens, “I think the main thingis the fact that electronic equipment s quite a big part of our music. That's actually very normal around the rest of the world but here we get people who just don't like us and can't accept that we use that sort of equipment. They see it as an easy way out of making music. : “l go and see so many guitar bands now and | know what they're doing is really easy. So many bands that geta long way aren't particularly talented. If's just so easy to sit down with a guitarand muck around with different guitar lines, it's an easy way ofwritingsongs.” Butthe really dramatic, swirling chunks of your songs are on a floppy disc and you guys just add the rhythm and guitaricing. It can'tbe so safisfyingtoplay. - :

Grant: “Ifinditalotmore satisfying. As a band we're much more into continually finding new ground and the way fo do that, aside from writing really good pop songs like the Chills, is to go info technology. lf's really hard for a lot of people to appreciate that rehashing something or picking up someone else’s samples and then re-working themis a worthwhile thing. But Michael will find old records, really weird things like Steve Allen’s 1974 Commonwealth Games record and sample something out of that. To me it's far more interesting to look for those little things and try to do something with creative technology.”

So the Headless Chickens are heeding the siren call of England and America. Butlong term removal could be tricky because these Chickenstravelin a pack. “We've basically got eight people, with Justin our lighting guy and Rex, who's alsoin NRA" explains Chris Matthews, who has just breezed in from Grey Lynn. And of course Bevin also drums for NRA and Anthony, the Chickens keyboardist, does their sound. |

Grantadds that there are other considerations. “Anthony and Angus (who's our monitor person so he's sort of like the ninth member) have just set

upa 161 rack studio in Symonds Street called Incubator. That's one of the reasons we haven't played much—we've been working on that for three months.” - They've also been working on the soundtrack for a shortfilm called Postscriptby Peter Tait, the actor who playsthe unhappy gas crankerinthe ‘Gaskrankenstation’ video (and by the way, that was Bevin up there on thestilts). ‘

Chris: “We wantto do more soundtrack work. If's a neat thing to do, I reckon. It's interesting how hard itistrying to write a piece of music that will fit what's going on the screen.” ' “We're all been busy thinking aboutthe band even though we haven'tbeen playing live. We're always writing, it's a constant thing,” adds Grant. 2y

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