HIGHWAY TO HELLRIEGEL

Rip It Up, Issue 182, 1 September 1992, Page 18

HIGHWAY TO HELLRIEGEL

Jan Hellriesel breezes into the WEA boardroom, pet dog in tow. Hair pulled back from her face, dressed in a baggy T-shirt, she says hi and throws herself unceremoniously into a swivel chair. She may be WEA's sole local singer-songwriter signing, but Jan just sees herself as "part of the furniture", having spent the last few weeks slitting CDs, helping the promo people and organising her tour. Offered an array of liquid refreshments, I ask meekly for an orange juice. Jan plumps for a beer. 'Westy gal' spirit indeed'.

That's a reference to the last track on her debut album It's My Sin, an ode to her teenage years growing up in Auckland's wild western suburbs where her father has a panel beating shop. This doesn't make Jan a panel beater (contrary to media myth), although she has done her share of accounts. Jan's a Ponsonby girl now, working part time in a local restaurant, writing songs about Richmond Road, waiting for her album (recorded in a matter of weeks over Christmas) to see the light of day.

Now the critics are in raiptures over It's My Sin, her Saturday night show at the Gluepot was a sell out and the word from WEA's other territories is positive. Australia, Germany and Europe are "excited". This is good news for Jan who, asked where she sees herself going with her music, replies:

"Travelling. That's the only motive at the moment. I can't wait to just hang out in some bars and see some different bands, see the different cultures so when I come back here I know exactly where I stand. It's so like a bottle here, a fishbowl, there's so many influences in this country it'll take a couple hundred years before we get our own culture sorted out."

Being a New Zealander and having a New Zealand edge to her music is a source of identity for Jan. Asked if she ever compares herself to other female singer-songwriters, she says "no point".. You're confident that what you have is unique enough to see you through? "Yeah, definitely. Because I come from New Zealand, for a start. I've never been anywhere else and I reckon New Zealanders are quite weird in that sense, that we live on this island in the South Pacific and we're so far away from the rest of the world. I'm not surprised we get so many creative people. That's enough to set me off. I'm sure I'll be different if I go over there, got me accent to begin with, just little things like that."

I don't want to destroy Jan's illusions here, but the thing that sets her apart is not her New Zealand accent but her haunting way with a hook, her smooth yet untranquil songs which are part sensual woman of the world, part keen young person who's never left her homeland. Melodies ebb and flow, dragging you along in that familiar female singer-songwriter rip-tide until all of a sudden you come up against an unexpected lyrical wedge. I mean, can you imagine Wilson Phillips singing about the nicotine stains forming on their teeth? Or using a word like "quagmire" in a love song?

"I just thought it was a descriptive word, I didn't think it was that bad," shrugs Jan.

It's hard to get a rise out of this 25 year old. When I suggest that her lyrics must be deeply felt, she replies: "Actually, I find lyrics really easy. I don't think about them much."

But there's a troubled air to your music. "I must have a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde thing going on. I like writing things like that. I have a pretty good time, but there's a lot of things that really trouble me that I ponder over and that comes out in the music. But I don't let it get me down. You've got to get through life the best way you can."

She does admit she writes more easily in an uneasy state of mind ("Ask anybody who writes songs — you go through life waiting for a crisis") adding that hers happen all the time, PMT every month for a start.

As for those lines in 'Wings of Steel' about having your ideas trashed and being a" wallking, talking Barbie doll", Jan says they're not about her, far from it.

"I think it's much more fun being a 90s woman, being yourself and exploring everything about it. I couldn't think of anything more dull than having to be a bimbo, it's much more fun having a personality." Except some women are bimbos to manipulate men for money. "Well, maybe they're smart. I'd prefer to be dependent on myself and not someone else. That's one of my biggest aims in life, to be totally dependent on myself first and never, ever to be dependent on anybody else. That's really important. Okay, so I wouldn't say no to money at the moment cos I'm dying to travel, dying to. Everyone's got their own ideas on how they want to live their life but I personally think it's much more fun doing it on your own and doing all those things that you want to do."

Are you enjoying a resurgence of independent spirit for some reason?

"No, I've always been independent. My parents have never known what to think of me. I've always liked to do things my way and I don't like getting told what to do, a free spirit. I think I would have thought about marriage and kids when I was about 12 but fortunately I went to varsity and one thing that university does give you is the opportunity to think about a few things. I never looked back, ever." Of course, while she was at Otago completing a BA in sociology and music, Jan and some female friends formed Cassandra's Ears, an "alternative" rock band that garnered quite a cult following before splitting up three years ago. Despite her all-woman band background, Jan's influences are genderless. Listening to It's My Sin there are echoes of Straitjacket Fits in the rise and fall dynamic of some of the songs, but not the oft-cited Chrissie Hynde. "Thank goodness! Not that I don't like her, but I think it's a bit easy to do that. I really like Nick Cave and how he presents himself. It's too easy to put me under being influenced by this woman. I listen to a lot more heavier stuff, guitar bands, I mostly listen to New Zealand music. I just like what I like — influences are everywhere." Jan's next project is some "weird experimental acoustic shit" for the B sides of forthcoming singles. As for solo outings, well, maybe. Those of us who came to see her do a solo set at the Boardwalk Bar a few months ago were startled to find that she'd left the stage after two songs — "shit scared" without her band on stage with her. "But that nervous thing's pretty good sometimes. I was really nervous before the Cure — like just about vomit nervous. I had to have a piss about 50 times. But no one said I looked nervous." That's probably because she looked good. Are WEA going to market her as a sex symbol? Will they try and turn her into our own Kylie Minogue? Jan laughs.

"Well, I can't actually see myself as Kylie. I've got a beer gut. And I don't see myself as a girl anyway. I see myself as a woman. I left girlhood at adolescence and I'm never going back. It's much more fun being a woman."

DONNA YUZWALK