Brent & Julie

Rip It Up, Issue 68, 1 March 1983, Page 6

Brent & Julie

Russell Brown

The first Kiwi Animal interview should never have happened. Brent Hayward suggested I meet him and Julie Cooper in the upstairs bar of the South Pacific Hotel. It was humid outside, but in the bar, near the kitchen was hellish. I began the interview with the best of intentions. Something, I don't know what, went very wrong. The right questions got incoherent answers: forced recourse to the wrong questions just made things worse. Brent and Julie contradicted each other, argued, all the while the gap between interviewer and subject widened. By mutual agreement, it was decided to try again, this time with just Brent, me and pen and paper. The Kiwi Animal began life as the Real Theatre in Blondie's Cafe in August last year. As the name has changed, so has the format. They have also performed as the Blue Green Browns. For about two years, Brent and Julie lived in a single room in central Auckland. From that room they worked on their own projects. He was Smelly Feet, she wrote and sang. It was only natural that they should eventually work together. They gathered all the bits and pieces of their past and present endeavours into an exhibition called Making the Monster' at Closet Artists Gallery. The monster had been formed and could now be dispensed with. The pair now live with others' in a house out of the city. The room remains for work and work stays at the room. But Brent still finds it a strain when their work intrudes on their personal lives. "I don't like to have to talk to other people all, the time about

what were doing. I find that boring." When it is time for work there is plenty. Neither is on the dole, Julie has a part-time job, Brent has two and then they have to be their own publishers, promoters; advertisers, booking agents, designers and record company. Last month the pair released a five song EP called Wartime on Brent and Julie Records. Brent is reluctant to talk about the recording and the process of getting the record out. That's not important. On stage, the Kiwi Animal sings, plays, talks to itself and to the audience. Most of the performances are scripted to begin with, but will change according to the mood of the audience, or the moods of the performers themselves. "It's a confrontation, but it's definitely also entertainment," Brent explains.

"We work hard when we play sometimes too hard. I can't think properly sometimes. Sometimes I just don't know how to communicate properly with my mouth." Pieces also change when Brent and Julie begin singing or reciting them at home, or on the street. The talk turns to the duo's (especially Brent's) apparent bitterness towards this country's rock musicians. A recent gig poster featured cartoons of band members talking among themselves, planning to steal the Kiwi Animal's idea of using costumes on stage, marvelling over how 'simple' the duo's act was, anyone could do it'. A good-guy figure (presumably Brent) takes the band to task, telling them there are too many people playing music, that they should clear out for someone with something to give.

Brent says the cartoons are based on actual incidents. "I like those guys, I just get pissed off with what they're doing. I've had this sympathetic attitude before and it doesn't work." Rather than openly confront the people involved, the two decided to incorporate their frustration into part of what they were doing the poster. Of course the pair's attitude runs both ways. Several people associated with mainstream bands wrote the Kiwi Animal off to me for "they can't even play in tune" type reasons. Blindness on both sides... The duo have also produced The Book and the Trees, a booklet containing two stories, one by each. In the future, Brent hopes that he and Julie will work together even more closely than before, but at the same time each retain their separate (and very distinct) identities. For Brent, success means simply being acknowledged for what he and Julie are doing. Their selfbelief is strong but: "You feel a bit loopy about it sometimes." A personal breakthrough came a few weeks ago for Brent. "I travel quite a lot, hitch-hike. When people pick me up they see my guitar arid ask me what sort of music I play. Blues? Country? Rock? And I always used to try and find some category to describe it. But now I don't have to. I just say I play- my own music and that's the first time I've been able to do that."