Safari So G00d...

Rip It Up, Issue 106, 1 May 1986, Page 10

Safari So G00d...

- Simon Alexander and Peter Solomon were once in the Grammar Boys. Now, they've both released EPs — Solomon under the name of the Rapture, Alexander with his new group Chrome Safari — which includes Solomon. Alexander wrote ‘Fight’ a year ago with a heavy Australian group in mind. Since then, he says his writing style has changed.“ The song is like a snapshot from that time,” he says. “Now my writing is more like Peter's — that’s why we're combining.” Also in Chrome Safari and on the Fight EP are Shanley Morris and Bill Hill; Kim Willoughby, Lyn Buchanan, Greg Clark and Paul Nairn assist Alexander on the instrumental ‘Bop to the Drummer, commissioned for jazzercise. , Solomon’s 12" single ‘Cry for You Only; which like Alexander he engineered and produced himself, has a funky club sound. “I felt like experimenting with engineering and production,” he says, “and at the time | was hearing a lot of English and American club music, so

| wrote it within that frame.” Althoughit's a solo record, Solomon used the name the Rapture, “pecause I'm not keen on my own name,” he says. “Simon and | were going to call Chrome Safari the Rapture. I think it suits the song — | like the link between the music and the name. If you've got a song, it doesn't matter what name it comes out under, as long as it comes out.” Alexander agrees. “It would have been nice to have done the Fight EP as aband, it just happened to end up as a solo project. | don'’t intend to be a solo artist, but when you want a record out, it's notimportant. Doing it yourself seems to be a tradition of the New Zealand musical culture” Alexander and Solomon financed the records themselves; they are being released through Pagan. , Now, Chrome Safari intend working live, but the pair emphasise their main interest is in recording — and releasing — their songs. “We'll incorporate it with working live,” says Solomon, “but we want to put out more records, and quickly. | don’t want to wait another 12 months. We can do our music as Chrome Safari, or one-off solo things — there are lots of options.” “We're basically songwriters,” says Alexander, “so our natural medium is a record. That's the way we communicate. Well play live, and maybe tour — but we did plenty of

that in the Grammar Boys.”

CB