Ship-faced and Fancy Free

Rip It Up, Issue 113, 1 December 1986, Page 20

Ship-faced and Fancy Free

A Rime of the Ancient Mariners

’’l’ve realised there’s life after the Velvet Underground and the New York Dolls,” says Graham Brazier, no longer the perennial adolescent.

Ironically, at the other end of the rock spectrum, the Velvets still wield their influence on young bands. But times have changed. Harry Lyon knew that when he saw Lou Reed advertising Honda motor scooters, and the man himself jogging in Central Park. “And that turned me completely!” he says.

Hello Sailor achieved a lot during their reign as New Zealand’s finest rock band, although Lyon jokes that their greatest achievement was that they all came out of it alive. Says McArtney, “The whole prevailing attitude in the late 70s was fucked. It was sleazy and out of it, and we got sucked into it. Now, the 80s thing is all positive — let’s do it properly.” Doing it properly means aiming for the international

market with a polished album crafted by an overseas producer, financed by investors, and locally, a tour backed by an imageconscious sponsor. Things have turned full circle — Hello Sailor introduced sponsorship to NZ rock with the legendary “Rum and Coke” tour in 1977, and the Honda-endorsing Lou Reed is producing some of his best music ever. Hello Sailor are one New Zealand band who in their

history had many breaks, be it recording deals, investors, supportive management, or audience goodwill. But despite that, they never clicked into the Australasian big league; they had a reputation for great live shows but “blowing the big gigs,” be they at Sweetwaters or during their LA stint. “Nerves” — Brazier. "Idiocy” — Lyon. “Discipline has improved” — Ricky Ball. “We’ve grown up a lot” — McArtney.

“It’s good to be back with mah blood,” says Brazier.“We work as a unit. The Legionnaires were great, in whatever incarnation, but they always had a weak link. I used to have to work bloody hard to make it work, eating ‘ ashtrays and pouring beer all over my head ... I was just about going nuts ’cause the whole thing was on my shoulders.” “It’s funny,” reflects McArtney, "because evolution, you can’t stop, energy is not reversible, right? The first thing I thought when we reformed was, it’s insane that we actually cancelled the band out of existence in 1980. And all of a sudden it still exists. Sailor is perfect for all of us. If we broke up tomorrow, we’d probably reform next week.” One sailor decided to stay home, however. When Hello Sailor played the Gluepot last month, in the downstairs bar their original bassist Lisle Kinney was playing with his band Cheek to Cheek. “Lisle knew there was a possibility of going further afield,” says Brazier. “But quite early on in the piece he voiced that he didn’t want to do a lot of touring.” Drummer Ricky Ball: \ “Lisle’s actually a very good jazz player, that’s his background. He likes very subtle, light playing. And of course, I'm a bit of a thunderous player at times.” Brazier: “It’s not the music so much as the lifestyle — living out of a suitcase, playing rock stars.” “Oh, we’re not playing rock stars, are we?” says Ball. “lam!” says McArtney. “Speak for yourself, Ricky,” says Brazier. “I’m gonna get my hair died ' soon!” • ■ . ■ ' ■ ■ ■ ' ■ Son of a Son of a Sailor Playing bass on all but one track of the new Hello Sailor album Shipshape and

Bristol Fashion is Liam Henshall, the young producer imported from England. Henshal’s main claim to fame was reaching N 0.20 in the Uk pop charts last year with King’s ‘Wont You Hold My Hand Now’, He came into the picture when he visited his friend Muff Winwood (A&R man for CBS in London and Steve’s brother) and mentioned he wanted to work with an Australian band. “Here’s an Australian band who want a producer,” said Winwood, throwing him ‘Fugitive for Love,’ the single of Hello Sailor’s reunion tour. Henshall liked it, particularly the lyrics, and so he was sent a tape of nearly 40 songs to pick material for a new Hello Sailor album. “We gave him the whole back catalogue,” says Brazier. ‘‘lnside Out, Dave’s albums, past Sailor stuff plus new material. He didn’t know who we were, all he had to listen to was the songs without the history.” Through discussion with the band, Henshall picked the songs for the album. “He spent a lot of time chewing it over,” says Brazier. “He wanted it to be, not a concept album, but for it to gel together so there wasn’t anything too radically different in flavour. He wanted it to be a rock album, whereas we tend to disperse in all directions. Soft rock, ballads, reggae, semi-country songs, hard rock or whatever.” McArtney: “Which we feel is probably a South Pacific blend of influences, but he wanted to go for a sharper, contemporary rock thing, like ‘Fugitive’ with the loud guitars.” The songs Henshall chose all come from the 80s — none of the original Sailor material was touched. "It’s a bloody great relief,” says Brazier. “I think if he had chosen ‘Blue Lady’ or ‘Gutter Black’ we would have all had second thoughts.” McArtney: “He thought ‘Gutter Black’ sounded like

the Eagles.” The first thing Henshall wanted to know when he arrived for three months work in the South Pacific last summer was, where do you get a good haircut? “He’d heard we have good haircuts here,” says Brazier. “We thought, Oh no, what have we got here — Sigue Sigue Sputnik?” But in the studio, the 28-year-old impressed the band with his methodicism and musicianship. They went through every song, discussing arrangements and chords and how they could be improved. “He had a board in the studio with all the songs written up, all the chord charts and everything — very professional,” says Brazier. “He juxtaposed choruses, verses, middle eights, things like that, and he particularly got at me about my enunciation. I spent quite a bit of time learning how to speak again.” Those familiar with the solo material of the group will hear the alterations in ‘You (Bring Out the Worst in Me),' ‘l’m in Heaven,’ (sung by Brazier this time, to give the band a sharper focus for its relaunch overseas) ‘Fugitive’ and ‘Remember the Alamo.' Most of all, though, the much-loved ‘Billy Bold' has been given a high-tech edge, with added mandolins and bagpipes which have been electronically treated. “I personally had a few problems, readjusting to the new ‘Billy Bold',” says Brazier, "but now I’ve become accustomed to it, I like it.” It was originally intended that ‘Kings and Queens,’ a new song which was one of the standouts on the reunion tour, would be the first single. Accordingly, it received a restructuring, but ‘Billy Bold’ got the nod. “We didn’t think radio would play ‘Kings,’ that’s the main reason,” says Lyon. “Too ‘hard rock!’ To go on tour

with that as the single and have radio shun it would be a waste of time.”

Although releasing ‘Billy Bold’ risked a "recycled material” backlash, it seems to have paid off, with many stations adding it to their playlists and concertgoers singing along with it spontaneously. Another reason for releasing the song was that although it has always been a live favourite, ‘Billy Bold’ and Brazier’s solo album Inside Out — now acknowledged as one of the finest this country has produced — were virtually ignored by radio when they came out in 1982. “Inside Out was completely shunned by the music industry in general,” says Brazier. “I like it because it’s my ‘underground credibility, maaaan.’ But yes, it was quite disheartening. There was a helluva lot of heart and not very much money put into that album. Dave was with me in the production of it, all the guys in Smash and the Flamingoes played on it for free, it was very much a project of passion rather than a project of pounds — and that spirit got through to the public.” McArtney: "I think the album cost $4000!”

The Bottom Line Shipshape and Bristol Fashion cost quite a bit more ... after three months recording at Auckland’s Harlequin studios, the album was mixed at the famous Electric Ladyland studios in New York (founded by Jimi Hendrix); Ric Ocasek, Debbie Harry and Daryl Hall were among those working at the studios while Hello Sailor were there. Harry Lyon: “To get a producer of Liam’s ilk, someone who’s working on the international production circuit, they would insist that they’d be able to mix where

they like — New York, LA, London. Liam had worked at Electric Ladyland, it was his favourite New York studio, so we went there.”

Going to New York also mean the band could make contact with the music

industry — CBS America, publishers, management — and negotiate for the

album’s release in the States. Now that the actual album is out here, the negotiating is about to start again. "We haven’t got guaranteed release in

America at this point,” says Mike Corless, the band’s

manager, “but we’ve got a vibe happening over there. People in the right places are up with the play, they’re just waiting for the finished product to make a

decision.” The Bill Graham organisation wants to get involved in the band’s

management in the States, says Corless. “They’re even keen to the extent of

shopping the record around for a release if CBS in

America don’t pick it up. He’s a big man in the US, we’re very lucky to have got that response from him.”

While the album’s music seems to have been

produced with the US FM radio market in mind, the same care doesn’t seem to have been put into the packaging. The cover, an airbrushed painting of a

woman in her underwear, seems rather hackneyed — a rush job before Christmas, or a publicity stunt? One

suspects the latter, as at the album release concert the band were introduced by a living replica of the cover

dressed only in bra, panties, suspenders and high heels. In the same costume, she appeared later that week in the window of an Auckland record store.

"The thing is,” says Brazier, "it’s the third Hello Sailor album that features a lady on the cover. They

really want to perform about our first album cover, ’cause

it’s got the same theme, with a nipple actually showing, and that was totally accepted.” Lyon: “This is a very puritanical age at times.” Surely the flak would come not from moralists but from feminists ...

“They’re actually not feminists, they’re moral police,” says McArtney. "We’ve always had a battle with feminists. We used to play all the gay liberation dances, we used to get on great with all those people. Then all of a sudden a young gay friend of ours did a poster for us about 10 years ago, it was construed as being [anti] feminist, and they beat him up in the toilets of a gig one night.”

There was an certain underground element that was attracted to the band in those days ... “Yeah, the old sleaze thing,” says McArtney. “We had it coming out our ears.’’ Taking Care of Business While the new sound of Hello Sailor on record takes a while to get used to, live, it's (show) business as usual, with a fit and muscular Brazier gliding, spinning and hamming it up on stage,

while Lyon and McArtney provide harmonies, the odd lead vocal, and their

characteristic duel-guitar attack. Bass is played by exCoup d’Etat man Neil Hannan. “It’s uncanny, Neil is very much like Lisle in his playing style,” says Brazier. Combined with Ricky Ball’s loose but solid drumming, that unique, slinky rhythm sound still drives Hello Sailor live, although the record

could do with more bottom

On the album, the keyboards were played by Rob Fisher, a friend of

Henshall’s who is in the

band Naked Eyes (‘Always Something there to Remind Me’) and is a London

session player (he played bass on Billy Ocean’s ‘When

the Going Gets Tough’). To bring the 80s keyboard sound to the band’s live act, Mocker Tim Wedde was recruited on their recent tour.

Entertainment, drama and showmanship have always been a major part of Hello Sailor live, sometimes they even verge on high camp. Brazier’s style stretches all the way from Cab Calloway to David Lee Roth, while

Harry Lyon and Ricky Ball both did apprenticeships in showbands. "It’s just taking care of business, and everyone has a good time,” says Lyon. “I think the ‘looking at your boots’ stuff is just youth, actually —

confidence in yourself.

When you’re pimply faced and 16, if you’re confident enough to throw yourself about at that age, you’d probably be unbearable. Nobody would want to be in a band with you.”

Nearly 10 years after Hello Sailor instituted a

sponsorship deal for their Rum and Coke tour — which helped establish the pub circuit (and enabled a local band to have their own

lightshow, and a mixer out front!) — the same kind of deal is needed once again to make a pub tour viable. "It’s great to see the breweries actually getting involved in music now,” says Mike Corless. “After all

these years, and the money we’ve put in their coffers

through packing pubs — not just Sailor but every band — and they’ve never

contributed anything, and they’ve always been arseholes to deal with, all of a sudden both breweries

have got new products on the market. So Lion have

put up $30,000 for a rock award, and Dominion, just in the last six months, have spent over SIOO,OOO on New Zealand music, with the Kuhtze Band, the Nares, and now us. It’s a battle that’s going to benefit the music

scene, even though the association, I’m hot completely happy with, but we couldn’t do it any other way. The hierarchy of the breweries has changed as well, they’re much younger people now, and they're good people to deal with.” Sailing Away In the same way, sponsorship — in the form of film industry-style tax write-off special partnerships, one of which financed Shipshape — is a way for New Zealand music to become known overseas. “We’ve put our stamp on the world with sport for years and proved we're a force to be reckoned with,” says Brazier. “All sports are sponsored, you see Rothmans, Benson and Hedgehogs — and it’s beginning to happen with music.” Ricky Ball: “There’s so much competition you’ve got to have backing in order to infiltrate the marketplace. You’re in amongst a million other records and just thrown aside. If you’ve got someone pushing it for you ... that’s the real world.” “Aggressive marketing” is their approach, and the band cites as an example the Americas’ Cup and the (investment created) fervour surrounding it. Will local music ever receive the same support? McArtney: “John Boylan [American producer] made a very interesting comment when he was here. He said, if this was America, radio stations would be up at the Gluepot on Friday nights recording shows live-to-air and things like that. In the States they really get behind music. You don’t get that here, there’s a real antipathy.” The down side to sponsorship and aiming for international markets is the artistic compromises that may have to be made to get backers, radio stations — or listeners — interested. With Shipshape Hello Sailor may

have an album of consistently good songs that haven’t been heard before overseas. But the musical test will be the songs that have yet to be written for the second album. Graham Brazier, needing two more songs for Inside Out, wrote ‘Billy Bold’ and 'No Mystery’ in a morning; eight new songs were quickly written for the reunion tour to give it a more contemporary flavour. It’s a matter of needing to, "... and it’s getting the time,” says McArtney. “You’ve got to sit by yourself for a couple of weeks, without people hassling you and the kids spilling porridge all over your shoes.” The other battle for Hello Sailor is the cynicism that they should still exist at all — if radio hasn’t already killed New Zealand rock music, negativity will — but their audience will decide that, and your older rocker is in these days. Brazier: “It seems funny that in the music business, the older you get, supposedly the worse you get. You’ve got guys like Merle Haggard, currently turning out some of the most brilliant songs he’s ever written.”

Lyon: “Billy Kristian told us that when he was in Night, he knew Huey Lewis — he had a van, delivering yoghurt in LA. This album will do something for us. I’m pretty sure it’s gonna get an Australian release, so we’ll start working from there. Overnight success, there’s no such thing. Look behind the stories of overnight successes, and there’s usually 20 years of hard

work.” Hello Sailor’s “last chance to dance”? That’s a cheap crack that doesn’t understand why musicians become musicians. "If this doesn’t work,” says McArtney, “I’m quite sure we’ll be more than keen to just carry on.”

Chris Bourke