9 UPBEAT MUSIC Copyright Able 2015 I'd had the dream from the age of 12 of being a Beatle. And that involved travelling the world and playing to millions of people around the world. DOWNBEAT MUSIC I spoke to a class of about 40 or 50 in Wellington a few years ago on the subject of Split Enz, and one of them asked, 'Why did you leave the band?' I said, 'I had a phobic disorder called agoraphobia, 'and in the end it beat me and I had to retreat, and I left the band.' And this boy ` looked about 14, 15 ` looked up at me and said, 'I've got that too.' MUSIC CONTINUES And I still communicate with that boy. He's now about 20. He wrote a song. It went on our CD. A beautiful song but a troubled song. Songwriting to me is a great escape... # My boats are drowning on this incoming tide. ...in terms of saying things that you need to say and that are exorcisms... # Caught in the waves that I thought I could ride. ...about what you need to actually get out of your system. # Pulled underneath by the fear inside. Maybe if I'd been a songwriter, (CHUCKLES) I wouldn't have been agoraphobic for 18 years. # Sometimes you feel like you just should hide. # The literature on it is all about sweaty hands, you know, 'Oh, my heart's going at 160 beats a minute,' which, yes, that happens. But I don't care about all that. For me, it's the absolute sense of terror. I found that very difficult to explain ` a panic attack. They need to be flung into a place of terror. That's the word ` terror. Not fear. You know, fear's fear. Terror. And... then they'll understand. The best way I've found is I'll say to someone, something that they intuitively, inherently are very scared of. So are you scared of spiders, like big spiders? 'God, I hate big spiders.' 'OK, blink.' 'Now, you've opened your eyes to this room is completely covered in spiders. What would you do?' And they go, 'Run.' I say, 'OK, run out the door. 'And everywhere you look it's covered in spiders, so what do you do?' And in the end, they realise that they would just go into a small ball like a cornered rat, and just hide from this world of spiders. And I said a panic attack in someone like me, with agoraphobia, searching for that place to go, there's only one place to go; I can't get there. And so those spiders are all there, but they're invisible. (PLAYS LYRICAL TUNE) Couldn't resist. The sad part of this whole story for me is that I didn't have a name for it for eight years. So I just thought I was mad. And I didn't work out the pattern of the attacks. If I'd kept a log or something, I would have noticed I never had one in Auckland. Whenever Split Enz flew into Auckland, I'd always be in a really good mood. Go inside my parents' front door and just love being there. But I see now that was because Auckland was my safe haven. And if my parents happened to be living in Christchurch, I wouldn't want to have gone to Christchurch to see them. So it wasn't until I read that article in a magazine ` phobic disorders. Went through them all. And a lot of them are easy ` arachnophobia, fear of heights. We all understand that, really, cos there's a physical side to it all. But then they'd talk about agoraphobia, 'a fear of leaving a place where you feel safe'. And I thought, 'Oh, that's me.' Well, this is a biggish one. Also, it plugs in... so when you play live, you're plugged in and it goes out through the PA and you can walk around. You don't have to have the microphone on it. (PLAYS TUNE) New strings. (STRUMS) Can you tell? And then we've got Barney's guitar, a Martin baby. Has more of a baby sound. (PLAYS SAME TUNE IN HIGHER PITCH) But then to` They're all these singalong instruments, always done in a social situation. I never play guitar on stage, but this I do. This is my bass. (PLAYS ACOUSTIC TUNE) It's not very loud. Someone said to me once, 'How do you make it loud?' (CHUCKLES) It's a bit like a car with no engine in it, so you plug it into the big amplifier. LOW FEEDBACK (TUNES BASS) The bass, for me, is all about playing with people on a stage. I couldn't stand to be on a stage alone with an audience wanting` or maybe being made (LAUGHS) to listen to me play the bass. In fact, I wouldn't walk on the stage. (PLAYS SUCCESSION OF NOTES) I went to a psychiatrist who said, 'Sounds like something you'll probably get over.' So I thought, 'I'm out here alone.' So I just kept it secret. The panic would be that, 'I'm trapped here in Wellington. 'I've got to get back to Auckland right now.' 'You can't. You're doing a show in about 45 minutes.' So I would just disappear, hide in the corner of the theatre, waiting for the show to start. My father was a doctor. And that's how I managed to survive in the bands for the time I did. I would say, 'I get scared on stage, Dad.' So he'd say, 'Oh, stage fright, yeah, it's a problem. So you should take these tranquillisers,' and so I had close to 20 years of tranquillisers. But it's like having this big, sort of, heavy blanket thrown on you. You know, if you were in the van travelling around London, doing 30 shows in 33 days with us, I would've been the one nodding off in the back seat. So the` the joy of the brotherhood was kind of robbed from me. The joy of the music was always there and the joy of the stage performance, cos we were one good live band. SERENE MUSIC BIRDS SING 1992, I got a job running APRA in NZ. And I thought, 'This is gonna be interesting because I'll be needing to go to Australia probably four or five times a year' for discussions and seminars and retreats and all of that. And I went over there, and I was driving a hire car along Military Rd, and it left me. I felt it go. (IMITATES WHOOSHING) And I thought, 'This could be Queen St in Auckland. This could be anywhere. I don't care any more.' You know what I think it was? I thought, 'For the first time in my life, I can support my family.' In the band days and all my life right through until I was about 40, I used to dream of having $1000 in the bank. And all of a sudden I had this job representing all the songwriters in NZ. And I'd think, 'I've finally reached somewhere where there is security for my family. 'I can be a good father.' And it left me. (TUNES GUITAR) Tuning! I love talking to people, so doing the Like Minds Like Mine TV ads ` it's been a while; 10, 15 years since they came out ` I've been stopped 20 times in the street. This woman and I crying in the street. (SIGHS EMOTIONALLY) VOICE BREAKS: There are some people who are dying out there, and... and they haven't told anyone. Uh, the best one was in a bank. And a teller ` you know, 'Oh, hi.' She looked at me like` And I say, 'You OK?' No, she said 'Thanks for doing the TV ad.' I go, as I always say, 'Are you OK?' and she says, 'No.' So we're crying. (BREATHES SHAKILY) But the funny part was the queue that built up behind me. I had to turn around and say, 'Sorry, guys, this queue at the bank is quite long. 'We've got things to talk about.' So she and I talked. Imagine going to a bank and standing as a teller all day... in a state of fear, you know. It's all gotta change. Everyone's gotta talk about it. But it's best face to face. Face to face is incredible. Music's the ultimate collective bringing together of people. GENTLE ACOUSTIC GUITAR KNOCK AT DOOR Hello! Mike? MIKE: One, two, three, four. (PLAYS TUNE) # Till then, you're watching me. # you shot away to leave, be free. # We're putting together a song for the Paralympics because every nation, I think, should have a sporting song, let's call it, to represent what lies behind the purpose of those games, which is a national unity, taking on the rest of the world. My old friend Paul Fitzgerald, who went to school with me, and played drums in my band at school and ended up living in Paris and writing songs. And one of them he called Long White Cloud. # ...free. # This'll be where I really want, 'Da, da, da.' It's really important. Three notes there. I'm very very dedicated and in love with my country, you see. And so to have a song that represents the emotional connection we have to those Paralympics in Brazil next year, it had to be a NZ song. (PLAYS ACOUSTIC GUITAR) Just go through the chorus again. # I'll never be... # And it has to feature NZers who might have just turned the corner, 'Come in and sing it with us!' And so the musicians, the people arranging it, then they're not people who are held up in lights or celebrities or any of that stuff. It's not a celebrity fest. It's not We Are The World, you know. It's Long White Cloud. And I think it's gonna turn out really really well. And if we did want to include some singers, then we could have a small group singing in a chorus at the end. That's what I was thinking. Whoever they may be, um, it'd be really good to have people who are either a) are confident, or b) can take direction and be good and quick in the studio. Otherwise it's, 'Uh...' Who's Natalie? Natalie Te Paa. Right. I went to Takapuna Grammar a few years ago to talk about songwriting, and there were all these students. And I said, 'OK, I'd like to hear an original song from someone.' And they all basically went,... LAUGHTER ...except this girl at the front who said, 'I'll sing one. Can you show me where the piano is?' No, she's blind. Oh, bless her. And I led her over to the piano and she sat down and sang out some song. And she was on our CD two or three times over the years. OK. > And I` Yeah, I had a year of mentoring her through a disability system thing. She's a great kid. She's amazingly confident. You've got her voice here somewhere? > Yeah, yeah. There's no pressure. > NATALIE: # It's not about looks, # it's not about race. # It's not about gender or whether you're gay or straight. # It's not about how you have your hair # or the clothes that you wear. # You don't have to be famous # to get you anywhere in life. That's it. Love it. What a voice! # Just be yourself... # Wow. She's fantastic, actually. She's a really nice girl. PHONE RINGS Hello. Is that the one and only Natalie Te Paa? It is, indeed. Mike Chunn here, Play It Strange. Hello, old friend. Hi! How are you doing? I'm very good. Good to hear your voice. Yeah, you too. You too. A good friend of mine from school ` that's many decades ago ` has written a song called Long White Cloud. And our good friends at Attitude TV are going to record it and launch it on World Disability Day at the Attitude Awards. And it's also going to be the official Paralympic song next year in Brazil. Oh, right. And... we want you to sing on it. (LAUGHS) Really? Well, there'll be quite a few of you singing on it, but we want you to play an integral part. It'll be at Roundhead Studios, and actually not far off, so if you're keen about it, we'll have to get together and start talking. But you and I have always managed to talk quite well, haven't we? Yeah. (LAUGHS) I'd absolutely love to. I would absolutely love to. Good on you. And you'll love the song. It's a beautiful song. Long White Cloud. Oh, I` Definitely. It sounds gorgeous already. (LAUGHS) Oh my God! (LAUGHS) Hooooly! That's wonderful. > That is so exciting. Oh my gosh. To be a part of this recording is` I mean, Mike started me off with all the recording stuff, really. He showed me` Like, he inspired me to submit my first song, and that got me into the studio and doing all this kind of thing. So it was` Honestly, it's` I` (SIGHS) Man, I have so much respect for him, man. I have so much respect for Play It Strange and what they do. # Sometimes love can be hard to figure out. Mike realises that there are people out there in schools that just love writing songs. And for me, I did not know that Play It Strange existed before he came in and talked to our school. REFLECTIVE GUITAR MUSIC Well, I'm one of the lucky ones, really, in that I get to listen to hundreds of songs written by secondary school students every year. Shall we all salute each other? 'But also we put on shows. Because performance is as important, I think, as writing a great song.' So, we're talking about songwriting. And I guess` So that brings us to the word 'song'. And what is a song? Holidays. That's if you have global success with your song; you will have a holiday for the rest of your life. Your chances depend on how ambitious and hardworking you are; how talented, how imaginative, and where Lady Luck comes into the equation. But a song is two things ` it's words and music. Play It Strange exists to shine a spotlight into schools and to bring to a national awareness the great songs that are written there, because there is no mechanism for that. The mystery of music completely fascinates us. We don't know why three notes in a row would make us want to jump up and scream and shout because it's something that we've known and will love for the rest of our lives. And if you play them in reverse, it means nothing. So you put something that's very tangible and part of our day-to-day life ` words ` in with music, which is a magical world. We just whittle them down to a top 40, and they go to professional studios. By putting them in the studios, they come up with amazing recordings, because they have it in them to be excellent. They just need that door to be unlocked. The words of songs need to make you want to one, keep listening, and two, find something special in the story that they tell you. GUITAR PLAYS ON LAPTOP MUSIC STOPS What do you think of the intro? Sets the tone. Like, what the song, like` Cool. The action of a song. MUSIC RESUMES # The wind's fingers play with my hair. MUSIC STOPS Now, that's a great opening line. 'The wind's fingers play with my hair.' MUSIC RESUMES # The wind's fingers play with my hair. # The smell of bitter lingers in the air. # Rainfalls dot in my skin. # And sudden droplets kissing the ground of when you will begin. # Some people hit golf balls and they always veer out to the right. I just like being in really cold water. And if I get on my board and bob out behind the wave, it's the perfect escape. No one can touch me out there. There's every chance, standing here, that someone could come up and go, 'What's been happening? How's your week been? Doo-do-doo-do-doo.' But out there, the only thing I've ever had come up and talk to me was a dolphin, who was literally 2 to 3 inches away from me. (IMITATES WAVE) I said, 'Whoa, stop, stop.' He came back. 'What do you want?' I said, 'What's it like down there?' He said, 'Oh, we like it on the big days when you surfer guys smash. We think it's funny.' I made that up. But the dolphin was there. For a fraction of a second, you think it's a shark. There's an end to this story which will lead you to believe that I'm a complete fool. Late '90s, I got it back again. I then went, for the first time in my life, to see a psychologist. And he said, 'That first panic attack...' There was no drugs. It was in Wellington, you know. 'That first panic attack, you were vomiting, diarrhoea simultaneously. 'You couldn't control a thought for a fraction of a second.' I said, 'That's right. All of that.' 'What was going on in your life?' I said, 'I was in a band,' and then I started weeping. And to cut to the chase, we had played a show in April '74 where I thought Split Enz` we had the perfect band. We triumphed magnificently. And then things happened. My brother ` he was on drums and I was on bass, and we were a bloody good unit ` he left; Bob Gillies, my dear friend, left; Phil Judd came back in; there were tensions. And I thought, 'This isn't going to be the same band.' And I'm weeping, telling him all this. And he said, 'You were in a deeply weak psychological state. 'And all you did was just break one of those links in your chain.' You know? And... And he said, 'Now, you've come to me with it again. 'What is happening in your life now?' And I started to cry again. Because I had been asked to do a particular project that was so stressing me, so deeply stressing me. He said, 'Can you stop that project?' And I said, 'I'm not gonna do it.' He said, 'OK. 'Well, there's absolutely no reason for you to have agoraphobia.' And I looked at him, and I bless that man. Uh! Out his door, and I've never had it since. An agoraphobic, I think, has to have a rock; someone to hold on to. So if ever I was travelling alone, I would be by far much worse than if I was travelling with Brigid. In those days, it was a very private thing. So you couldn't say to anyone, 'Actually, I'm feeling terrible. This is my problem. I actually have to go.' You had to keep it all... So you had to kind of make excuses and` you know, to try and cover it up. I mean, hopefully it's not like that now. No. Well` People are much more understanding and open to talk about it and accept it. Maybe someone who really knows about these things could say, 'Oh, well, you're cured.' But I don't know if I am, really. I always think, 'Well, it could happen again.' Long black. Thank you. Very kind. Very kind. BRIGID: Maybe it's like a recovering alcoholic. You know, you're never, kinda, cured. You never say you're cured. I think you're best to presume that you're not. I don't have sugar. No. I feel very good. Oh, this is where I come to be alone. Because, as you can see, there's no one else around. (CHUCKLES) I'm a people watcher. Yeah. I love people. I imagine the lives of each one of them. So there, that person there, are they happy? Are they glad to be living in this suburb, in this country? Would they rather be somewhere else? What do they do well? What do they do badly? Are they... using their capabilities as much as they should? I think, 'I wonder if they go home and play the piano.' And if they don't, why don't they? And I wonder if they can play the guitar. And if they don't, why don't they? Cos I have this thing that` In fact, I was standing in front of about 200 or 300 intermediate schoolkids one day, and I said to them, 'How many of you have got a parent that can play the guitar or play the piano?' And probably 10 or 15 put their hands up. 'How many of you have a parent that drives a car?' And every one of them put their hand up. And I said, 'You should go home and tell your parents that it's actually harder to drive a car 'than it is to play the guitar.' Shall we stop that one there and ask them? 'Do you wish you could play an instrument?' And they all do. But they're never gonna start trying. Why not? GENTLE PIANO MUSIC NATALIE: So, we're just heading into Roundhead Studios, and we are going to record the vocals for the track Long White Cloud. So, this is, like, the control room in here. Jordan, this is Natalie. Hello. How are you? Hello! She's our singer for today. Hi. Lovely to meet you. Nice to meet you. The number one thing to do is lay down all the master vocals. Mm-hm. And then go for all the harmonies and all the gorgeous stuff. Hello, Michael. Hello, everybody. How are we? You're such a camera hog, mate. That's me. (LAUGHS) How are you doing? Hello, old friend Natalie. You good? Doing great. Doing great. Callum, welcome back to town. Good to see ya. Good to be here. Let me give you a hand. That's the little pop sock` Oh yeah. There we go. ...and the mic is right behind it. Mm-hm. That's, like, about a jillion dollars' worth, so... Yeah. My hope for this track is that everybody in NZ knows it and that we have stadiums of people singing it. I'll tell you a little story about the song. OK? Got enough tape? (LAUGHS) Here we go. Jordan Luck is the main judge in the Play It Strange songwriting competitions, and every year I put one in that isn't a song from a schoolkid, just to play with him. And I put Long White Cloud in with his hundred-and-whatever-it-was songs that he was to listen to. And I met him. 'OK, what are the top 40 this year? What are we gonna record?' He said, 'I've got a winner.' I said, 'What is it?' He said, 'Long White Cloud.' So he had that as a winning song. That's when I thought, 'Well, if Jordan Luck thinks it's a winning song, we're on a winner.' I think that someone will be singing this in 50 years' time. I'm liking it. The song Long White Cloud will be launched at the Attitude Awards this Wednesday, the 3rd of December. Watch the music video at attitudelive.com. Captions by Tracey Dawson. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2015