Tigilau Ness
Author: Peter McLennan
Tigilau Ness has taken his own sweet time arriving at his debut CD. After over 25 years playing music and helping bring up his kids (his older son is hip hop musician Che Fu), he has finally released his own album as Unity Pacific. 'From Street to Sky' is a sweet blend of laid back reggae vibes with thoughtful, intelligent lyrics about events in Tigilau's life, from the Springbok tour to his own children.
So, why did it take him so long to release his own music?
"Well, I'd been working and raising my family and paying my mortgage, all that kind of thing," Tigilau explains.
We're sitting in his garden shed out the back of his home, the walls lined with photos and posters from gigs. It's his little music lab. "Music never paid well for me, 'til I met the co-producers (of the album) David Allan and Prajna Moodley. They came to me with the offer of producing the album in September 2001, putting up the money and expertise to put it together.
"We slowly got together with the rhythm section we have now, 'cos our drummer at the time, a Tongan guy who was our drummer from way back, he'd gotten himself into trouble and couldn't get out of it. So we had to look for another drummer and at the same time, a keyboardist and a guitarist. My wife found them in the Trade & Exchange! True story. They were from The Managers, a ska band, so they were up with reggae and ska."
The current Unity Pacific lineup is Teinakore Winau (bass), Steven Keys (drums), Robert Halcrow (lead guitar), David Parry (keyboards) and Tala Niko on percussion.
The recording process was straightforward, using mostly live takes with minimal overdubs.
"We went into Revolver Studios in March last year, and recorded it in one weekend and did the guide vocals. We left most of those on and the following weekend we cleaned up any mistakes or off sounds, and that was it.
"'Cos we all work, we had to book the studio to go back in and mix it down, one song at a time. I was more in favour of just going in, wham, bam, just do it, you know? But it doesn't work like that. It took us the good part of a year to mix it down and we sent it off to Australia at the end of last year, and it was released February 10."
The process of selecting songs for the album drew on Tigilau's back catalogue of tunes, which he had been worked through with previous bands.
"Over the years I'd played with other musicians and had worked out the songs, so they were down pat. All it needed to do was get the right group of people and record it. I can look back on it now and say that those times weren't right for recording. The Springbok tour, that took up a chunk of my life, raising a family, that took up a chunk of my life. It's taken me a lifetime, but I believe the experiences I've had, and the people and the time in this country are unique."
Not only do some of the songs on the album go back some way; several of Tigilau's musical cohorts are also linked to his adoption of the Rastafarian faith, which he discovered through the music of Bob Marley.
"The bass player, the drummer and myself go back to 1983, '84, '85. We were in the 12 Tribes of Israel, when it first formed in New Zealand. The Twelve Tribes is the organisation that Bob Marley belonged to, and quite a few other Jamaican and English reggae artists too. It's an international organisation, totally Rasta. There're affiliations in Germany, Sweden, England, most of the Caribbean.
