Feature: The Have - Burning Down the Garage
Author: Mark Bell (photography by Tony Nyberg)
The Great Garage Revival that did so much for The Datsuns and The D4 certainly didn't do any harm to The Have. Sure, these young protégés of retro-rock were not long out of school, or their native Wanganui, when the guitar revivalist wave swept through the UK, so were perhaps left feeling a little high and dry. Still all three bands share a love of vintage guitar sounds, hard riffing and straight-ahead rock, and it could well be argued that The Have got a bit of a leg up from the success of the others in their early days.
"When we first came out of high school we kind of slipped into the scene seamlessly with the whole garage rock thing," admits singer/guitarist Brodie White. "That whole guitar music boom that happened, and I think that kind of helped us along quite a bit. But like every fad or every trend it kind of dies and focus shifts.
"We just do what we do. I guess it's the whole fad thing once again, like the people will go with whatever's tipped to be cool... in terms of playing shows with a lot of those 'bands of now', we don't really play a lot of those shows."
Their focus on preparing to record their first full-length album during 2006 no doubt also contributed to a noticeable dip in the band's profile. For an energetic and ambitious young act with more than a sniff of international opportunity, The Have seemed to slip from the 'ones-to-watch' radar.
That said, popular success in Auckland can be a fickle thing and certainly won't do a great deal to fill a band's pockets. Every red cent generally gets ploughed back into feeding the hungry beast - PA hire, lights, crew, van hire, accommodation, management, promotion and marketing, artwork, posters, recording, videos; the list goes on and can have the appearance of a bottomless pit.
That's the reason our interview couldn't take place until after 5pm - the guys (White, bass player Blair Gibson, drummer Mike de Marie and guitarist Peter Mangan) are holding down jobs which allow them to feed the beast and pursue their collective rock'n'roll dream. In pursuit of that dream they've three times now dug deep and financed themselves to the States, attending the South by Southwest music expo in Texas in 2004 and 2005 and returning to New York mid-'05 to play showcase gigs for several interested labels.
Now, nearly three years since the release of their self-titled debut EP/mini album, and thanks to the timely arrival of an NZ On Air Phase Four recording grant, The Have have in their possession the masters of their first full-length album 'Back to the Burning Wreck'.
We had arranged to meet at my place, a stone's throw from the well-manicured splendour of the Northcote Tavern garden bar, to talk about the album and the current state of play in the world of The Have.
We had arranged to meet at my place, a stone's throw from the well-manicured splendour of the Northcote Tavern garden bar, to talk about the album and the current state of play in the world of The Have.
