Goodshirt's Back in Fashion

Any romantic notions of home recording fly out the window when you take the one step that's possible into the tiny (but world famous in NZ), Grey Lynn backyard shed that barely fits Goodshirt's recording gear.

There is hardly space for two people to sit. One sole Neumann U87 microphone sits 'centre stage' and assorted tools and musical toys are stacked around each other, including the essential Nord 3 synthesiser and a bunch of instrument amps. Gesture too wildly and you'll knock something over.

A couple of handpainted mugs nestle among the clutter around the computer screen. Inscribed below the rainbows painted on their sides, one has the name 'Rodney' and the other 'Murray'. The two Fisher brothers (vocals/guitar and guitar respectively), flat in the attached house.

Along with drummer Mike Beehre and keyboardist Gareth Thomas, they are nearing completion on the follow up to their 2001 debut album 'Good'. This one is scheduled for release in February 2004.

If you've seen Goodshirt in the last 12 months you'll recognise some of the new tracks - at least new single Buck It Up, Fiji Baby, (tentatively the title track according to Rodney, though he hasn't yet asked the others!), and the hard hitting Cement. Most of the songs on this album have evolved live.

Irrespective of your radio tastes, if you watch any music television you will have noticed Goodshirt in the few years since their brash and charismatic launch into the local music scene.

The video for Buck it Up was shot by Kezia Barnet, a departure from the series of quirky 'single shot' videos produced by recent NZM cover star Joe Lonie. "We really wanted to have a fresh direction for this album to avoid being the 'one shot video band' for the rest of our career," says Grant Hislop, the band's manager .

In some sense the Auckland four piece has 'made it big' in New Zealand since the release of their signature first single Green which was first picked up on Auckland radio station 9inety6dot1 at the turn of the century - coincidently their manager to be was programme director there at the time.

"We had an on-air competition call the Amateur Track Comp in which artists sent in their home recordings," recalls Hislop. "I was sitting in my office and could hear this song being loaded into the computer and yelled out 'What the fuck is that?' Sure enough it was Goodshirt and their song Green." He arranged to meet the band and has worked with them since.

Through their own record label Cement, Goodshirt released 'Good' in August 2001 with a licensing deal with EMI NZ.

While the album was initially a slow mover, with the help of Sophie (a song penned by Gareth), 'Good' sold gold (7,500 copies) within the year, and hit platinum in late 2002. "About time," says Gareth. "We had worked our arses off for it."

Sophie also won the band three awards at the NZ Music Awards which they say was unexpected. "We were badly prepared," admits Gareth.

"We had expected to turn up for a bit of a feed and some free alcohol and were just waiting to go back out for more food, then we had to go up on stage!"

It wasn't until the third trip to the stage they remembered to thank Hislop.

Since last summer's national tour with Evermore, Goodshirt have concentrated their efforts overseas, making small steps in other parts of the world including Australia, the US and the UK. Nothing to the scale of the English media's 'flavour of the month' Kiwi bands The Datsuns and The D4, but then their sound isn't so easy to categorise.

"I always thought that we didn't sound like anybody," says lead man Rodney, "and possibly a second album is quite good for that. It's like... you're really establishing who you are."

Again, the band have gone the backyard way - choosing to work in their own time and space in the converted garden shed that would barely fit a double bed in it, let alone all four members of the band simultaneously.

Murray again has taken producer/engineer duties. They opted against getting another producer in to assist, reasoning that they know their sound better than anyone else. It made financial sense also, and he has spent the last seven or eight months fine tuning the record.

"Lately Murray has been spending ridiculous amounts of time in here." says Rodney. "I'll be sleeping and I can hear the noise in the background. He's up 'til, like, four in the morning working away. I think he likes to have a lot of space when he's working, so I think he's really happy that his body clock is the complete opposite to the rest of us."

"It's one of those things... you don't really know when to stop," Rodney continues. "When you're making it you always think you can do better, especially when you've got your own studio and you're trying to make 'the best thing you've ever created in your life', that sort of thing. Whereas, I think it's more important to try and capture a certain time and be a bit more accepting of how you sound at that point."

But it's a matter of getting these songs out there too, says Gareth. "We wanted to get this album out so we could get onto a third album. We just were feeling a bit musically constipated. We wanted to push it out as fast as we could!"

On 'Good' the writing duties were shared between Rodney, Gareth and Murray. Even though he was responsible for three of five radio singles on the first album, Murray withdrew from the writing process this time round.

"I think he's decided that his thing is engineering and producing, mixing and all that," explains Gareth in Murray's absence (it's daytime and he's sleeping!). "He just wanted to really get into that this album. He has some songs that I would really like to have on the album, but he didn't want to put them on, he just wanted to concentrate on the engineering side of it. He took on the huge job of being the producer/engineer-type guy."

To fast track the start of the recording process they hired The Lab studio in Mt Eden for three weeks in March, ahead of one of their overseas jaunts. They took their own recording gear into the bigger space to capture the band playing together before continuing the project back in the shed.

"In The Lab we basically recorded the guitars, the keyboard bass, and the drums and when we were feeling inspired on some songs, we recorded the vocals as an overdub afterwards," explains Gareth. "But we only finished about two or three songs there, and in this room we've done most of the vocals and synthesiser overdubs and a little bit of guitar."

"We've always really loved minimal stuff," agrees Rodney. "We're big fans of the Beach Boys and the Beatles and stuff like that. I really quite like clarity in music and space around stuff. There are possibly more complicated things on the new record, but sneakily so... they still have the sense of sounding simplistic."

Whether they keep their stock in the NZ music industry or, indeed overseas will come down to the songs. Judged on the 40 minute CD I heard of 12 songs all but confirmed for the album, Goodshirt haven't lost the art of writing a catchy song.

"Even if there's a 'moment' in every song when you listen back to it... and we've listened to the songs a gillion times from recording them and being there... they're worthy of being on the album," asserts Rodney.

Those 'moments' are plentiful. Tracks like Cold Body Blues and Water in my Ears tread the same ground as Catch This Light from 'Good', though they are even more layered in atmosphere.

And there are a few ballads among the rockier numbers. Most notably Fiji Baby and My Racing Head, both penned by Rodney.

"I get away with doing country things," admits Rodney, "but if I ever tell anyone that I was brought up listening to the Eagles and it's inspired by the Eagles, the song would disappear! But, anyway, it ends up being kind of Eagle-ish/Beach Boy-ish twisted with something like Talking Heads or Cars or Foo Fighters or some kind of weird twist like on everything we do."

This album has more introspective moments and, says Rodney, is definitely more personal.

"You go through phases. You go, 'Oh you can't have personal lyrics because it's too much to reveal'. Or you just feel stupid or whatever. But if we've got a song for the band it has been written for a purpose, it wasn't like we wrote it because we needed a song."

Both Gareth and Rodney have penned songs about girlfriends on this album. As a line from the attitude-laced Cement alludes: "... gone and overdone it/ said it in a song..." - it can be a fine line.

"There are a few darker songs written by Gareth about girlfriends, but I've been with mine for a long time," Rodney quickly escapes.

"The band is like being in one huge marriage," he grins. "We spend more time with the band than I do with my girlfriend. It's kind of sad, but it's what ends up happening. So, there's always going to be tough times and arguments. And the longer you've been together, the more weight there is on all the decisions."

"Whenever we have a scenario come up, like something's pissing someone off, we have a little men's group meeting and discuss it and figure out what we should do. You've just got to be a little bit sensible about things."

"We know how to deal with each other a lot better now," says Gareth. "It's quite good to be in a band with three of your friends rather than three other musicians."

While NZ has embraced Goodshirt since their Dave Dobbyn tour support slot in 2001, the rest of the world has been more of a challenge, and they are planning to work offshore connections as much as possible.

"There's not really much point of being a live band in NZ unless you've got a whole lot of sing-along hits you can play around all the pubs," says Gareth.

To that end, they work closely with a publicist in Australia and an old friend works in the UK as their co-manager along with local industry stalwart Hislop.

Australia has been embracing to a point - Music TV station Channel V and radio network Triple J have the band on high rotate, and they'll play the Australian dates for the Big Day Out in January. Goodshirt plan to simultaneously release album number two there and they have done six tours to date.

"We started in Australia playing to five or six people if we were lucky and it slowly built up to about 200 or so," says Gareth. "Two hundred to 400 even. But you've got to go back to square one - that's what we've been doing in the UK - going back to that beginning stage and just building it up over there."

"I think with us in particular it's hard to say we sound like this one thing. It's kind of like - you'll see a video, might have heard a song on the radio, then see us live and then you start thinking, 'Oh I get this band...' reiterates Rodney. "One on its own doesn't quite sell what we're about as much. It seems to be a bit of a curse actually..."

The band have always been popular with the local music industry and government initiatives, and as well as being NZ On Air favourites. They have tapped into NZ On Air funds to the tune of around $150,000 - six video grants to date, four radio hits, Phase Four New Recording for the Place To Be single, Phase Four International Marketing funding for 'Good' and Phase Four Album funding for this second album.

They participated in the World Series showcase in Auckland last November, and along with Goldenhorse and Evermore, Goodshirt inked a distribution deal with Canadian label Aquarius International. 'Good' was released there in late August.

The band also travelled to the SXSW festival in Texas in March this year with a contingent of Kiwi bands. While not much tangible has come out of that, they are keen to go back in 2004.

"It was definitely an eye-opener to see how the rest of the world is," says Rodney. "It's not as daunting as you think it is..."

In the UK they are wary of the 'ex pat factor', and careful not to over-market their gigs as 'New Zealand' billings.

"You have to almost not sell your show too hard so that you're getting more of a genuine audience, rather than just all the Kiwis nostalgically wanting to come to your show," says Rodney.

"I don't know, it could be paranoia... some territories, if there's lots of Kiwis there and they're all getting it and someone else is hearing it for the first time and they don't know why everyone is singing along or getting into it or whatever, it almost alienates them. It's kinda strange vibes, like you walked into someone else's party or something..." He smiles. "It hasn't been that much of a problem, I'm just paranoid."

A regular addition to the touring party is sound tech Kerry Fullon. "Because he's a friend as well... it makes touring a lot easier I think," says Rodney. "To have another person who's a friend inside the gang of people driving around in the van."

Goodshirt haven't made any money from this business yet, but you get the feeling that the big time isn't too far off. If accepted to play at SXSW again, they will do a trip around the world in March to support releases in Australia, Japan and Canada, and hope to nail something in the UK too.

"We've done a huge amount of work in the UK and Oz, so are really hoping for a payoff with the new record," says Hislop.

Rodney agrees. "I think ultimately the music is important, but we wouldn't be doing it so intensively if we didn't think we'd ever be able to get some sort of pay off. To be able to consider it as a real job, so maybe one day you'll be able to buy a house or something. I'd like to be able to buy a house.

"You still have those sorts of dreams and shit, as well as, you know, rock stardom," he laughs.