From: dfong@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: rec.music.misc,alt.music.alternative
Subject: Peter Jefferies (NZ) Interview
Date: 30 Sep 92 19:41:20 +1200
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

 Thanks for those that mailed me wanting more NZ interviews.

I got in touch with the music editor of the student newspaper,
and hopefully I will be able to get some more (which I won't
have to key in myself.)  In fact, I'll try to get him on
the NET to answer all your questions.
I hopefully hope to have a Chris Know interview which was done 
about 2 months ago, and an Able Tasmans interview which
he will be doing soon when they tour this town in the
next two weeks hopefully.


Anyway here's some NZ news from the latest issue.

Able Tasmans and Axemen may be touring soon.

Hamilton bands Gimbimlyb and The Clap have new tapes out.

Flying Nun have apparently sent away the master tapes of the
Skeptic's 3 CDs : Amalgam, Sensible Shoes (has the EP and
12 new tracks), and a new one contains their last studio
recordings and recordings of their last live performance,
to be called "If I can, I Will".

 To follow in the footsteps of the infamous Weeds, 2 FN 
supergroups are to be releasing singles in the near future. 
They are Chug - Alf Danielson (Goblin Mix), Norma O'Malley (LBGP),
Alan Haig (Snapper), and Stephen Kilroy (Stephen);
and Magic Heads - David Mitchell and David Saunders (3Ds),
Robert Scott (Bats) and Jane Sinott.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the Tall Dwarfs 7"
entitled "Bob's Your Uncle" will be released.
  JPSE have a 4-track EP Breathe and a 12-track album called
Bleeding Star coming out soon.


And now what you've been waiting for !

Enjoy,
De Fish!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

                    KNOCKED OUT OR THEREABOUTS

   An article by Adam Hyde, musical editor for NEXUS,
 the student newspaper for the University of Waikato, Hamilton,
 New Zealand.

 This article was originally published in Vol. 24, issue 18.
 August 18, 1992.

 This article and any others from the same source may be
 reproduced in any form for non-profit, but please leave the 
 writer and newspaper name on it.


   Peter Jefferies has been involved in over a dozen domestic
 vinyl releases which must rank him high on the list of NZ's most
 prolific musicians. But in a country that sunk its one and only
 record pressing plant in Cook Strait, refuses to playlist local
 material on commercial radio and awarded its most prestigious
 music award to a canadian band [who ? - DF!] it's no wonder that
 very few NZers have heard his name let alone his music.

   It's probably for this reason that he's a little surprised that
 anyone should be interested in his music enough to want to
 interview him. But when I try to explain to him over the phone
 that I've hunted down everything he's released since a friend
 introduced me to This Kind Of Punishment, before I can stop
 myself I've thrown off the chains of interviewing etiquette and
 revealed myself as a fan - and probably quite an obsessive one at
 that ! But Peter Jefferies, in the short time I spoke to him,
 comes across as a very nice man and before I have time to feel
 awkward he's thanked me for being interested in his music and
 we're onto the first question :

 You latest album Swerve is done with Robbie Muir (originally from
 The Rip) whom you collaborated with on the Catapult single, when
 did you and Robbie decide you wanted to work together ?

 During a Plagal Grind practice we'd stopped and Robbie (who
 played bass for PG) picked up a guitar and I started drumming to
 it. We thought "wow", maybe we should get together and do
 something of our own, independently of PG...and it just evolved
 from there.

 When was Swerve recorded ?

 It was recorded over a very long period of time, about 20 months,
 we wrote the 4 songs for it pretty much straight after we'd done
 Catapult, but it was something we just worked on when we could
 find time amongst other things that Robbie was doing and other
 things that I was doing."

 With Catapult did you really set out to fund it by betting on
 horses ?

 Yeah, it was two weeks of gambling, we had the single recorded
 and me and Bruce (Russell) had agreed that it would be a fine
 Xpressway release. Bruce said I basically needed a thousand
 dollars...I went home for Christmas for a couple of weeks - me
 and my mother had put a ten dollar bet on a couple of horses and
 they came in, we worked the money up over the space of an
 afternoon and we thought we'd see if we could make a $1000 to
 release the single. A couple of weeks of intensive racehorse
 gambling and we'd got the money...

 Who masterminded that - you or your mother ?

 Oh no, my mum gets the credit for that, I'd call her a race track
 genius actually ! She's the only person I know who wins more
 often than she loses.

 No temptation to fund Swerve the same way ?

 Don't really need to now now Ajax and Xpressway pay all the bills
 required. That's the beautiful thing about licensing our material
 to overseas labels to release, we don't have to find $1500-$2000
 to pay for the manufacture of the record.


   Ajax (USA) first wanted to re-release This Kind Of Punishment's
 second album Beard Of Bees. But Peter and his brother Graeme (the
 other half of the creative nucleus of TKP) had a better offer
 from another american label - Feel Good Allover.
   Ajax persisted and eventually released the Catapult single in
 America. The single went straight to number one on a number of
 College Radio playlists - a first for both Peter and Ajax.
 Needless to say, Ajax were ecstatic and offered to release his
 first solo album Last Great Challenge In A Dull World on both
 vinyl and CD. Peter agreed and has subsequently licensed Swerve
 and a forthcoming single he did in conjunction with Stephen
 Kilroy to Ajax.
   Also due to Fell Good Allover's apparent inability to get
 together Ajax will now release the entire TKP back catalogue (and
 one new live CD!)
   This doesn't mean instant recognition and an unlimited bank
 balance for Peter Jefferies as the numbers of each release are
 comparatively small. Due to the music he creates and the world in
 which it's created Peter Jefferies will probably never enjoy
 anything other than cult status. But interest is growing. Ajax
 originally released 750 copies of Catapult (another 500 were
 released by Xpressway) but they are now interested in releasing
 everything in lots of 2000. As for NZ well...


 Do you ever find the lack of interest in your music, here in NZ
 disappointing ?

 I used to...5 years ago, when most of your sales were in your
 home country, yeah, it was pretty disappointing - now that 85% of
 my sales are overseas it doesn't matter to me so much...I've sort
 of become aware that at best I can sell 200 or 300 copies of
 something in my own country and I really appreciate those people
 that are bothering to be interested, those people are really
 important to me, without them there'd be absolutely no interest
 at all.
   But it doesn't matter to me so much now. Xpressway has become
 quite global so it's nice to feel part of worldwide thing after
 spending the best part of a decade relying on interest, or the
 lack of it, in your own country.

 Did meeting the people involved in Xpressway play a significant
 part in keeping you going ?

 Oh yeah. Absolutely, Bruce in particular, I mean Xpressway really
 made the difference, as soon as I started doing things on
 Xpressway things got alot better for me almost straight away. And
 being able to work with people like Alaistair (Galbraith) and
 that...Yes! Yes! It makes a big difference.

 With all the interest overseas are you intending to tour over
 there sometime ?

 Yeah, definitely. Tim (Adams from Ajax) offered me a tour for
 July this year but I didn't think I could get my act together
 enough nor was there enough stuff out...so I talked to him and he
 said he thought that the interest would actually be greater if I
 go next year...hopefully Robbie will come too but they seem to
 think that if it comes down to it I'm viable on my own.

 What about touring NZ (hint) ?

 I scooted up and down the South Island earlier this year with
 David Kilgour...I'd like to come up to Wellington to play but I'm
 not particularly crazy on the idea of going up to Auckland to
 play because there just doesn't seem to be anything happening
 there at all.

 Do you think NZ music is losing its soul ?

   I think Dunedin's incredibly healthy. I think there's more
 going on in Dunedin than the rest of the country put together. I
 think it's definitely losing its soul in Auckland, it seems to me
 that, like...bands like the Headless Chickens are viewed as being
 big bands here but they're so imitative. In America they've got a
 hundred and one bands that can do it as good or better than the
 Headless Chickens so who needs them ?
   Whereas, the South Island is particular, seems to be viewed as
 being in a world of its own and the americans can't get enough of
 it. It's purely because it's just that bit more original and the
 sound that its making is something they haven't got over there so
 they want it.
   ...that's the other thing, that especially people in Auckland
 haven't grasped, alot of the people overseas and down here as
 well don't really want to see the music slipped up and made into
 a way that sounds like american or british music. That's the last
 thing they want. Alot of the initial interest from overseas in NZ
 music was in records done on 4-track and 8-track, alot of people
 now seem to think "we've got to have more tracks, it's got to be
 more produced", but I think they're missing the point a bit...I'm
 not trying to slag anyone off I'm just trying to answer your
 question.

 If I change tack now and move on to a bit about your previous
 bands, what do you think of your first band, The Nocturnal
 Projections, in hindsight ?

 It's OK. I thought we did some pretty good live shows while we
 were going. There's a few songs that I still like - Difficult
 Days and You'll Never Know, I think are still very good songs,
 but I think the last record we made (Understanding Another Year
 In Darkness) is the worst record I ever made.

 Was it hard trying to get started from a small town like
 Stratford (Taranaki) ?  [I'm not quite sure where this is - DF!]

 I don't know really...all me and Graeme needed to make music was
 each other...every gig we played in New Plymouth we played on our
 own because there were no other bands. But that was okay because
 it meant there was no one else for people to go and see so we had
 a regular audience !

 The jump from Nocturnal Projections, which is to me essentially
 grungey, abrasive rock, to TKP is pretty huge. What factors
 influenced the change ?

   We didn't want it to be like Nocturnal Projections with a bit
 of piano and violin added over the top. We wanted the actual core
 of the songs to alter and we wanted the sound of it to be more
 human basically...
   TKP was a real fresh start in a whole lot of ways; instrument-
 wise, timing-wise, the way we recorded it, we stopped making
 singles and EPs, we started making albums - things like that. We
 could experiment alot more so it opened all the doors again.

 Was it hard turning TKP from a studio entity into a live band ?

 No, not really. It changed it alot, I mean some of the songs
 altered quite a bit...the songs were difficult to play live but
 it just evolved naturally.

 To more recent times, what is happening with Cyclops at the
 moment ?

 It isn't going at the moment. Bruce Bluchers' (guitarist/bass
 player in Cyclops) endeavours at the moment are with Trasch [NZ
 industrial-sorta band - DF!] which has just recorded a single and
 also they've got a deal for a Trasch album. So Trasch is looking
 very set but Cyclops is absolutely stalled.
 [have these single and album been released yet ? Or am I thinking
 of the previous ones. The one with the brain on the cover.- DF!]

 And finally, how is the new single with Shayne Carter coming
 along ?

 We did a test pressing of that the other day.

 Does it sound good ?

 Yeah, it's rough ! It's a rough little diamond we really just
 knocked it out. But it's a nice balance after Swerve because we
 crafted Swerve really carefully, and to have the next thing come
 out that me and Shayne just really bashed out fast, is cool. I
 like that. We had real fun doing it. The first song on it Knocked
 Out Or Thereabouts we wrote and recorded it from one little riff
 that Shayne had - we wrote it, recorded it and finished it all in
 a day.
 [the single b/w Spark on a Wire (?) was released in NZ two weeks
 ago. So in reply to the person that was asking about it. "yes",
 it is rough, and it's also very short. One song is about 2:30
 mins and the other is 1:20 mins. But what the hell, it's vinyl !
 - DF!]

   With that I thank Peter Jefferies for his time and offer to
 send a copy of the interview to him when it's printed. He tells
 me he would appreciate that and thanks me again for taking an
 interest in his music. Believe me, I can't help it.

 Adam Hyde
 fin
Newsgroups: rec.music.misc