Album for all ages

Dunedin quartet The Chaps (from left) John Dodd, Mike Moroney, Marcus Turner and Hyram Ballard. Photo supplied.

The title track to The Chaps' latest album, Don't Worry 'Bout Your Age, might contain a few self-deprecating lyrics typical of the Dunedin quartet, yet there could also be a message of defiance lurking between the lines, a suggestion music need not be the sole domain of the air-brushed and/or youthful. Rather, it's for the young at heart.

Having first performed at a Boxing Day party in 1989, The Chaps boast a lifespan stretching beyond two decades. Significantly, the line-up of John Dodd, Hyram Ballard, Mike Moroney and Marcus Turner remains unchanged after all that time. Good mates then?

"On a good day," Dodd laughs. "We can argue like hell, I can tell you that."

Bass player and, like his bandmates, a songwriter and singer, Dodd is proud of The Chaps' longevity. It's something you don't want to mess with, he says.

"It is kind of special. It wasn't just a band we got together for four or five gigs and then disappeared. It has taken us to Europe a couple of times [2003 and 2006] and around New Zealand a few times."

Dodd is also proud of the group's new album, its third following 2003 effort Hiphopalong and 1993's Live! At The Club. The Chaps will launch the album with a concert at the Crown Mills Function Centre on Saturday, August 6, performing the dozen songs that appear on the album as well as other live favourites.

"The album comprises the bulk of the songs we've worked on since Hiphopalong," Dodd explains.

"Since Hiphopalong, we'd been to Europe and that was our big spree in terms of gigs. We don't do that many gigs around Dunedin or even New Zealand; we get out for the occasional festival.

"It's not as though we are smoking hot because of playing show after show. However, I feel we are generally pretty tight when we play and that comes from having been together for so many years.

"We've been together for 21 years now and this is album number three, so we're not exactly prolific. The 'difficult' second album, Hiphopalong, took us about seven years to make, from the time we started recording to the time we got it out," Dodd says, alluding to various stumbling blocks, including technological hiccups, in that process.

For the latest album, The Chaps were more than happy to allow someone outside the band to take control. Significantly, that person was John Egenes.

A University of Otago music lecturer and an accomplished musician in his own right, Egenes invited the band to record at the university's Albany St Studios.

"He came to us and took us on as a recording project to fulfil a research element of his academic post," Dodd recalls.

"It was perfect for us. All of a sudden, we had this opportunity for someone else to take a fair amount of creative control - certainly, in terms of the sound."

For Hiphopalong, the band invited friends to play along on various instruments. However, this time around Dodd and his bandmates largely preferred to keep their own company, with the notable exception of guest fiddler Jane Clark (an old friend of Egenes).

"We tried to keep it pared back to the kind of sounds you'd hear at a gig," Dodd says. "For the most part, we had each song mapped out and we just had to capture a good version of it."

Overall, Don't Worry 'Bout Your Age sounds warm and woody. Given the band members' taste for Tim O'Brien, it comes as little surprise when Dodd reveals the recordings of the acclaimed American multi-instrumentalist were used as sonic reference points for Don't Worry 'Bout Your Age.

"Hyram is a big fan of Tim O'Brien," Dodd explains. "The rest of us obviously enjoy his music, as well. We put on Tim O'Brien's records when we got to the mixing and mastering stage because his music is roughly in the same kind of sound-scape."