The following is an edited transcript of Shane Gilchrist's interviews with The Puddle founder, singer-songwriter and guitarist George D. Henderson, and his drum-playing brother, Ian, conducted by phone on Monday, June 29, before the band embarked on a national tour beginning this weekend.
George D. Henderson
...On Tour Preparations...
ODT: How are the practice sessions going?
George: It's going really well, better than I thought it would. We've started doing the old songs, including some from Into the Moon.
ODT: That's unlike you, isn't it?
George: Yeah, well ... exactly. I don't usually like doing them because they haven't sounded good in the past. But doing them now, they sound great. It sounds like the same band ... on a better day. It opens a whole lot more potential for what we can do, in terms of different types of song, different beats.
ODT: That preference to move on, sometimes to the frustration of band members who had only just learnt previous batch of songs ... why did you feel that way?
George: I'm not so bad nowadays, but I guess I used to be running on enthusiasm and the minute something became work instead of fun, I didn't have the skills I need to do it justice from that aspect.
Now I do. Now there is no difference.
I still do this thing where if I'm writing a song, that's the only song I want to play. Once they've been played live a few times, I kind of forget them. But I have to do that to move on and write something else. Now I'm better at putting life back into a song in much the same way as when I wrote it.
It's to do with ... a mood thing, managing your energy. In the past I would wake up and from one day to the next I wouldn't know if I felt like doing anything. Now I know I do. Apply that to music and it means you can do anything you used to do with music -- but probably better.
...On Music...
ODT: There is a wide range of material on your latest album, The Shakespeare Monkey, from dreamy pop to distorted guitar riffery. Was that always the plan?
George: So that I don't repeat myself, my aesthetic changes over time. I go away and listen to music and think, 'why don't I do that?'. I've started putting modulations into songs, changing key in the middle of a song or even in the middle of a line. Now I'm doing that, I can't go back to the old way of doing things where it is rooted in the same set of harmonies within a song.
That has its own beauty, but now I'm sold on this other way of doing things. I'm also exploring the flat keys that I never used before because they are harder to play on the guitar. Again, because I have a bit more stamina, I can do things that are a bit more challenging to play. There is always something to be discovered.
I don't listen to a lot of music. The last music I listened to was a Bobby Darin album from 1968. That really impressed me. But most stuff ... I'm a kind of guy who might find a record I really like and listen to nothing else for six months. I don't necessarily put on music every day. I don't listen to the radio. Most of the music I listen to is my own.
The reason I make the music I make is that I can't hear it out there. I'm trying to make the music I would want to listen to. I'm getting closer all the time. That was always my ambition, from reasonably early on in The Puddle ... there were a few bands like Microdisney or The Smiths or Orange Juice ... why aren't people doing this; it's great.
So I had to do it. No one else was going to.
ODT: what re your thoughts on the current line-up of The Puddle, featuring your brother Ian on drums, and Gavin Shaw on bass?
George: I'm playing with people who are very skilled, but at the same time have grown up listening to me and like my stuff, so they want to play it 'The Puddle way'. They are often better than I am at thinking of what they are doing.
With my songs there is certainly room for improvisation, as long as it serves the feel of the songs, the mood that we are creating. There is a lot of freedom. People do get their solos.
ODT: One reviewer recently described you as the 'tortoise who has finally won the race'. Are you a better songwriter now than, say, 25 years ago?
George: I'm a late bloomer ... definitely. I've learnt things slowly and my own way. People could have told me but it wouldn't have done any good. When I look at my own songs, it wasn't until I was in my late 40s that I had the confidence to say what I wanted to in a song-or the skills to say it in a variety of genres.
You have to have a quality control. A song may not be original or it may express a view I'm not happy with. It is easy write a song-and without a good enough reason to do so. To even write a catchy song that isn't justified. You could end up regretting that. Well, I know I would. If I worked up every single idea I had I think I'd end up regretting quite a few of them.
ODT: Do you care what others say about your music? Do reviews matter to you?
George: Yeah. For No Love-No Hate, some guy said, 'he doesn't know anything about song structure'. That hit home. I don't put middle eights in my songs and there are reasons for that: if you're playing with people who aren't that well-rehearsed, it's good if you have no changes. Also, a lot of middle eights are gratuitous anyway. But it made me think. On the next album I put in a lot.
If someone is pointing out a fault that I'm aware of but perhaps haven't thought about for a while, then I read it in an interview, it does make me think, 'can I please this person?' Why not? It's always good to have new ideas.
I don't think I have as much of an ego as I used to . . . but if you are an artist, you have to have an ego; you have to have a thick skin. A lot of artists have a thin skin and that's why they seem to have an ego, whereas they are just sensitive. You really have to isolate yourself from everything in order to create and that's not easy in the world. That can come across as arrogance.
ODT: There are a number of musicians (no names . . .) who seem to regard music as product; they put the outcome before the artistic spark, the cart before the horse if you'll excuse the cliché. Your thoughts?
George: If you do that, it doesn't last. You may get your goal of shifting so many units but you're not going to make music that you'll be happy with in your old age.
ODT: Themes on The Shakespeare Monkey include love, romance, friendship, and also self-reflection; for instance, opening track As It Was. Please explain.
George: On As It Was, this guy is boasting, but at the same time what he is boasting about is . . . he's being lazy and he knows it and although he is self-taught and is individualistic and has achieved a lot for himself, a lot of it he has done for the wrong reasons. It's a satire on the self-made man in New Zealand; a certain kind of young, artistic intellectual, of how a life pans out if you spend your life on the dole, reading books or whatever.
...On Own Health...
ODT: I'd suggest there seems to be a correlation between the quality of your last two albums, No Love-No Hate and The Shakespeare Monkey, and your own health and/or state of mind. What do you think?
George: Going to Auckland [in 2005] has definitely been good. My health has been steadily improving; my lifestyle is very relaxed. I get enough sunlight. Instead of distracting me from making music, it seems to have made it easier. I'm living in the Waitakere hills, face to face with nature.
I wandered down Blacks Rd [Northeast Valley, Dunedin] twice the other day and it was like a foreign country. I thought, 'God, I could never come back here'. I used to come back every so often and it felt good, but now I feel like a foreigner and that's good. That's what happens I guess. You don't know you are in a rut until you get out of it, I guess.
ODT: Do you enjoy the relative anonymity of living in a bigger city?
George: Oh, hell yeah. In another interview, which I might as well copy here, I said it was like being in a witness protection programme. And it's not just me; it's the fact that most people in Auckland come from other places-they don't have pasts either . . . everybody has that liberation from the past. I don't stand out in that community.
ODT: Is it a way to escape your own history? Or at least others' perceptions of you?
George: Yes, to start again.
ODT: The adjective "shambling" seems to follow you around. Is it fair?
George: It is not undeserved, but it hasn't been true for a long time. At other times in my life, like in the early '90s I kind of moved on from it and it's not that easy because it's all people want to talk about. That's because it is, of course, interesting. I'd be more interested in that. Most musicians are drug addicts. That's a fact of life.
Most musicians who are any good, that you are going to hear about, are. It's a cliché. In the wider artistic field, the self-destructive poet is a cliché; the depressive novelist ... they are all clichés. So you have to have some way of making it your own in some way; you have to stand out in the crowd if you're going to go that way.
ODT: When did you contract hepatitus C?
George: Who knows . . . they only developed a test for it in 1991 and that's when I was told I had it. From about 1993 to 2003, that was the period - for much of the time, not all of it - when I was too sore, too tired, not in the mood. I really didn't feel like doing music unless I had lots of drugs.
ODT: How do you manage your health?
George: I take lots of supplements, eat well.
ODT: Are you still on the methadone programme?
George: I am reducing ... but I'm not sure I want to give up drugs altogether. It's not essential to me to give up, to become completely drug-free in order to have control over my own destiny. It is for some people.
ODT: That's quite a controversial statement -- that you'll choose to remain on methadone?
George: Oh, I'll probably come off it, because I appreciate the freedom of not being beholden to a doctor anymore. But in general-and I know it's not the healthiest thing in the world-it wouldn't break my heart if I didn't give it up. I wouldn't feel like I've let myself down or anything like that.
ODT: At the aged of 51, do you mull over own mortality?
George: Up to a certain point, you can get away with just watching the ageing process. You can say, 'Oh well, I'll do that later. I know I should be doing a certain amount of exercise and a certain amount of Omega 3s and so forth, but I'll do that later. There is plenty of time for it'.
But if you do these things before you get sick, it's a lot easier. It takes a lot less effort to keep yourself healthy than it does to regain your health once you've lost it.
...On your relationship with Ian...
ODT: Can you explain the role of Ian in your recent revival?
George: Ian is manager, collaborator, artist, everything. He does everything I don't do. It's a very productive partnership.
ODT: Is he someone who has believed in you? Did he want to do justice to your music?
George: He knows it very well. And it's not just by listening to it. I think it's in his blood, too. Whatever enables me to do it enables him to do it. I'll play him a new song and he'll pick up a guitar and play the lead part to it before I've taught him it. He knows what notes I'll choose.
ODT: Obviously, a shared musical history helps.
George: Well, we were competitive record buyers. We raced to have everything Uriah Heap put out back in 1973 or 1975. Playing together as kids, we had a band in Invercargill, Crazy Ole and The Panthers. It lasted two or three years. The reason why Ian wasn't in The Puddle back in the day even though he could have been was because our lifestyles were so different that I knew it wouldn't be fair on him to play back in the day.
I could have picked up the phone at any time in the Puddle's career and asked Ian to play but I'm glad I saved it up for when it was appropriate.
ODT: Explain how Ian came to be in the current line-up [which includes Gavin Shaw on bass].
George: Ian was fairly busy and I wasn't sure how much energy he had to put into an extra band. Matt Middleton, of Crude, was the drummer and then he said he couldn't do it because he had other things on.
...On Recent Revival...
ODT: Two albums in as many years, favourable reviews, a national tour, media interest, including the proposition of an interview with National Radio's Saturday Morning host Kim Hill . . . momentum seems to be building for The Puddle. What are your thoughts on all this?
George: What is interesting is this momentum is sustained of itself. It's not in response to us doing more things. It's all from the album that came out in January and it is snowballing. It has created its own momentum, finally. It's the best kind of momentum. The other kind is ... inertia. This is downhill racing. It's really good.
ODT: What are your plans after this tour?
George: There are two albums in the can, one of which will blow everyone away. If people have liked what they've heard, this will appeal to an even broader range. It's a kind of full-on rock album by The Puddle. Richard Steele, who used to play saxophone with The Puddle back in the 1980s, has become a top doctor and he has all this money he wants to spend doing something he enjoys ... so he got these tapes and is working away on them.
It's a case of making sure they get good distribution, that they are heard. That's one of the things holding it up at the moment. The other album is . . . I went to Hamilton in 1986 with the line-up that recorded Into The Moon . . . I did a batch of songs there. It's for people who liked that mid-'80s set. It is a nice clear recording. At the same time, we are starting to record another album with Ian.
Ian Henderson
...On Tour and Plans...
ODT: What prompted the idea to tour?
Ian: We've been talking about for the last year but it was one of those things that required someone to organise it . . . we eventually decided, 'right, we've got to do this'. The pivot for it was when George decided to come down and do some more recordings. I thought we'd then follow with a tour. We'd be practising here so it was a case of working out some dates.
I'm the only one in the band with a fulltime job so am pretty much bankrolling it in terms of travel. We're borrowing gear from bands. We've also done a dark and arty video for the song Naked. It was made by cameraman Pat O'Neill, who has done videos for Look Blue Go Purple's Cactus Cat, among others.
...On Music...
ODT: This is not the first time you've played in The Puddle, I understand?
Ian: George and I started off playing together, in Craze Ole and the Panthers, at Southland Boys High School . . . we played live a few times . . . After that I went overseas and came back and would get a call from George, 'hey, we're in the Battle of the Bands; we're playing on Saturday and Shayne Carter doesn't want to play drums for us anymore; can you come up and play drums?'.
That was one instance. That must have been 25 years ago. Another time, drummer Leslie Paris, who played in Look Blue Go Purple, couldn't get off work on a Friday night so again I got the call. It didn't happen often . . .
ODT: The last two albums by The Puddle, No Love-No hate and The Shakespeare Monkey, have been released on your own label, Fishrider Records. Please explain.
Ian: Fishrider was set up to record a Dark Beaks album. I set up a studio in a basement at my Waverley house; shortly after that talked to George and told him I had a space and gear and if he wanted to do some demos, he was welcome.
ODT: On the evidence of those last two albums, it's a good arrangement. Certainly, recording quality seems a bit better these days.
Ian: I guess that's one of the reasons I wanted to help. I got frustrated with the fact that it was so lo-fi . . . listen to Pop-Lib and the chaos there. It was recorded with a couple of mikes and then they overdubbed it later. The other albums, too, like Into The Moon . . . I think the band must have all been on drugs. It was just a disaster ... in the past, perhaps there was no quality control, or the wrong person at the helm.
The good thing is, George is keen to revisit his back catalogue. George trusts me to do the production. A lot of the time we'd think, 'let's just keep this as a demo', but it would turn out we couldn't do a better version. The demos always turn out better. At times, we could record three songs a day. I think my role is enabling or facilitating, making things happen. The Puddle has the advantage of having that Flying Nun catalogue. Even though the output might have been rubbish, that whole mystery and self-destructiveness has a certain attraction.
I guess the thing is, we've never really done ourselves justice. George has played very occasionally. The bizarre thing is, since George moved to Auckland we've played more gigs and had really good crowds, even with unpromoted, secret gigs. We are rehearsing about 35 songs and will cull that back. We'll aim to do different sets . . .
It's going to be interesting. George is not a conventional performer. He plays more bum note than most other guitarists when he does solos.
...On George...
ODT: Are the latest brace of albums also result of George being in a better place, mentally, and physically?
Ian: In the 1990s he stopped doing music. He got sick . . . But being the mad professor that he is, he did a whole lot of research into hepatitis C and completely changed his lifestyle to healthy easting, healthy living. In the 90s, it wasn't that I didn't want to have much to do with George, but I got frustrated. I'm still his brother so I'd still keep in touch with him. I gave up the struggle of trying to change him . . .
But I always believed in him, his talent.
When I look back through history of rock and roll, I'd struggle to find any recording artist who has taken 25 years to deliver on their potential. Nobody is that stubborn or stupid to stick around that long. George has always believed in himself but, I guess, like a lot of artists, they are just programmed to write and play music.
It doesn't matter what might be happening in their lives, they still play music, but might not be particular ambitious. There is no pandering to commercial tastes and I think that is what people liked about Flying Nun back in the day.
