From the Front Lawn to the Feelers, Che Fu to generations of Finns, New Zealand rock music is a big subject. Just ask author and musician Gareth Shute, who has completed a bold, in-depth book covering the past two decades. Shane Gilchrist asks away.
It is late on a Wednesday in London when Gareth Shute answers the phone.
As it turns out, the call comes at a good time: New Zealand band the Sneaks has just finished practising in the flat's lounge.
The Sneaks musicians are preparing for a series of gigs backing fellow Kiwi performer Lawrence Arabia, also known as James Milne, who has secured a support slot with Canadian singer-songwriter Feist for the next month.
Why do you need to know this? Well, the fact relatively obscure Kiwi musicians are criss-crossing the globe in search of a good gig illustrates a key point of Shute's new book, NZ Rock: 1987-2007 - that New Zealand rock (and pop) music is in good health.
Published this Friday, NZ Rock covers two main themes: home and away.
New Zealand bands' international experience and a healthy domestic situation are examined extensively through 11 chapters, often through the words of the musicians themselves.
Ranging from the scene-setting "Out of the '80s" to the closing "Taking on the World", Shute covers other bases, too.
The growth and splintering of various Flying Nun acts is examined in detail, as is the expansion of independent record labels, mainstream hit-makers and more recent garage-rock riff merchants.
At more than 350 pages, Shute's book continues the thread of a story picked up by John Dix in his Stranded in Paradise: New Zealand Rock 'n' Roll 1955-1988 and David Eggleton's more recent Ready To Fly: The Story of New Zealand Rock Music.
Shute's motivation was simple: he saw a need to fill a gap.
"It was a project I wanted to do because I just felt that period of time was important and wasn't very well covered.
"I quite liked Stranded in Paradise . . . It was a pretty enjoyable read and covered all the bases before that, to a point. There is a period before that book starts that I think someone is writing a book about."
The author of Making Music in New Zealand and the Montana Award-winning Hip Hop Music in Aotearoa, Shute knew his latest release was going to involve much work.
Thus he wasn't too devastated when one of the bands in which he played guitar and bass, the Ruby Suns, underwent a recent line-up change that left him on the outer.
"I was secretly relieved that I'd be able to get more into doing my writing and not have the music clashing with it so much," he said.
As it turns out, Shute is now on the homeward stretch of a three and a-half month tour of the United States, Europe and England, playing trumpet and trombone with New Zealand group the Brunettes.
Given the imminent release of his book, the timing hasn't been great, he concedes. He hasn't even seen a final copy of it.
"It is a little bit unfortunate, but if I didn't have the book out I would probably hang around America a little bit longer . . .
I'm keen to get home and a.) see my girlfriend, and b.) to do a bit of follow-up on promoting the book."
Shute dedicated much of last year to researching and writing NZ Rock.
A part-time job at Auckland Public Library gave him access to a range of source material, including magazines such as Rip It Up and New Zealand Musician, as well as offshore publications NME and Sounds.
Having written a rough draft on a band, he'd send it "to as many people as I could" to get facts checked. He also conducted several interviews.
"I'd send out the chapters and try to judge how keen those people were to help out.
Some people just sent in corrections; others sent back comments; other people responded to the idea of doing an interview, so I did phone interviews with some.
For someone like Tim Finn, I thought it was important for me to cover his story in more detail because I felt like it hadn't been covered that well.
"You could probably do a whole book on him . . . but the basics are there now.
"With this project, it is about 110,000 words . . .
"I always knew it was going to be big. The previous two books I did came out one year after another. For this one, I gave myself a lot longer than that.
"It's nice to give yourself that room to get into some of the stories and actually express more about the band. I've found some previous books have struggled with that.
"The last thing I wanted was just a paragraph on each band. That was part of the reason for the 20-year span. I just tried to use the chapter headings to make it cohesive."
THE RELEASE of a book examining the rise and present state of popular music in this country is timely given it is New Zealand Music Month.
What then does Shute make of our homegrown sounds? "I guess you don't want to be parochial about it, but it would be nice if New Zealand was seen as the home of innovative music that it is. Quite ground-breaking music has come out.
"I think that is as close to a summary of what New Zealand bands have in common as you could get."
In his mid-30s, Shute has been in many bands, including the Tokey Tones, the Ruby Suns, the Conjurers, the Investigations, Dictaphone Blues and the Cosbys.
He also helps at Auckland-based independent label Lil' Chief Records.
In combination with his research, he is well-placed to offer an insight into the business of music, both here and abroad.
Take, for instance, the United Kingdom, a place dominated by "scenes and trends". In comparison, many Kiwi artists are more interested in the music than the money, he says.
"You just do it for more pure reasons to start out with. You don't feel that pressure to sound like Babyshambles or whoever it is now ...
"I think the more underground bands in New Zealand travel quite well, because when they come overseas they are doing something a little bit different."
Yet, in an echo of his book, which ranges from the Christchurch hit-making brigade of Bic and Boh Runga, Anika Moa and the Feelers to Wellington's heavy rock scene to the art-noise of the Xpressway label, Shute embraces all types.
"I think it is nice that we do have those commercial artists and they do create a healthy scene and open the radio programmers' ears to local music.
At the same time, some bands can flow through on their coat-tails, like Goodshirt or the Mint Chicks, bands of that ilk that suddenly become really popular and win music awards. They are quite odd bands, really."
Though the overall tone of NZ Rock is upbeat, Shute is also careful to balance the optimism with a cold dash of reality.
In the closing paragraphs of the book, he writes: "The odds are still stacked against local bands breaking into the mainstream of overseas markets, though the more innovative (or lucky) ones will hopefully be able to create a niche for themselves that is able to sustain them over their career.
"Meanwhile, at home, we can now turn on the radio and hear New Zealand music being played on a regular basis.
Amongst the most popular local musicians, there is now a sizeable collection who can support themselves on their music, without even needing to seek out an overseas audience.
Looking back over the last 20 years of New Zealand music, it is remarkable to see how far we have come."
A search to qualify that final comment results in a return to chapter one of Shute's book.
There, he details the process by which the Crowded House single Don't Dream It's Over reached No 2 in the US charts on April 25, 1987.
Though the song had been released in August 1986, it took New Zealand radio programmers another eight months to put it on high rotate - and then only after it had broken into the US top 20.
In light of such insights, Neil Finn's chorus of "Hey now, hey now" is endowed with a resonance that is as remonstrative as it is catchy.
NZ Rock: 1987-2007 (Random House, $45, pbk) is published on Friday.
