Soul Food

Damn, these brothers can eat! I'm sitting at a huge table at The Beach, a converted 19th century boathouse in Wellington's Lyall Bay, hooking into a mountain of fantastic food with the seven members of Fat Freddy's Drop. We've come together to celebrate the release of the band's first studio album Based On A True Story, a sublime South Pacific take on dub, jazz, techno and soul that snuck quietly out into the shops earlier this week. It's the latest milestone in a six year career involving hundreds of memorable live shows, a steady trickle of killer singles, the much-loved Live At The Matterhorn album in 2001 and a triumphant tour of the UK and Europe in 2003. Every band likes to think its albums are "eagerly anticipated", but in the Drop's case it's not the usual hopeful cliché but rather a substantial understatement. This band's huge local fan-base has been hanging out for this album's arrival for years. With such public anticipation on their side, many bands would be organising carefully contrived publicity stunts, but not these guys. . . .
They like their celebrations to be simpler and more meaningful, so I get the call: "Come and have a meal with the bros."

I arrive expecting simple tucker and a few beers, but the Drop's keyboard player Iain Gordon has other ideas. Gordon arrives mid-afternoon with guitarist Tehimana Kerr, the pair bearing a huge bucket of pipis and tuatuas they have just dug from the sand "up the coast".

Gordon cooks all afternoon and into the night, saying he doesn't want to be interviewed but will "speak through my food." Turns out he has a lot to say. Over a period of many hours Gordon sets before us perfectly cooked squid dusted with semolina flour, spectacular paua and chive wontons deep fried in peanut oil, pipis and tuatuas flambéd Spanish-style in cognac, a roast leg of lamb with mint and chilli sauce, the best potatoes I've ever eaten (roasted in duck fat) and crepes stuffed with poached feijoas for desert. Plateloads of food arrive and are dispatched within seconds, our hands slick and oily, juice running down our chins, appreciative groans of "Awww, bro!" escaping between chews.

Outside the kitchen windows the full moon silvers the sea, which is so close it bashes against the back fence just a few metres away. "Bro, Iain's food has saved us from killing each other many times" says the Drop's singer Dallas Tamaira. "We'll be on tour somewhere, miles from home, all going a bit feral and snarling at each other, and Iain will cook something that sorts us out again. He'll go off and snare a couple of rabbits, make rabbit casserole, and soon we're all back to saying- I love you, bros". There's much laughter from around the table. "Sharing food always makes you feel like you're at home, no matter where you are." True enough. I feel hugely at home here, though I've never been here before. Each musician at this table is warm and unpretentious, and seems almost telepathically attuned to his bandmates. These guys anticipate each other's questions, supply punch-lines to each other's jokes, affectionately take the piss out of each other's likes and dislikes, scrape food from their own plates onto those of their mates who've had less to eat.

Tellingly, nobody talks about the new album. These guys aren't interested in giving their music the hard sell- the new album is no weakling; it can speak for itself. Besides, this night of laughing, drinking, eating and singing says more about the spirit of Fat Freddy's Drop than any interview ever could. It strikes me that- although this band is a multi-cultural mix of Samoan, Maori and Pakeha members- two well-worn Maori words perfectly describe both this shared meal and the new record- aroha, and whanau. Listen to Based On A True Story and these two concepts drive every groove, inform every lyric. Spend a few hours in this house and it becomes clear that this is because this music is a sincere reflection of the personal values of the people making it. It really is based on a true story.

Only producer and beatmaker "Mu" Faiumu, his partner Nicole Duckworth and their 5-year-old daughter Mia live here at Fat Freddy's HQ, but neighbours, friends and family come and go all afternoon. When I arrived here earlier today Kerr, Gordon and trombone player Jo Lyndsay were busy in the kitchen, Tamaira was in the office trawling Trade Me on a laptop and singing to himself like a Maori Marvin Gaye, trumpet player Toby Laing and sax player Warren Maxwell were wandering about mixing drinks and cracking jokes, and Duckworth was on the phone sorting out last minute problems with the album artwork.

Further evidence of what a truly communal operation Fat Freddy's Drop is can be found on the dining room door frame. Scratched into the paint are dozens of pen lines with names and dates written next to them. Down the bottom of the chart you'll find Mia and her little mates, but a metre or so higher you discover that a who's who of Wellington musicians, DJs, graphic designers and other creative souls have all been backed against this wall at some point and had their heights recorded, as have visiting U.K. producers The Nextmen. Tallest by several inches is Mu, a Samoan King Kong who towers over everyone at well over six feet tall.

And where is Mu, by the way? I find him downstairs, tinkering with beats and basslines in a rudimentary-looking yet deceptively high-tech studio that's been built in two ex-bedrooms. There's scungey old orangey-brown carpet on the floor, shelves of records up the walls, a big desk loaded with recording gear, and a whole wall of windows facing the sea. "We wanted this record to kind of creep up on you" says Mu, pulling up the new album on his computer screen. He taps the mouse and it begins to thud and tickle in the monitor speakers. "We all love records that slowly smoulder in your consciousness rather than making sense to you immediately.

Most of the new songs have major rhythmic and melodic journeys within them, with a lot of different sections that go in different directions." A rugby nutter, fond of his sporting metaphors, the producer calls these unexpected musical zig-zags "freaky side-steps". "There's also a few fairly direct reggae tracks on there, because we've all grown up loving music with heavy grooves but lots of space in it."

A humble genius with his trusty MPC2000 sampler and mixing desk, Mu neglects to mention album standout Ray Ray, a track he stitched together like a mad scientist down here from tiny sections of live jam sessions. "With that one I got a bit nerdy" he sheepishly admits. "I love the geeky computer side of sound, where you spend ages manipulating edits. Some bits of that track I'd spend two hours just making a tiny four-bar section. But for most of the album the band developed the arrangements together down here, jamming in this basement."

Being in this studio it's easy to see why so much of the Drop's music sounds the way it does; it carries within it the rhythm of the sea. The foaming tide fills every window here, and its gently loping rhythm is a constant backdrop to every thought and conversation. The sea is such a dominant personality here it should almost be credited as an eighth band member.

Occassionally it's an unwelcome force too. Tamaira used to live in this room with his girlfriend, then on Waitangi Day three years ago a savage southerly sent huge waves over the sea wall and in through the back door. Now it's a studio, and nothing valuable sits on the floor in case it floods again.

"We've had some very good times down here" says Mu. "We're all really good mates, and we all have the same mission. We want to be creatively successful on our own terms, but also to sell enough records to keep on making music full-time. Many of the boys have come from playing in covers bands as teenagers, and they certainly don't want to go back to doing it now they're in their twenties and thirties. Freddy's is our future."

Back upstairs a few hours later the vodka bottle is getting a hammering. I'm sitting opposite Warren Maxwell, a striking sight with his wispy Confucius beard and a very cool Hendrix beanie pulled tightly over his head. His years fronting the now-defunct TrinityRoots have led to Maxwell being painted as a serenely spiritual person, but he's also very funny, and not overly PC either. Through the night he relentlessly takes the piss out of maori stereotypes, proclaiming himself to be a "contemporary hori" as he throws back Pinot Noir, and tells me he's getting in touch with his "inner bogan" as we discuss Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. Maxwell's partner Ange is due to give birth to their first child in the next few days. "Pregnancy feels like the perfect metaphor for this album, bro" says Maxwell. "Both things take ages to develop and grow, you know, and you worry about things along the way, and then when the birth is about to happen you feel like the drama is nearly over. Then, of course, you discover it's really just the beginning. " More nods of agreement from around the table.

There's a long road to travel yet. A very good record is finally in the shops, but now there are remixes and radio edits to do, further tours around the country and over to Australia, another lengthy visit to the U.K. and Europe in October. But they'll worry about that tomorrow. For now we eat, we drink, no worries.

Much later, with a belly full of kai moana and a head full of vodka, I sit outside by a blazing brazier as an impromptu Fat Freddy's Drop jam session takes place. Beside me Kerr improvises a jazz-inflected reggae melody on a battered acoustic guitar, Laing bangs out a rhythm on an empty olive oil can with his hands and Dallas Tamaira- surely the finest male soul singer in this country right now- starts to sing, his sweet falsetto rising with the smoke from the fire into the chilly night air. I feel extremely privileged to be here, part of the whanau for the night. Perhaps it's the palpable aroha, perhaps it's the soft sound of the waves, or all that food and drink, but within ten minutes I feel so at home that I fall asleep in my chair.

Grant Smithies, Sunday Star Times, feature