"I think it was probably when we put something on record first - I think that was when we really sort of worked out who we were. We put out “Dominion Road” and on the back of it we put out “White Valiant” which is another one of these ‘fear of the countryside’ things. That atmosphere and sense of ‘otherness’ that that song has got, or the way we played it has got - the brooding quality that it’s got  - it just didn’t sound like anybody else.

It didn’t make us all of a sudden a ‘new band’ in that sense that the other young bands were around New Zealand at the time. It didn’t make us suddenly valid in terms of the small number of people who write about “new in inverted commas” music in New Zealand. But I don’t think we were ever going to be a part of that. I think we were always going to be viewed with some suspicion by people who pride themselves of being at the cutting edge of music simply because we’re older, I’m older - I’m even older now! - and other things. So it didn’t immediately pull us into the fold that we’d left, or I had left when I left Blam Blam Blam - if I was ever in the fold. ...God knows, I don’t think I’m really an insider in that way because I’ve always followed my instincts and tended to jump the wrong way compared with everybody else."
 
 

ã Copyright  Radio New Zealand Ltd 1998.  All rights reserved. Used with permission.