KODY NIELSON of OPOSSUM: In Conversation.
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
Classed by many as one of New Zealand’s very own musical geniuses, Kody Nielson is a tour de force of the stage, regardless of what band he happens to be working on at the time. Whether it be The Mint Chicks, UMO, Silicon or a solo album such as the masterpiece that was Birthday Suite – released of course on Kody’s very own day of birth – each musical offering presents another facet of an artist that epitomises creativity.
As part of the variable feast of sights, sounds and eats that is Tāmaki Makaurau’s Elemental Festival, Kody Nielson is reaching back across the years and dusting off Opossom for a live show that promises to be one not to miss. For not only will it be a return to stage for Opossom for the first time in eight years, but it will also be the live debut of King Sweeties, the musical project of Nielson’s partner Bic Runga and Cass Basil of Tiny Ruins, and Carnivorous Plant Society infamy.
But this isn’t all Nielson has on the boil, an advance copy of the new Silicon album whetting my appetite before our candid conversation goes down…
Like any interview, pleasantries are shared, the pandemic – one that has touched us all in different ways – a logical starting point to break the ice.
How are you yourself holding up during lockdown?
“I’m pretty good, pretty good. I guess I have been able to keep working cause I have a bit of a home studio here, it’s just a small set-up, but it just means that we can keep working sort of thing.”
Yeah – which is definitely important. I think keeping busy is certainly one way to get through these testing times.
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t want to think about it too much, as it’s rather heavy in a way. Not just here, but what is going on everywhere, especially in America. Where I used to live in Portland, it’s just nuts there, it’s the centre of corrupt police activity at the moment and it’s just like really surprising cause it was a different place when I was living there, it just seemed like a liberal place. But I suppose that is why the protests were going quite nuts.”
It is indeed so easy to get overwhelmed with what is going on around the world. Moving on to slightly happier things – you will of course be participating in the upcoming Elemental Nights Festival, a concert series with a plethora of names and venues over several nights. Excited to be part of it obviously?
“Yeah, real stoked. It’s obviously quite a big festival, and it’s awesome to be part of it because… well for starters we are playing with King Sweeties, that’s Bic’s group with Cass who also plays in Silicon with me, well they both play in Silicon and Opossom actually these days, so it will pretty much be them playing and then us afterwards.”
But this is sort of their first show, and also Opossom’s first one in quite a while.
Yes, and that just adds to the excitement of it doesn’t it, as it is indeed the very first live performance of King Sweeties as well as the first live show of Opossom in eight years. It is a rather lovely combination of something from the past melding together with the present for one night.
[laughs] “Yeah for sure. The band [Opossom] were kind of like on hiatus in a way, but it’s not like we stopped altogether, we just started working on other projects and so we have all been busy doing stuff in the last eight years kind of thing. But we have been working together, so I have been covering stuff with Bic, and Cass and Bic’s band and also Michael Logie – who is in Silicon – will be playing in Bic’s band as well coming up on the next tour.
We have sort of just been playing in other bands, with different material, but it’s basically still us. So, when I was going onto Silicon projects about five years ago kind of thing, they actually helped me play live as well for a bit – that was Michael and Bic – which was an awesome line-up. So, we’re kind of doing the same sort of thing again, by bringing it altogether; it’s the same people … kind of thing” [laughs]
There is a convenience to that.
[laughs] “Yeah, yeah.”
So whose idea was it to bring Opossom back into the live performance realm again?
“The promoters were kind of hinting at it at first, and yeah, we just thought about it and were like why not? It seemed like a cool idea that they proposed, it would be quite a matchy line-up musically, so yeah. It’s pretty random but I sort of wanted to get around to finishing some Opossom work actually, but I just haven’t had the time with Unknown Mortal Orchestra and stuff like that and Silicon. So now I am hoping that this will help us focus a little bit more with getting the right stuff into place.”
I actually love the idea that Opossom will be playing live again after eight years, because I think there is a lightness to Electric Hawaii that is really required right now…
“Ok, fair call. Yeah, I wasn’t thinking about necessarily anyone needed to hear it, we just thought that music in general is pretty necessary right now. It just helps to lighten up the mood, or make people feel a little bit better. Just get their mind off stressful things. Because everything is turning pretty stressful, at least music’s not. I guess it is a bit of an escape.”
Indeed, music has always been an escape, more so now than ever. And yet at the same time it is probably one of the few industries that has been the most detrimentally effected by this global pandemic, especially the backend of the live music industry such as the sound engineers, lighting techs, and roadies etc.
“The live scene is kinda over, like not really over, there are streaming gigs but that is all people can really do. I have seen some drive-in gigs and a few gigs where they distance everyone on their own separate riser kind of thing… pretty weird…”
You yourself as a musician would recognise, that when you go to see a band that you admire live there is a connection that goes on between an audience and the musicians on stage, they feed off eachother and changing that particular way of experiencing music is indeed very strange.
“Oh yeah, it’s really weird. Even like just last year, end of last year kind of thing, we were playing shows, and festivals. We were wandering around festivals watching Bic play and it’s really bizarre as that seems like so long ago!”
Now your musical history has always been one that is like an intricate woven tapestry, there are family members, genres and relationships all stitched together and it kind of ebbs and flows across a continuously shifting timeline. Can one exist without the other in your world?
Because there have always been those connections within your music, whether it be with family members such as your father and your brother or with your own partner.
“I think they have just sort of lent to one another, like one thing led to another. I am still proud of each project, because the project itself is just about presentation in a way, it’s just about the songs kind of thing. I’ve been writing songs for myself since I was a teenager and making demos on my Dad’s four track and stuff like that until he got a computer. So then I just started relearning my demo abilities on that platform. And that sort of lead to the band and I started writing music with my brother after that.
We did that band and then moved to the States and we were living in Portland for a few years, where my uncle lives on my Mum’s side. So we were just chilling over there and recording, like the band had cut down to a three piece by that point because Michael the bass player he left to do some other stuff – he moved to London. He just couldn’t be bothered touring anymore, until he joined Die! Die! Die! of course…
[chuckles]
Like he joined Die! Die! Die! but we had toured with Die! Die! Die!, so we were in Portland at that point, we made Screens – our last Mint Chicks album – and then after that tour we came back to New Zealand, toured, and then kind of broke up the band around then.
So Reuben just moved back to Portland, and I kinda went back to Portland, I just sold all my stuff and moved back. I had some music and I just kept working on it and that turned out to be Opossom. And actually, just when I moved back like Bic got in touch to do some more writing because we had done a song the year before, and then I just sort of started on that and eventually she asked me to produce her album Belle, so we did that and in the meantime we both finished that Opossom album…
So yeah, I don’t know, we just flowed really, just naturally I guess.
Basically we write the songs, and make the recordings, and the projects come together; like for example that song ‘Darkness All Around Us’ from Belle, that was a song that I had for Electric Hawaii but Bic really liked it so she wanted to work on it and actually put it on her album, so that just found it’s way onto that album. But if it hadn’t had been Belle it definitely would have been Electric Hawaii you know, so I guess it just depends on what gets finished and when.”
… and where it fits in [chuckles]
“Yeah, yeah, it just depends on what ends up where I guess. Like I am putting in one hundred percent with everything, it’s not like I am ashamed of anything.”
I love it actually, it is like your music chooses its own path and organically finds it’s place, it fits in where it fits in.
Standard interview fare so far, the quietly spoken Nielson, considerate of each sentence contending with the chatterbox that is myself as he traces the lines of band members throughout his varied projects. While the upcoming show has been at the forefront of our conversation so far, that new Silicon album is scratching at the corners of my mind, demanding it’s own share of attention.
Your love of musical gear has been very well noted and the list of what you play on the new Silicon album Transport is one that raises an eyebrow with just how impressive it is. But on top of this there is very much a technical aspect to your creativity as well with both mixing and producing playing a huge part in your repertoire.
Is this to ensure that how the music is presented to the world is your vision?
“Yes, basically, but it’s kinda also just because I am working on it. I’ve kind of like been doing engineering and stuff like that since high school. Its just one of those things that I wanted to learn. During high school my music teacher saw that I was into it and stuff like four track recording, so she gave me a scholarship to go to MAINZ.
When we started The Mint Chicks it was quite good, because it was just such a DIY sort of mentality. A lot of the stuff we were trying to do as much of it ourselves and at the same time we were doing The Mint Chicks I was at Elam. So we were trying to be creative with it and trying to be experimental… I just enjoyed learning that stuff as I’d go and learning from professionals as well that had more skill.”
Do you find sometimes that it is harder mixing and producing your own work or other peoples?
“In some ways it’s harder both ways. If you are doing your own thing there is no other perspective. But ultimately you get to do exactly what you want so that makes it good. And then on the other hand producing other people’s stuff you obviously have to make them happy, it’s a different job, so it’s a different approach for me slightly. I’m really trying to make sure they’re happy and listen to what they want and what they are trying to achieve rather than applying my own ideas so much.
But when I am doing my own thing, I’m experimenting, or trying something out, I am trying to make something that I have always imagined… if that makes sense?”
Indeed it does – also I have always found with your work is how much the visuals and artwork play a part in the overall package. A few years ago an interview with you was printed alongside these wonderful photos taken by Bic of you in some rather intricate costumes, and I loved them as to me it communicated yet another facet of your work.
“Originally when I went to Elam, I wanted to be a Graphics Designer. A lot of my influences are visual artists, like Andy Warhol and graffiti artists like KORS. I like those kinds of elements, I was real influenced by those kinds of artists. When I was younger me and Rueben used to go bombing and do graffiti in town and at the train tracks. There was like way more bombing back then, like DLT and Merksta and Tank. It was going off.
[laughs]
The scene is pretty gone. That whole area in Mt Eden is just completely gone now because they are building the big tunnels.”
Being of a similar age, our conversation soon drifts into shared memories of the old railway station at the bottom of town, Oriental Markets only a hop and a skip away, both of us lamenting the fact that the area has changed and become completely gentrified. Those memories soon prompting Neilson to recall the Victoria Park Markets of his youth and how alive and vibrant they used to feel, his own father Chris Nielson having added to the very sound of the markets themselves when playing in the band Kantuta.
Laughter flows freely as we discuss flea market weekend occurrences, my joy at vintage clothing and second-hand Doc Marten boot scores soon leading to disappointment as Nielson recalls a recent visit to Victoria Park Markets which yielded nothing but empty walkways and cookie cutter corporate shops.
It is these colourful memories that undoubtedly shape Nielson’s thoughts and ideas, our conversation quickly turning to excited chatter as we discuss Dominion Road eats [I seriously hope he takes up my recommendation of hitting Spicy House for dinner] and the inherent character of K’rd where despite recent inroads of gentrification, you can still feel comfortable chilling out and grabbing a bite without being side eyed by corporate lunchers.
Ever creating, I bring the conversation back to the exciting new Silicon album, the melodies of which are still tingling the nerve endings of my mind. While just recently completed, Transport does not yet have a confirmed release date thanks to the global pandemic wreaking havoc on the industry, both parties expressing gratitude for having a leader like Jacinda Ardern at the helm who has steered the country into safer waters rather than being focused purely on the economy and leaving the vulnerable to sink or swim.
“Speaking of Jacinda, a funny fact, she said in an interview once that her favourite song is ‘Blue Meanies’” [from Opossoms Electric Hawaii album]
[mutual laughter]
“I don’t know if it’s true, but I read it in an interview once. It’s pretty funny if it is true!”
One thing I would have to say with Transport, and this may be to do with how you developed Silicon as well; but you have delved back into that instrumental setting, those jazz influences of yours definitely evident. In saying that though as the title track flowed into the more upbeat second track of ‘Moonlight/Daylight’, I really was taken back to the delicious early days of Chemical Brothers!
[Shit. Did I just insult one of New Zealand’s greatest musical minds?]
“Oh ok – I was into the Chemical Brothers, I do like them, I liked their whole thing, the cool sound of it and everything. I was into them, back in the day. Nah that’s cool, as I was trying to make it more dancey I guess?”
Discussing the elements that feed into the album, family once again reared its head, Chris Neilson of course performing on the album, adding his own influence with well-placed solos.
“There was a track where we really went pretty nuts and went out there and it sounded pretty wild. And the track would just go completely nuts and then come back to normal. But I ended up taking that one out because Bic was like, ‘People are going to think that you are copying the IC-01 Hanoi [UMO] album’
And I was like, ‘Oh wow, shit [chuckles] and I couldn’t like [laughs] I couldn’t like use it after that, even though that is me and my Dad playing on that album, the Hanoi album. And I made Transport before Hanoi. [laughs] But I couldn’t un-think that, so I just took that one out.
I wanted it [Transport] to be like a fusion album, like 70’s fusion, stuff like that. Like Return to Forever and Herbie Hancock’s fusion albums, I like a lot of that stuff, the sound and everything.”
Nice, I think you can see that a little bit in the video for ‘Transfer’ as well.
“Ok cool, those videos are not proper videos, they were just little temporary videos, but I’m glad you get the idea.”
For me the symbiosis between music and visuals has always been an important one, so I appreciated being able to watch something so hypnotic but so perfectly paired with the song. The perpetual motion, pulling from the key words etc, the emotive effect of movement.
For example there is an exhilaration to track two, with the car sounds and the upbeat tempo and that sensation of moving forward or accelerating with speed. And then there’s the almost forlorn feeling with the song ‘Lonely Airport’, that tiredness and feeling of being lost.
‘Moonlight/Daylight’ is currently battling with Transfer for my top favourite track, ‘Transfer’ winning by a nose; Neilson happily informing me that it is his favourite as well.
With a distaste for ever asking an artist what they define their own art as, I instead queried the particular influences at the time that fed into the albums creation…
“I mean when I think about some of the lyrics and that, yeah it was all about touring and moving house and stuff like that. Moving to America and moving back again. The stress of it, a lot of touring. A different mood, being transported or at least transported in your imagination. I also had like this public transport idea and all the transports in the world, just non-stop. Like this human movement, but with technology, with robots and humans kind of thing…
And a lot of that… where we are travelling just on a plane to the middle of nowhere, to an event, and you just wake up and you’re like… [laughs] you just realise you’re in the middle of nowhere kind of thing. That kind of feeling.”
Laughter ensues as we discuss the fact that flying is not always the most comfortable, especially waking up halfway through the night and realising that you are in the middle of the air, above miles of ocean, in a metal tube.
Neilson laughs.
“Fuckin’ deadness!”
While Neilson has done his fair share of moving his life across countries, the thought of it now just stresses him out.
“I’m just like ‘awww nah’, I couldn’t even comprehend doing that now. It would just be a nightmare now, selling all my stuff…
Like I had to sell all my stuff in Portland on Craig’s List and stuff like that, and I had to sell it out of my storage unit. That was not cool. [laughs] I had to like go to the storage unit and meet people… [puts on a voice] ‘Ah yeah, can I like check out your bed?’ Has a look at it ‘Nah, that’s not what I’m looking for’ [laughs] It was probably the most depressing shit ever.”
We have been in conversation for more than hour now, the walls of formality broken down through stories of childhood and a shared love of favourite haunts both past and present. Both parents, we laugh at how cyclic fashion is, and pay our respects to the upcoming generations who scavenge from old school thrift stores while turning their noses up at the glass monstrosities that litter town peddling their sweat shop wares at exorbitant prices.
Returning full circle I throw my last question out, enquiring with Neilson as to who his picks to watch would be if he was a punter;
“Probably like Troy Kingi, the stuff that is going on at the Hollywood looks pretty cool, like Avantdale Bowling Club. I know the drummer and I sort of know Tom. Yeah, they are cool!”
Kody Nielson may be a couple of decades younger than well regarded names such as Neil Finn, Dave Dobbyn and Don McGlashan, but he is a national treasure regardless. His music guaranteed to score our ongoing journey throughout the years.
Opossum are performing tonight alongside King Sweeties as a part of the Elemental Nights concert series. Limited last minute tickets are still available from Live Nation, but get in quick as this is sure to sell out!
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