WOMAD 2017 Report: Swamp Thing

Over the next couple of months 13th Floor will be running a series of articles and interviews about key artists and bands coming to WOMAD 2017 (New Plymouth, March 17-19).  The Taranaki’s based world music festival is now in its 11th year, a 3-day celebration of musical and cultural diversity on every level.  As always, the line-up features musicians from many continents, languages and genres, including a generous selection of artist from Aotearoa.  First up is Swamp Thing from the sunny Bay of Plenty. 

This two-man blues/roots band comprising of Drummer/Producer/Songwriter Michael Barker and Singer/Songwriter bluesman Grant Haua are known both in the Bay of Plenty Area and abroad for their energetic, dance-inspiring live shows.  Like the White Stripes and The Black Keys, size doesn’t matter – it’s the impact of the punch that matters. Swamp Thing’s psychedelic blues is tight and punchy.  They share a wealth of experience to craft blues- flavoured music with a deep groove and soulful spook. The band’s output might not be huge to date but it’s quality. So far they’ve released only two albums – Balladeer (2011) and the swamp-rock blues grungy Primordium (2013).  Both which have received critical acclaim.

Just before Christmas I had a chance to catch up with Michael Barker over the phone, as he was gearing up for a number of summer concerts and trying to find time to finish work on the band’s new album.

Over our conversation I learn a little bit about his long and busy career in music both here and on the other side of the Tasman.  Barker’s unique drum and percussion style has seen him record and tour with prominent contemporary recording artists such as The John Butler Trio, Neil and Tim Finn, Split Enz, the NZSO, Kasey Chambers, Missy Higgins, Alex Lloyd, Nathan Haines, Vika and Linda Bull, The Black Sorrows, Deborah Conway, Christine Anu, David Bridie, and My Friend the Chocolate Cake.

Barker’s also performed music in theatre productions of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s DreamCatsRentTap DogsPoor Boy and Jerry’s Girls.  In addition to performing and recording, Michael has written songs and music with Tim Finn, David Bridie, John Butler, Shane Nicholson, Eddie Rayner, Brian Ritchie, Vika and Linda Bull and Christine Anu.

Barker wrote, recorded, mixed and released his first solo album, Wonderland in November 2006.  Two years later he played with Split Enz on their NZ Reunion tour.  The Finn’s introduced him as the band’s newest member.  Later he wore the ENZ hat again at WOMAD, playing in Eddie Rayner’s ENZSO project.

Collaboration is something that’s deep with Barker.  He cut his teeth playing in house bands around Rotorua in the early 1980’s.  He remembers working the stage at the Tudors, now the Rotorua Museum and in Band called Cairo.  “A very hard working show band around town.  Playing live was the best way to get good and it was a great apprenticeship.”

In 1985 Barker moved to Melbourne to study orchestral music majoring in percussion at Box Hill TAFE and The Victorian College of the Arts. Having established himself as a go to drummer & percussionist playing & recording with a host of Melbourne based bands & artists.  2003-2009 saw Barker team up with John Butler and Shannon Birchall to tour and record as The John Butler Trio sharing in a phenomenal musical journey.

Relocating back to Rotorua in 2010, with his wife Cathy, Barker met up with Grant Haua through mutual friends and formed Swamp Thing. Grant Haua is a roofer by trade but also a respected bluesman in the Tauranga music community and has recorded a solo acoustic album called Knuckle Head (2010).

Barker and Haua found their ‘swamp feet’ playing in local bars and festivals. “We’d play at the Pheasant Plucker, in Rotorua for 20% of the bar take, singing for our supper.”  The duo built up a solid stage reputation around the Bay of Plenty.  Barker remembers playing one night during the Rugby World Cup when the Irish Supporters Club had chosen their pub to patronise. “They loved us.  We played our whole repertoire several times and they kept asking for more.  They drank the place dry!”

Amongst the cool instruments Barker likes to play on stage is a balafon, an African xylophone that was made especially for him by an instrument maker he met whilst touring with a brass band in the UK.  He also likes to mix up keyboard playing with one hand and drumming with the other, to flesh out the band’s sparse, raw sound.

Eventually, they made time and saved money to record their first album (Balladeer) at Neil Finn’s Roundhead Studios and at Barker’s home studio.  They also recorded a wonderfully wild live show at the Okere Falls Store in Rotorua this album & DVD (Let’s Get Live).  Their second studio album (Primodium) produced & recorded by Barker at his studio Twisty Pole (named after the unusual post at the front of his house) followed in 2013.  Their latest album has its roots, partly, in a trip to the USA in 2015.

“In April 2015,” he says “We were invited by the Baton Rouge Arts Council as artists in residence for one month.  We went thinking this would be some kind of blues pilgrimage and we didn’t expect to actually be playing and recording – but not with all these local legends!  We’d jam with the likes of Smokehouse Porter and Oscar “Harpo “Davis at a place called Phil Brady’s – some of the places are out in the swamps, y’know?”  What, with gators in the carpark and rattlers under the dashboard?  “Not quite.  But close.  We’d jam with all these locals, have crawfish boil-ups out the back.  Louisiana is such a different place from New Zealand. There’s a hard line between the shotgun shacks and these high class gated communities.  It’s more extreme.  But we met many wonderful people and have formed some lasting friendships from that trip.”

Whilst there, they took the opportunity to video some of this from the back of a pickup driving around town and this footage appears in the video Boomtown – which is actually about Auckland, although the universal themes translatable about property ownership to any community.

“We were fortunate to play with Mike Foster a local music legend. Mike is known for his sousaphone playing amongst other things. Barker says that time in Baton Rouge was “Full on.  Engagements came thick and fast.  We did workshops, radio appearances, went down to the New Orleans Jazz Festival.  We were like kids in a candy shop.”  They also got some free recording time at Presonus Studios with some local brass players to lay down a track, Let’s Get Live, which will feature on their new album.

The new studio album is recorded mainly at Barker’s Twisty Pole studio, with some time in various other locations.  They plan to release it in mid-2017, so stay tuned.  If it’s anything like the dirty swamp rock blues funk of Primordium, it’ll be a stunner.

You can see Swamp Thing at WOMAD on both Saturday with their augmented lineup of Finn Scholes on Trumpet & Percussion, Liam Rolfe on Trombone and Ben Wilcock on keys and as a two piece for Sunday or elsewhere this summer around the country.

Tim Gruar

Rainbow Springs Park Summer Series – Swamp thing – Sunday 29 January (6.30 – 10.30

www.rainbowsprings.co.nz/concert

WOMAD – Bowl Of Brooklands, New Plymouth – 17-19 March

www.womad.co.nz

In the meantime, here’s a few videos to whet your appetite

https://youtu.be/VNt6ZmGZyLw

https://youtu.be/ocTfj3cbyLc

https://youtu.be/ilni0fCyIiQ

Catch more Swamp Thing adventures @ https://www.facebook.com/swampthingnz/