Break Out, the new album from Three Houses Down, entered the NZ chart at number thirty-four. The night after this interview I was lucky enough to catch them live at Hope Brothers in Wellington. I went expecting a big crowd but arrived to a sold out full house, and it was a Thursday night! The crew played an awesome set and were joined on stage by guest vocalist, Fiji.
How did you guys actually come together?
We just wanted a bigger sound, in the beginning we wanted to start off small and once we felt it was the right time to make the move and up the numbers we did it.
How do you find the logistics with traveling and things that?
It is tiring at times but that comes with the territory and being an artist. We all enjoy each others company and we all help out in different departments.
I’ve only got to carry round a bag of records so I’ve got respect for bands in that sense.
Yeah, we’ve also got our sound man Steve Dobs, he sort of puts everyone in line! We totally enjoy everyone being around – it makes for better unity.
Yeah totally, living out the lyrics.
That has always been our foundation, we are a family band and it’s easier for us, things just flow because we are a family, we all listen to each other.
Nice, just on that tip about living the lyric – a lot of your songs, well all of them, have conscious messages, quite often those songs don’t quite make it into the mainstream, but you guys seem to be getting there with this album.
Yeah we learnt a lot from the first album to this album – the lyric speak conscious but at the same time the we’ve up-beated a lot of our songs, to fit with the audience and what the youth nowadays want to listen to. So the first time round people hear the beats and the second time round they hear the lyrics, and we stay true to ourselves and what we write and sing about is our reality, like things that have happened in our lives and what we see in society, being religious, political, conscious and about love.
Do you see reggae and Rasta’s being taken a lot more seriously than say ten or twenty years ago?
Totally, the music and also the face as well. You know a lot of people think Rasta is just about the herb or whatever but there’s always the positive message behind it, and people are picking up on it, concerning society and reality and so the pure good vibes are coming through.
So bands like Chaos, Herbs, and Unity Pacific are some of the early reggae bands of New Zealand that have done the hard yards in a much harder time. So what’s it like following in their footsteps?
They set the foundation for our generation, the new comers, they went through the struggles and have seen a lot of issues about the music and what was happening in the early eighties and now its becoming a cool thing. Like back in the days it related to Polynesian, Pacific, and Maori people but now a lot of different ethnic people are into the music.
But also nowadays its more modern, like fusing hip-hop and reggae while back in the day it was strictly roots. Now Fat Freddys, Salmonella Dub, Kora and others put the reggae side of things in a more mainstream approach. Herbs, Unity Pacific and everyone else set that platform for all of us to do this, so much respect to all those that have enabled us to do what we do.
New Zealand Reggae has established its own voice, not only in the beats but also in the lyrical content as well.
I totally agree with that, compared with a lot of other countries we take our time and are very aware of what we write about and being conscious. I always call it heavyweight music compared to other countries and it’s true we do have our own unique sound.
We are also unique in the way we run festivals and are family orientated.
Yeah for sure, it’s a good thing but we need more, Hawaii is a good example because they have their own music which the locals totally support, more so than the music coming from the mainland, the U.S. Sometimes I think NZ is too caught up following international music when we have heaps of good stuff here already
So Three Houses Down have been to Hawaii?
Yeah, we’ve been to Hawaii, Utah, San Francisco, L.A. and Vegas. It has been awesome getting to see the world through music.
Getting back to the new album – how long did take to record?
We recorded the album in five days, everything was live with no individual takes. Recorded it at York Studios. Recording live works for us, getting everyone in the groove with the energy, it was a good intense five days.
So what can people expect when they hear Three Houses Down live?
A lot of energy and a lot roots rock reggae coming out of the soundsystem.
What do you have scheduled for summer?
We’re back to Hawaii in early January then home. We’re at the Parachute festival, Waitangi Day up here in Auckland and then another tour at some point.
Cheers, thanks for your words.
More info:
Three Houses Down Facebook
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