November 14, 2024 • 8 mins
Tracey caught up with Hoodoo Guru's frontman Dave Faulkner ahead of the bands 40th Anniversary NZ Tour
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Gold a sides podcast The Stories behind Just Great Rock.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Just been announced that Hoodu Guru is coming to New
Zealand early next year. The fortieth anniversary. Now it's the
debut Stone Age Romeo's album. This isn't the fortieth anniversary
of the band. That was a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yeah, that was a few years ago, believe it or not.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Yeah, we started an eighty one, So this is forty
third year or something, going to oka it on to
the forty fourth September is the actual anniversary, so whatever
that is, so went our first gig. Yeah, but Sunday's
Romeos forty years this year, So we're celebrating by playing
the whole album in concert to begin our show, and
then we'll continue on the show with a super sized
center of extra you know, song from all over the place.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
When you think back to that night when you were
lying on the roof of your flat having a few beers,
throwing the idea of maybe putting a covers band together,
the fact, right, the fact that you're here forty years later,
I mean that is long jevity. You would have never expected.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Of me or myself personal, let alone the band.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
You know, I had no idea about where I was
going to end up let alone, you know, being a
rock and roll band playing these songs.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I mean, it's just it just boggles the mine.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
As you say, I mean, so many good memories a
from those early days. A couple of stories that I
love that you've told. One that you could only afford
one taxi, so all the instruments and just one band
member would take the taxi everyone else had to walk.
And also the fact that you had to book all
the gigs through a local phone box. When you look
at bands today, you had.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Done your research.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Honestly, when you look at bands today that can run
a worldwide business off their mobile phone, they will never
know the actual league work that bands thirty forty years
ago had to put in.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Well, I guess they still have to get the taxis
to get their gear up the heill if they hadn't
got a car like we didn't have. You know that
hasn't changed physically, got to move equipment around just like before.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I mean, it's funny, isn't it, Because you know, I
think we're all striving for success and the riches it brings,
But when you look back on life, aren't always the
times when you were broke and couldn't afford taxis and
we're drinking two dollars flags of wine that are like
the happiest memories.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Well some of them are pretty damn good. You're right,
those those little cheap flagons of wine. The Chinese takeaway
there was next door, and you know, you're having a
lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
You had no care in the world.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
You was doing things to amuse yourselves and you know,
and of course you did use yourself immensely, So yeah,
it was.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
But at the same time, we still enjoy ourselves and
we're just as passionate and excited about music as we
ever were, so that part hasn't changed, which is nice
to say, because you know, some people obviously get burnt
out and you know, they lose the vibe or whatever.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
But we still very much enjoy playing music.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
And I feel like you personally always had the belief
in the band. I mean the fact that you were
working for like a was it a hospital cleaning company
and you quit the night before your first show. That
is the ultimate belief in your band.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Yeah. Well, you know, the doll was beckoning me, which
I've paid back a thousand times over, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Look, it was hard to actually write songs while I
was working, and funnily enough, so you know, I'm a songwriter,
that's my main thing. And sometimes I used to ring
up my answering machine when I was out and about
to record because they never had little take recorders you
get carry around with you like we do now with
our mobile phone. Those have the memo functioned. That's how
I write songs these days. But working just didn't suit me.
You know, I just couldn't relax and focus on the
(03:12):
creative side. So you know, it happened, you know several
times in my life where I've had to have jobs
that were crushing the ability to make music because you
just feel like after eight hours of working or whatever
it is, you know, you just want to relax and
you know, maybe get drunk when you get home, you know,
rather than pick up a guitar and you know, start
your other job.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
You know, it's been hard.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I just want to go back to what you were
saying about how you're still sort of you know, making
notes and things like you sit, if you're out walking
and it troon pops into your head, you'll chuck it
into voice memos. Does that mean that there's there's a
new Hood Guru music coming, or perhaps a solo album
in the works.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Or look, I never say never about any of those things.
People have been telling me I'm going to do a
solong forever. But I'm actually working on some other stuff
at the moment, which is for a musical theater thing
that it's been on going for about fifteen years, believe
it or not. But Guru's music, we just did our
best shot a couple of years ago with the charity
of the God's album, and it always takes a while
to recharge the batteries creatively, so I won't be looking
(04:03):
to do anything for a couple of years at least
on that score.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I mean, you've written some incredible songs over the years,
and I've always thought that that's the real talent in music.
Although I want you to tell us about these line
parties you used to have. We'd get mates together and
tell everyone just to yell out lines or writing words.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
It sounds a bit weird, wetter. No, no, no, it
wasn't anything like that now.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
What it was when we first started, you know, as
I say, we used to get a flag and a
wine and sit around in an afternoon and you know,
play records or whatever or write songs.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
You know, it was kind of fun.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
And there was a particular moment when we did the
song Let's All Turn On, where it was basically people
just hollering out names of artists that they loved, you know,
that we all had in common, basically, and then I
just sort of wrote them down and tried to make
it all rhyme.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
And that's what that song is.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
It's basically a list song of all these different artists
and songs that we could think.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Of off the top of their heads that particular afternoon.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Because when you were sort of starting out, I mean
you personally were really into the classic rod which we
play here on Gold with the Zippelin, the Purple the Seventh,
but you sort of even wrote songs in that heavy
rock vein. It was more when you got into the
punk rock like seventies that you found those shorter, harder heading,
higher energy songs that.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Were totally well. As a kid, I grew up on
the sixties stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
I'm old enough for all that stuff to have been
you know, brand new when I was a little kid.
And you know, here in the Stones and the Beatles
and easy beats and what have you. And then as
I got older, you know, there was you know, glam
rock and you know Creeden's clear Water Revival and stuff
like that.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
But then of course, as you say, like.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Deep Purple and things like that came into my life
Black Sabbath, but you know, I still wasn't fully grown yet,
and it wasn't untill like, just was about seventeen years
old I heard about punk rock and that was the
sort of thing that crystallized my tastes really.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
You know.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
It was the most exciting music in the world at
that time anyway, you know, so that was what most
inspired me. But also just the whole energy and the
spirit and the you know, the just the economy of
it all. I really related to that, and it kind
of made me explain to myself why I didn't relate
to things like prog rock so much, even though I
did like some prog rock and I do these days too,
but it was a little bit too bascal or something sounding.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
You know.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
I just wanted something a bit more make you want
to sing along and jump around to, you know, and
that's what punk rock did.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
And that's pretty much sort of you know, been my
thing ever since, you know.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
I mean, we do ballads and things, but you know,
I like them to feel that those even the ballads,
have some kind of momentum and not just kind of
like laying the inner you know. Yeah, energy is the
whole thing for me, and punk rock was that. So
you know, I can never predict which songs a band
will naturally take to.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
I do want to tell you that you actually wrote
one of my favorite songs of all time, the song
good Times, and I've done a We done a rabbit
hole last night on YouTube. Watch the video. Oh my god,
look literally took me right back to high school. Oh
what I would do right now if you could just
sing me a line of that a cappella.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
You told me good bye and I believed there we go.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Wow, I'll be back again. New I did say goodbye,
but I'm saying hello again.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I mean, obviously, I know you're doing the Stone Age
Romeo's album in order, but there will be a few
Hoodo Bang. Is it the end?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
No, No, we're doing it. As I said, we're doing
a super sized set. But in rehearsal the other day
I just chucked all the stone Age songs at the
front of a set we've been playing, so we have
plenty of room for all those songs from the other
parts of our career that people might want to hear.
I mean, we obviously can't play everything, and otherwise we'd
be here till Kingdom come. But you know, we get
a good cross section. We certainly get all the ones
that people most strongly identify with us from the various eras.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Will you be getting a local band on support or
what do you guys normally do?
Speaker 3 (07:20):
To be honest, I don't know usually do.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
In fact, I'm wearing a T shirt right now for
one of the Bandsho played with us, Silk Cut, and
so you know, hopefully we'll see those guys or someone
as good as them. You know, we love having other
bands on, but when we're touring America, we won't be
having any supports because yeah, it's just the way we
do it. But hopefully in New Zealand we will be good.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
As you tell me one of your memories of what
it was like when you guys were a bunch of
young Asi LED's touring with the Bengals. That must have
been a fun couple of months.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
It was, Yeah, it was amazing.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Basically we had the same agency in the States who
are booking the band, and before the tour, this is
nineteen eighty five and we released our second album, Marsi's Guitars,
and they had their album coming out called A Different Light.
Just before the tour began, they released a song called
Manic Monday and it started to do very well. So
what was going to be a co headline tour with
us swapping a bill every night ended up becoming us
(08:04):
supporting for the whole tour. But the thing is the
bands were still very much in the same kind of mindset,
you know. We loved each other's music and got on
like a house on fire. It was a bit of
a who's who at times.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Oh David, is so good to talk to you. I
saw you guys when I was in high school, when
you came to Hamilton, New Zealand, many many years ago,
and now you're coming back for three shows the fortieth
anniversary of The Stone Age Romeo's album Wellington Crushed at Auckland.
Tickets on presale on Tuesday. Thank you so much for
taking the time to talk to your fans here in
my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Looking forward to being there and knocking it out of
the park.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Gold Asides podcast the stories behind Just Great Rock. If
you enjoyed this podcast, click to share with family or friends.
For Just Great Rock, listen to gold FM anytime anywhere
on iHeartRadio
Gold a sides podcast The Stories behind Just Great Rock.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Just been announced that Hoodu Guru is coming to New
Zealand early next year. The fortieth anniversary. Now it's the
debut Stone Age Romeo's album. This isn't the fortieth anniversary
of the band. That was a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yeah, that was a few years ago, believe it or not.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Yeah, we started an eighty one, So this is forty
third year or something, going to oka it on to
the forty fourth September is the actual anniversary, so whatever
that is, so went our first gig. Yeah, but Sunday's
Romeos forty years this year, So we're celebrating by playing
the whole album in concert to begin our show, and
then we'll continue on the show with a super sized
center of extra you know, song from all over the place.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
When you think back to that night when you were
lying on the roof of your flat having a few beers,
throwing the idea of maybe putting a covers band together,
the fact, right, the fact that you're here forty years later,
I mean that is long jevity. You would have never expected.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Of me or myself personal, let alone the band.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
You know, I had no idea about where I was
going to end up let alone, you know, being a
rock and roll band playing these songs.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I mean, it's just it just boggles the mine.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
As you say, I mean, so many good memories a
from those early days. A couple of stories that I
love that you've told. One that you could only afford
one taxi, so all the instruments and just one band
member would take the taxi everyone else had to walk.
And also the fact that you had to book all
the gigs through a local phone box. When you look
at bands today, you had.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Done your research.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Honestly, when you look at bands today that can run
a worldwide business off their mobile phone, they will never
know the actual league work that bands thirty forty years
ago had to put in.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Well, I guess they still have to get the taxis
to get their gear up the heill if they hadn't
got a car like we didn't have. You know that
hasn't changed physically, got to move equipment around just like before.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I mean, it's funny, isn't it, Because you know, I
think we're all striving for success and the riches it brings,
But when you look back on life, aren't always the
times when you were broke and couldn't afford taxis and
we're drinking two dollars flags of wine that are like
the happiest memories.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Well some of them are pretty damn good. You're right,
those those little cheap flagons of wine. The Chinese takeaway
there was next door, and you know, you're having a
lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
You had no care in the world.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
You was doing things to amuse yourselves and you know,
and of course you did use yourself immensely, So yeah,
it was.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
But at the same time, we still enjoy ourselves and
we're just as passionate and excited about music as we
ever were, so that part hasn't changed, which is nice
to say, because you know, some people obviously get burnt
out and you know, they lose the vibe or whatever.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
But we still very much enjoy playing music.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
And I feel like you personally always had the belief
in the band. I mean the fact that you were
working for like a was it a hospital cleaning company
and you quit the night before your first show. That
is the ultimate belief in your band.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Yeah. Well, you know, the doll was beckoning me, which
I've paid back a thousand times over, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Look, it was hard to actually write songs while I
was working, and funnily enough, so you know, I'm a songwriter,
that's my main thing. And sometimes I used to ring
up my answering machine when I was out and about
to record because they never had little take recorders you
get carry around with you like we do now with
our mobile phone. Those have the memo functioned. That's how
I write songs these days. But working just didn't suit me.
You know, I just couldn't relax and focus on the
(03:12):
creative side. So you know, it happened, you know several
times in my life where I've had to have jobs
that were crushing the ability to make music because you
just feel like after eight hours of working or whatever
it is, you know, you just want to relax and
you know, maybe get drunk when you get home, you know,
rather than pick up a guitar and you know, start
your other job.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
You know, it's been hard.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I just want to go back to what you were
saying about how you're still sort of you know, making
notes and things like you sit, if you're out walking
and it troon pops into your head, you'll chuck it
into voice memos. Does that mean that there's there's a
new Hood Guru music coming, or perhaps a solo album
in the works.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Or look, I never say never about any of those things.
People have been telling me I'm going to do a
solong forever. But I'm actually working on some other stuff
at the moment, which is for a musical theater thing
that it's been on going for about fifteen years, believe
it or not. But Guru's music, we just did our
best shot a couple of years ago with the charity
of the God's album, and it always takes a while
to recharge the batteries creatively, so I won't be looking
(04:03):
to do anything for a couple of years at least
on that score.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I mean, you've written some incredible songs over the years,
and I've always thought that that's the real talent in music.
Although I want you to tell us about these line
parties you used to have. We'd get mates together and
tell everyone just to yell out lines or writing words.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
It sounds a bit weird, wetter. No, no, no, it
wasn't anything like that now.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
What it was when we first started, you know, as
I say, we used to get a flag and a
wine and sit around in an afternoon and you know,
play records or whatever or write songs.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
You know, it was kind of fun.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
And there was a particular moment when we did the
song Let's All Turn On, where it was basically people
just hollering out names of artists that they loved, you know,
that we all had in common, basically, and then I
just sort of wrote them down and tried to make
it all rhyme.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
And that's what that song is.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
It's basically a list song of all these different artists
and songs that we could think.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Of off the top of their heads that particular afternoon.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Because when you were sort of starting out, I mean
you personally were really into the classic rod which we
play here on Gold with the Zippelin, the Purple the Seventh,
but you sort of even wrote songs in that heavy
rock vein. It was more when you got into the
punk rock like seventies that you found those shorter, harder heading,
higher energy songs that.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Were totally well. As a kid, I grew up on
the sixties stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
I'm old enough for all that stuff to have been
you know, brand new when I was a little kid.
And you know, here in the Stones and the Beatles
and easy beats and what have you. And then as
I got older, you know, there was you know, glam
rock and you know Creeden's clear Water Revival and stuff
like that.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
But then of course, as you say, like.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Deep Purple and things like that came into my life
Black Sabbath, but you know, I still wasn't fully grown yet,
and it wasn't untill like, just was about seventeen years
old I heard about punk rock and that was the
sort of thing that crystallized my tastes really.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
You know.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
It was the most exciting music in the world at
that time anyway, you know, so that was what most
inspired me. But also just the whole energy and the
spirit and the you know, the just the economy of
it all. I really related to that, and it kind
of made me explain to myself why I didn't relate
to things like prog rock so much, even though I
did like some prog rock and I do these days too,
but it was a little bit too bascal or something sounding.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
You know.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
I just wanted something a bit more make you want
to sing along and jump around to, you know, and
that's what punk rock did.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
And that's pretty much sort of you know, been my
thing ever since, you know.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
I mean, we do ballads and things, but you know,
I like them to feel that those even the ballads,
have some kind of momentum and not just kind of
like laying the inner you know. Yeah, energy is the
whole thing for me, and punk rock was that. So
you know, I can never predict which songs a band
will naturally take to.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
I do want to tell you that you actually wrote
one of my favorite songs of all time, the song
good Times, and I've done a We done a rabbit
hole last night on YouTube. Watch the video. Oh my god,
look literally took me right back to high school. Oh
what I would do right now if you could just
sing me a line of that a cappella.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
You told me good bye and I believed there we go.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Wow, I'll be back again. New I did say goodbye,
but I'm saying hello again.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I mean, obviously, I know you're doing the Stone Age
Romeo's album in order, but there will be a few
Hoodo Bang. Is it the end?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
No, No, we're doing it. As I said, we're doing
a super sized set. But in rehearsal the other day
I just chucked all the stone Age songs at the
front of a set we've been playing, so we have
plenty of room for all those songs from the other
parts of our career that people might want to hear.
I mean, we obviously can't play everything, and otherwise we'd
be here till Kingdom come. But you know, we get
a good cross section. We certainly get all the ones
that people most strongly identify with us from the various eras.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Will you be getting a local band on support or
what do you guys normally do?
Speaker 3 (07:20):
To be honest, I don't know usually do.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
In fact, I'm wearing a T shirt right now for
one of the Bandsho played with us, Silk Cut, and
so you know, hopefully we'll see those guys or someone
as good as them. You know, we love having other
bands on, but when we're touring America, we won't be
having any supports because yeah, it's just the way we
do it. But hopefully in New Zealand we will be good.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
As you tell me one of your memories of what
it was like when you guys were a bunch of
young Asi LED's touring with the Bengals. That must have
been a fun couple of months.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
It was, Yeah, it was amazing.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Basically we had the same agency in the States who
are booking the band, and before the tour, this is
nineteen eighty five and we released our second album, Marsi's Guitars,
and they had their album coming out called A Different Light.
Just before the tour began, they released a song called
Manic Monday and it started to do very well. So
what was going to be a co headline tour with
us swapping a bill every night ended up becoming us
(08:04):
supporting for the whole tour. But the thing is the
bands were still very much in the same kind of mindset,
you know. We loved each other's music and got on
like a house on fire. It was a bit of
a who's who at times.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Oh David, is so good to talk to you. I
saw you guys when I was in high school, when
you came to Hamilton, New Zealand, many many years ago,
and now you're coming back for three shows the fortieth
anniversary of The Stone Age Romeo's album Wellington Crushed at Auckland.
Tickets on presale on Tuesday. Thank you so much for
taking the time to talk to your fans here in
my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Looking forward to being there and knocking it out of
the park.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Gold Asides podcast the stories behind Just Great Rock. If
you enjoyed this podcast, click to share with family or friends.
For Just Great Rock, listen to gold FM anytime anywhere
on iHeartRadio
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