October 10, 2024 • 7 mins
"We sit down with singer, actor, and television personality Stan Walker to discuss:
- The meaning behind his brand new song KI TAKU AWA
- His growth since auditioning for Australian Idol
- Ben takes a Stan "Walker" down memory lane
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stan Walker. Great to see you again Christmas. This is
that Christmas chat to. Yeah, it's great to see Yeah.
Now you've had a bit of a hectic week. Just
got back from Australia playing over there, and it seems
like someone took a bag of yours.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I don't know if it was taken. I don't know
what's happened, but yeah, my bag of like I've got.
I had heaps of stuff in there, all my clothes,
but I had my tallna all of them because I take.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Them everywhere with me.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I wear them on stage, but I just take them everywhere.
And yeah, so it's just gone missing. So if anybody
sees it or anybody has it or wherever it is,
give it back. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I'm willing to pay money for it because priceless items
and because they mean so much to you and you
and your family.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
It's got my whole family stuff in there, like my wife, mine,
my kids, and some of the stuff is like hundreds.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Of years old.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Someone took that.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It's like, I hope they get yeah, I say they, well,
then come and they can just give it had.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well hopefully it's just stuff somewhere and it just got
put somewhere. Like, you know, that's what I'm hoping.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
I'm not.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I don't ever want to assume or blame anybody or anything.
But I started to get like, I'm like, it's been
a week.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
Yeah, I need it.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Hey, now the side of song, it's like the conclusion
of what it was almost like seven year project for you, right.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I don't know, there's it's been many years. But because
I had like three songs, I Am Maldil and Back
to the River or they're like a trilogy. I wrote
them last year and it was the first writing camp
that I've ever done for myself, and I just got
my boys to come along. My mate's my fan name,
and literally because we did it in Tota the first
(01:42):
time ever recording there and going back home, I had
just like a pool of like all.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
The singers bringing up my cousins. Hey, what do you
have to do?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I need you to come and sing on this. Oh yes,
wee because I'll be there. So all those songs were
written then, but they were just they kind of explained
three different chapters within like a a long season of
my life.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
That's very cool because your journey, when you look back
at your career, you've done so many amazing things, but
you know, starting off in Australia and there I was
reading an article last night where you were kind of
told that's to not sound in some ways in your
words too brown. You know, you know, and to do
this now, it must be quite fulfilling to be who
you are.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
You know, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Like I've just been talking about it lately with a
lot of my mates. I was like, man, I can't
imagine staying like seven years ago or ten years ago
talking to stand now, Like just the difference of like
a Maori song, I don't think I'll be ever able
to do that to me now. I don't think twice
about it if I'm going to write a song or
(02:40):
do a song on Maori or English, like, it's just
normal for me. Yeah, if I decide to write a
song on Mali, I just decided. I'm not like trying
to force it or trying to be about it. It's
just that's how far I've come.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
What do you think changed you? Do you think it's
just age as you get older, You're like, no, this
is me. I'm going to celebrate who I am Or
do you think there was a turning point for you?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I think there was many turning points. I think it
was turning around constantly. Oh just youah, just I'm getting
to know myself more and getting older and becoming myself
more and more authentic and unapologetic about everything of who
I am, where I come from.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
What I'm about. I don't mince my words.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I don't I don't second guess myself maybe what I
look like, but like and it's taken years to become
that version of me, and I'm still becoming the better
version of me, hopefully.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
I love that about age. That's a really good message
for like younger people because there's been so much time
trying to find yourself and yourself.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah about the bills about I.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Was so great to see you again and write that,
you know, this new chapter for you. It's awesome. And
even like last year, you would begin talked about as
an Oscar. Well at the start of the year, like
you're one of your songs up for an Oscar. They
were talking about you like that would be pretty cool
in America been talked about.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
It's it's weird.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, I'm very grateful for like the opportunity that Ava
Duvenet gave me with the song. It was such a
trip going there doing promo on that scale, and like
having to be at everything, like I haven't done a
recoupled or done photos and stuff for like ages.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I get like nervous.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I don't like going around heaps with people, so I
just kind of stay home and do that thing. And
I was like, oh, I haven't done this for a
long time. They're like, well, you're going to be doing
it every day and you get that photo right, But
now it was cool.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
It was it was cool, it was buzzy.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Just before you go, I wanted to take a walker
stand walker down memory lane for you and you tell us.
I play a little bit of audio and you tell
us where this was in your career. Okay, first up,
you got it. Okay, you've got that already, your crite
cry just.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
As we launched you.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I mean, it's not the video I think played in
the video before and then we won't do that again.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
That sound amazing.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
This is you on on idol.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, Australian Idol. This is the audition.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I'm very good, don't get me wrong. I am so grateful.
That was one of the best experiences of my life.
But just looking back and hearing beck one.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
You must be so new this as a young kid.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Though, I was, I was like fully shaking every every
performance at Idle. I was shaking at the Beck and
so like, I can't I can't look at anything because I'm.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Just like, here's another bet of audio as well. This
is more recent. This is pretty incredible.
Speaker 6 (05:35):
How did she find Stan Walker? Somebody in her company,
Paul Garner bought a video of him. So Ava goes
to Instagram to see if they have any mutual Instagram friends,
her and Stan Walker. She finds that they have. What
they have a couple of uh, a couple of mutual
friends reaches out to them through d MS. Next thing
she knows, twenty four hours later, she's on the phone
(05:56):
with Stan Walker.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
So this is this is the morning show.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
Yes, this Morning show.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
This is Gail King talking about you and the story
of how you were found just from social media from
the director for the movie.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
She's amazing, honestly, she she like had she loved the song.
I met her. I met her in Oprah together and
I was like, oh my gosh, thank you so so
dand I'm god, we love the song. We loved the
blah blah blah, and they were doing the winning They're
like what does this mean? And I was like, oh,
you're kind of there walking around the office going hello.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Oh that's a great and the final but here from
Walker down Stan Walker's career.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
Can I do it? Oh?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I actually I don't even want to do this song.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
We'll give my good key weeks.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Show them what you really do.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
You got it out.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, this is when we dress you up in disguise
and it was like a Tuesday night night yeah yeeah,
and put them in a karaoke competition, put them in
disguise and you started singing bad and they were They
started booing you, and then all of a sudden You're like,
oh I can maybe I'll do another song. And then
as soon as you started singing still in disguise, they know,
(07:08):
they knew exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
By your voice who it was.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Got a standing ovation at the end, from booing you
to standing ovation.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Oh man, I was honestly, even then I was nervous.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
I was so nice to see you.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I think we've got a little bit of the song.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
Now, a beautiful song. Congratulations.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
JE think you so nice to have your heir as well.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
It's good to be
Stan Walker. Great to see you again Christmas. This is
that Christmas chat to. Yeah, it's great to see Yeah.
Now you've had a bit of a hectic week. Just
got back from Australia playing over there, and it seems
like someone took a bag of yours.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I don't know if it was taken. I don't know
what's happened, but yeah, my bag of like I've got.
I had heaps of stuff in there, all my clothes,
but I had my tallna all of them because I take.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Them everywhere with me.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I wear them on stage, but I just take them everywhere.
And yeah, so it's just gone missing. So if anybody
sees it or anybody has it or wherever it is,
give it back. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I'm willing to pay money for it because priceless items
and because they mean so much to you and you
and your family.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
It's got my whole family stuff in there, like my wife, mine,
my kids, and some of the stuff is like hundreds.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Of years old.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Someone took that.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It's like, I hope they get yeah, I say they, well,
then come and they can just give it had.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well hopefully it's just stuff somewhere and it just got
put somewhere. Like, you know, that's what I'm hoping.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
I'm not.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I don't ever want to assume or blame anybody or anything.
But I started to get like, I'm like, it's been
a week.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
Yeah, I need it.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Hey, now the side of song, it's like the conclusion
of what it was almost like seven year project for you, right.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I don't know, there's it's been many years. But because
I had like three songs, I Am Maldil and Back
to the River or they're like a trilogy. I wrote
them last year and it was the first writing camp
that I've ever done for myself, and I just got
my boys to come along. My mate's my fan name,
and literally because we did it in Tota the first
(01:42):
time ever recording there and going back home, I had
just like a pool of like all.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
The singers bringing up my cousins. Hey, what do you
have to do?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I need you to come and sing on this. Oh yes,
wee because I'll be there. So all those songs were
written then, but they were just they kind of explained
three different chapters within like a a long season of
my life.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
That's very cool because your journey, when you look back
at your career, you've done so many amazing things, but
you know, starting off in Australia and there I was
reading an article last night where you were kind of
told that's to not sound in some ways in your
words too brown. You know, you know, and to do
this now, it must be quite fulfilling to be who
you are.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
You know, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Like I've just been talking about it lately with a
lot of my mates. I was like, man, I can't
imagine staying like seven years ago or ten years ago
talking to stand now, Like just the difference of like
a Maori song, I don't think I'll be ever able
to do that to me now. I don't think twice
about it if I'm going to write a song or
(02:40):
do a song on Maori or English, like, it's just
normal for me. Yeah, if I decide to write a
song on Mali, I just decided. I'm not like trying
to force it or trying to be about it. It's
just that's how far I've come.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
What do you think changed you? Do you think it's
just age as you get older, You're like, no, this
is me. I'm going to celebrate who I am Or
do you think there was a turning point for you?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I think there was many turning points. I think it
was turning around constantly. Oh just youah, just I'm getting
to know myself more and getting older and becoming myself
more and more authentic and unapologetic about everything of who
I am, where I come from.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
What I'm about. I don't mince my words.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I don't I don't second guess myself maybe what I
look like, but like and it's taken years to become
that version of me, and I'm still becoming the better
version of me, hopefully.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
I love that about age. That's a really good message
for like younger people because there's been so much time
trying to find yourself and yourself.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah about the bills about I.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Was so great to see you again and write that,
you know, this new chapter for you. It's awesome. And
even like last year, you would begin talked about as
an Oscar. Well at the start of the year, like
you're one of your songs up for an Oscar. They
were talking about you like that would be pretty cool
in America been talked about.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
It's it's weird.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, I'm very grateful for like the opportunity that Ava
Duvenet gave me with the song. It was such a
trip going there doing promo on that scale, and like
having to be at everything, like I haven't done a
recoupled or done photos and stuff for like ages.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I get like nervous.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I don't like going around heaps with people, so I
just kind of stay home and do that thing. And
I was like, oh, I haven't done this for a
long time. They're like, well, you're going to be doing
it every day and you get that photo right, But
now it was cool.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
It was it was cool, it was buzzy.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Just before you go, I wanted to take a walker
stand walker down memory lane for you and you tell us.
I play a little bit of audio and you tell
us where this was in your career. Okay, first up,
you got it. Okay, you've got that already, your crite
cry just.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
As we launched you.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I mean, it's not the video I think played in
the video before and then we won't do that again.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
That sound amazing.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
This is you on on idol.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, Australian Idol. This is the audition.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I'm very good, don't get me wrong. I am so grateful.
That was one of the best experiences of my life.
But just looking back and hearing beck one.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
You must be so new this as a young kid.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Though, I was, I was like fully shaking every every
performance at Idle. I was shaking at the Beck and
so like, I can't I can't look at anything because I'm.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Just like, here's another bet of audio as well. This
is more recent. This is pretty incredible.
Speaker 6 (05:35):
How did she find Stan Walker? Somebody in her company,
Paul Garner bought a video of him. So Ava goes
to Instagram to see if they have any mutual Instagram friends,
her and Stan Walker. She finds that they have. What
they have a couple of uh, a couple of mutual
friends reaches out to them through d MS. Next thing
she knows, twenty four hours later, she's on the phone
(05:56):
with Stan Walker.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
So this is this is the morning show.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
Yes, this Morning show.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
This is Gail King talking about you and the story
of how you were found just from social media from
the director for the movie.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
She's amazing, honestly, she she like had she loved the song.
I met her. I met her in Oprah together and
I was like, oh my gosh, thank you so so
dand I'm god, we love the song. We loved the
blah blah blah, and they were doing the winning They're
like what does this mean? And I was like, oh,
you're kind of there walking around the office going hello.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Oh that's a great and the final but here from
Walker down Stan Walker's career.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
Can I do it? Oh?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I actually I don't even want to do this song.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
We'll give my good key weeks.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Show them what you really do.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
You got it out.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, this is when we dress you up in disguise
and it was like a Tuesday night night yeah yeeah,
and put them in a karaoke competition, put them in
disguise and you started singing bad and they were They
started booing you, and then all of a sudden You're like,
oh I can maybe I'll do another song. And then
as soon as you started singing still in disguise, they know,
(07:08):
they knew exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
By your voice who it was.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Got a standing ovation at the end, from booing you
to standing ovation.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Oh man, I was honestly, even then I was nervous.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
I was so nice to see you.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I think we've got a little bit of the song.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
Now, a beautiful song. Congratulations.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
JE think you so nice to have your heir as well.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
It's good to be
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