October 21, 2025 • 35 mins
Pluto are celebrating the anniversary of their Pipeline Under The Ocean album with a double vinyl release and a show in Auckland on November 8 at Double Whammy on K Rd. Their singer Milan Borich popped in for a chat about bonus tracks, the 2000s and the incredible highs and lows of his life since.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Radio Hodokis Off the Record podcast with Jeremy Wells.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Milan Boris joins us on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Good day, Milan, welcome along, Welcome, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Oh it's nice to have you. We were in Texas
last week. Have you spent much time in Austin, Texas before.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I've been to Austin twice actually for the south by Southwest. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Oh how good?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
How good? Is so good? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Great city, great good, lame here, great folk Lane had
been before. I hadn't been before, but it's a place
like a lot of those cities, especially in the South.
I've been to Memphis before, and that's the city of music,
and you know Nashville as a city of music, and
I felt it in Austin too. Weirdly enough, the live
(00:47):
music scene there is alive, and well two hundred and
fifty live music venues in the city alone. Its nuts.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
It's very electric there.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It's a very deep, deep kind of like scene. I
reckon like a very Americana and also like alternative. Yeah,
and hepsterish and yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Just every bar has a stage, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
There's like dive bars everywhere that they're all set up
just to have a band coming and just plug in
and away you go.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
It was a great time. But while we're there, we
got an emergency notice text message.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
That's right, we did where you got so on on
you know, I always just assumed that you just get
it because in New Zealand service provider you only get
New Zealand ones. But we got one for a missing child.
Really yeah, at like nine in the morning. It's like
and I was like, looking at us, like a child
has been abducted, that they've been abducted from some time, Like, whoa.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
That's frightening, that's awful. I know it was awful.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
But then also we're in Texas and if there must
be worse things going on than an abductive child in
Texas at that time, but they chose to send us
a message and the targeted at just us.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Are we are we being profiled?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Well?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
The weird thing was that same day in Texas someone
was put to death via lethal injection for some you know,
murder that they committed. I'm like, yeah, I was the same.
I thought, surely there's there's terrible things going on in
the state, like heaps of them. So anyway, thanks for
(02:15):
coming in in front of you. You might see there's
some strips of wax.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
That's your back here, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yeah, it's my back bush.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
And it was like shaped as a train.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Look.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Yeah, I mean it was a map of Tasmania. I
haven't got any photos on my phone, so I have
to lead them all. But I'll show you before and
after that.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I mean, it's a crime that you were running that
thing in the first place to and.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Like and Milan, I'm going to look.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
I don't often flow throw my partner under the bus,
but she could have made me aware of what was
going on back there, but she didn't, purely because I
think she maybe enjoyed the fact.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
That's a classic.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
It's a proper I mean, that's an old school bush. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And it's also got a bit of a heart shape
to it.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Well, well that was that was because my partner, Tolsi,
actually shaved that into his back while we were Texas.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
A lot went on in Austin.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
It was a terrifying moment.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
A lot went on in Austin.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, But I mean growing up in Papacuta in the
nineteen eighties, you would have seen plenty.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Of bush, a lot of bush. Yeah, yep, yep, yeah,
what yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Paints a picture of what Papa cuta growing up in
the eighties, in the eighties or the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Seventies and eighties, it was, you know, it was very eclectic,
you know, like full of full of spunk and virility,
you know what I mean. It was, you know, it was.
It was a good place to grow up. I grew
up on a farm out in Park State Road, so
that that was pretty cool. So but I had to
(03:51):
walk past Park State School, which was also a bit
of a struggle because I went to Saint Mary's and
I was wearing a green uniform. Yeah, these guys were mufty,
and you know, you clashed.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
It's there to target on your back, as it was.
What music was playing in the in the Borisch household.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Mainly beatles are Bill Lives a little bit. My father
loved Bill Lives, So beatles mainly, That's about it, and
some Deli music.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
It was a musical household that you grew up and
though wasn't it it was yet because your family were
very musicals.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
My mother was exceptionally musical.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
What was what was? What were her musical.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Talents singing, right, yeah, so she was a singer and
her sister and then their father was also a singer.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
And I'm always interested in this because I wonder, you know,
and you as a musician growing up with you know,
being around musicians all your life. Are there any ever
any musicians that sort of appear out of non musical
families or is it is it a little bit like
a sporting Is it a genetic thing?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I'd say partially genetic, and also you know, luck is involved,
but also but then there's sorry, excuse me. Also there's
a desire to lift yourself up out of you know,
certain places like Bubba Cuta. So I really wanted to
get myself out of Pablakuda. So I thought one of
the avenues would be music pulsively, right, But it.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Was also for you. I know, you're a child star.
You originally attracted perhaps to the screen.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Well, I mean that was accidental because being Croatian. I
went to the Dalmatian Cultural Society and they were looking
for del kids for this role. And then they came
there and they asked, you know, could we get some
kids to audition, And so I was one of the
kids that was picked, and I went for the audition
and landed the role. I mean, it wasn't really something
I was looking for, but I just kind of landed
(05:48):
in my lap.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Okay. So you wouldn't describe yourself as an attention seeker
as a child.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Oh absolutely, I was. Yeah, yeah, constantly doing things to attention.
I used to dress up and you know, make a
fool of myself. And also I would get into trouble
a lot. I would. My father thought I was very
accident prone, and he was accurate. I was extremely excellent.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Prone, right, Okay, yeah, And so when did you decide
then that you were going to be a proper musician.
What was the what was there a moment?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
There was a moment, and the moment was actually I
spoke about this before. It was when Tim and I
we used to surf together. So thirteen fourteen, we were
around a campfire with a few other surfers and I
think it was Gusy, and we started playing the Honeypuffs song,
you know, stay fish. Yeah, someone was playing the guitar.
(06:49):
We're all singing it, and I thought to myself, Shit, man,
we got this, we can do it.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Hondre puffs. Yeah, sounds very Jack Johnson sitting around a.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Fire, a bunch of destins here. So that was the moment.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
So did you ever play that? Did Pluto ever play
that song?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
No, but I wish we did. We might play for
this for the show coming up. We'll see, we'll see
how we'll go.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
So tell us about Pluto.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
You read you guys have released some amazing songs, legacy
that still carries on.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
How did it all start? How did Pluto will start?
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Well, that's okay. So when I when I left school,
I left Saint Peter's, I decided I wanted to go
to SAE and learn how to become an audio engineer.
But really the desire there was to get into a
studio where we were able to just record whatever you
wanted to. So Tim also moved up from Wellington and
(07:42):
he went to SAE. Yeah, and so I decided to
leave school and join them. So that's when it kind
of that's when it all happened.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
So becoming like an engineer was just a vehicle for
you to be able to use the studio.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, but you kind of that was the way it
was though in those days, because you weren't. I mean
you might, I might have an eight track or a
four track. You could possibly record at home somehow, but
it was hard.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
It was much more difficult. I mean, the Tall Dwarfs
did it really well on four tracks, and we tried
to emulate that as well, like and then Elliott Smith
was doing it, but he was just a genius, and
we tried. Tim and I were pretty good at the
four track, but we really wanted to get into a
bigger studio and that was the way to do it.
I mean, both Tim and I were in the same class,
(08:26):
and things happened. I got and got banned from using
the studio in the end.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
So they got none of the fact that you know,
senty three hours of the hours was used for I
think he didn't like me much to the guy at
the head of it, but that's okay.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
But so like the band that I had recording, because
we'd have overnight sessions, they left the back door open,
and if you ever let the back door open, you
get suspended from using the studio. That's what happened to me. Well, okay,
it was accident.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
So oftentimes you find like musicians or artists or you know,
it might be even television makers whatever that you you
make stuff as a response to something that you either
dislike or you don't like inside of where you are.
(09:15):
I know that was a case of what I was
doing when we were making TV. It was we thought
that this type of TV was shit, and so we're
sort of making it as a response to that. The
New Zealand music scene when when Pluto came along was
was it was an interesting zone. It hadn't kind of
had its renaissance at that point. Now did how did
(09:38):
you feel about the New Zealand music scene when when
Pluto were just starting to crank up.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Well, and be honest, okay, I thought it lacked a
little bit of grit and a little bit of like
kind of depth, but not not in the sense of
the musicality or the song winning. I think more of
the production side the I thought that it was lacking.
But that's just from a personal perspective. But I was
(10:05):
listening to when when I was in London, our druma
brought over tape and it was Darcy Clay and that
just blew my mind. I was like, Wow, this guy's
kiwi and it was like, holy ship, I've got to
I've got to do better. I've got to be better more.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And the and the way that I mean that was
a unique sound that dares it cloys down. But what
and it's raw us and it's what.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Was it and it's honesty and it's it's just kind
of it was pure. It was pure music to me.
It was you couldn't And it also it was like
had no boundaries. I didn't. I could not tell that
it came from in z Like normally you can go
that that's it, that's Kiwi.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
But was it the York Street drum sound? Was that
the was it the specific drum sound that was coming
out of York Street in the in the mid ninety night.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
It may have been drum was just it's the live room.
They want that big, huge, live kind of room sound.
Didn't I wasn't into.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
It, no, because I always think that drums, for me,
it either sounds really good or if it sounds really good,
you kind of don't notice it. Yeah, if it sounds bad,
do you think something's going off? Something's going wrong here?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And especially with drums and bass, if they don't lock
in the way you want to, it's going to sound terrible.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
So in terms of the rock and roll lifestyle, we
need to take a break and we'll come back with
the rock and roll lifestyle and just a moment, please.
We're talking to Milan Borich from Pluto. They are reuniting
(11:44):
for a show at Double Whammy and Auckland on Saturday,
the eighth of November to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of
Pipeline Under the Ocean. They're also reissuing that on double
vinyl for the first time ever, which features a whole
lot of original tracks and also five previously unreleased songs
from the band's vault. So when things kicked off for Pluto,
(12:08):
I'm thinking early two thousands.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Yes, we.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Now know that you guys really got stuck into a
good dose of the rock and roll lifestyle. Was it
rock and roll lifestyle from the start? Or was the
rock and roll lifestyle a slow creep?
Speaker 1 (12:30):
And it was actually there early early on in before
Pluto came about, Like I went through the Ringer late
prior to actually recording the first record, So that was
in London, came back, cleaned up, and then recorded the
first record in nineteen ninety nine was Clean Living, and
then I think about two to three years into it
(12:52):
just started to get a bit dirty again.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Right, I'm fas a lot of people. I'm sure I
agree with me, but I'm fascinated by this part of
things because I watched, you know, I bought that first
Pluto album. I watched it all unfold from the sidelines,
and it seemed like something interesting was happening. I didn't
(13:16):
know exactly what was going on, but tell us about
the beginnings, the beginnings of all of that, the beginnings
of the debauchery.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
So do you want them in the beginning all the.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Well on the first half of the second half, Well,
I mean the beginnings of it, because there must have
been some fun. It always starts with fun and exploration,
doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
It does? Yeah, yeah, I mean I was really into
Altered States and the books I was reading, the music
I was listening to. It was just it was a
destination that I was always going to go to. So
I really really was experimenting and went to a country
that I could could easily get lost in experiment like
as much as I want, with you know, no boundaries,
no one, no one to tell me to put my
head in. So I went there and I went there hard,
(14:05):
and I got lost and I got in trouble and
it was years of addiction, and then I just decided
in nineteen ninety nine to run away from it all
from London back to New Zealand, and with the help
of my parents, I pulled through that cold Turkey and
then Tim was also back here and we started kind
(14:27):
of collecting the songs that we had written in London
and songs that we started writing again in New Zealand,
and so we wrote Hey Little when I got back
from London, and then we decided we had enough songs
and would borrow some money and go into Helen Young.
And so we went into Helen Young with Nick Cabot
and then met Matthias. Matthias played piano for us on
(14:51):
that record, and that was that, and we recorded the
first kind of the first like kind of group of
recordings for that record. Then Mike and Mike came about
and we finished off that record and then released it
in two thousand, I think two thousand and one.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
So all of that stuff was, all of that addiction
stuff was happening as early as the nineties.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, nineteen ninety five, I think it was really Yeah
for me, you.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Went to the UK and you thought, you know what
I'm going to get on.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
The smack pretty much pretty much. I was searching for
it for a very long time. So and if you
can't find it in New Zealand, no you can't. You know,
you can find poppy tea, but that's about it. You know,
maybe some pills. I'm not sure, but actually I am sure,
but excuse me, but yeah, So I decided to go
(15:41):
over there. My brother was living there, and I turned
up in London and I was like a kid in
a candy store. It was just it was there for me.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeah, London's like that. Yeah, it's a yeah, there's a
lot of opportunities.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
All though, it was hard to find find the heroines.
So the first place I found that was Zagreb in Croatia.
So I was there with my brother and Tim and
it was just kind of like the Civil war was
kind of, you know, simmering down, but it was still
some pockets of fighting. And so we're there and my
brother had some friends, these young kids, and they were
able to procure what I was looking for, right, I.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Mean, did you did you ask? You spotted some kids
and you thought you saw yourself?
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Well those guys, yeah, And I was very good at
spotting that yeah, yeah, very good at spotting.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, okay, uh and then so you found But I
always wondered about this because it's not a drug that
for some reason ever entered into my sphere. Because I
imagine this, it seems like there's a lot of there's
a lot of parlor below going on. You've got to
you've got to have you know, syringers and all sorts
(16:51):
of gotta Yeah, I've seen it on films before. There's spoons,
there's there's heating up of things. It's like, how the
hell do you know? What the hell are you doing?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Well, yeah, there is a ritual to it. But when
when I was in Zagreb, that was a bit different.
That wasn't we had none of that. It was mainly
just up the nose. Oh yeah, so that was that.
That was the first time. It was when I got
back to London and I kept on that I needed
to actually find it again, and then I located it
at the Purple I think it was the Purple Turtle
in Camden, so no, so yeah, in Camden, I think
(17:21):
the Purple Turtle. And I found a guy called Max.
He was Spanish and he took me back to his house,
and he had all the fits and everything right. So
I actually he taught me what to do, and he
set me up and and put me on my first
kind of Jenny.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And a smack university.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
He was running pretty much.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yeah, wow, because because did you even with with snorting heroin?
Do you get addicted to heroin even by snorting.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
It, smoking it, snorting it? And you felt you.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Felt that initiate it was. It was that fast, the addiction.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
It was just it's what it did for me. It's
it kind of it just blocked out everything. I did
not have any fear, I did not have any anxiety anymore,
any noise. It was just like I was at peace,
and I thought this was exactly where I wanted to be.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Right, and you and you didn't know the tales of
what had happened before, people who have thought themselves, you
know what this is me?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I thought, I thought I was immune to that.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
You were going to be the one. Yeah, You're going
to be the one that was the special one. And
so did how and so.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Musically through that period, you're still writing songs, You're still
playing yeah, yeah, prolifically.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah, this is the problem, This is the issue, isn't it. Yeah,
is that it's particularly that drug particularly is good for
writing music.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
It seemed to be like I thought it was. Yeah,
I thought it was. I mean, was it maybe? But
I mean did I need it? Maybe not? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, you know, like I don't the songs. You think
the songs probably would have come to you anyway.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
I think. So. I don't want to condone that that was,
you know, made me a good writer, because I don't
think it did. It made me a good addict. Yeah,
like a writer I was. I think I was always
going to be a good writer, Yeah, regardless of what
I was consuming.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Yeah. Are you of the belief that the songs exist
and in the ether and somewhere and you just have
to be open to gathering them?
Speaker 1 (19:16):
And that could be one of the things that that
is good with kind of olden states. It does open
up your supposed third eye and you can actually kind
of grab that stuff out of the ether, you know,
Like I mean, songs used to just come to me
out of nowhere, and I would I wouldn't even have
to write out lyrics. I could play my core progression
(19:37):
and the lyrics would just come out immediately.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Right Yeah, and then you've come back and you're probably
quite a different person to a lot of your friends
that you were hanging out with than when you leave.
They would have noticed that Milan's kind of changed a
bit here.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, and I'd lost a lot of idea, right, Okay, Yeah,
I didn't look very well, right, Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
And then so friends of sort of I imagine at that time,
were they talking to you about what was going on?
Were you telling them? Were you telling people what was
going on? Were you keeping it all secret?
Speaker 1 (20:08):
I kept it pretty secret, like Tim. Tim was my confident,
like he was my best friend, and so he knew
everything about it like you. Also he was also there
experiencing it with me at the time in London because
he was in London with me and then he left
London earlier. But yeah, Tim was the one I told
everything too, Okay.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Yeah, And when you got back to New Zealand then
and all of a sudden you realize that, you know,
you can't meet that guy at Camden and none of
that's kind of available. What happens at that point.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Well, that was when you had to get a little
bit more experimental, and that was just like the you know,
go to the boltpins with poppy seeds and that kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Does that Does that work? Does that work? Though? Not?
I mean it does work.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah, that's why they've got ridden in those bolts. Well
they've got rid of them.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
I always used to I was hope to confused.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
My grandmother used to grow poppies out the front of
her house in Mount Monganui.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
And so's that flower that all disappeared.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yep, that works. That you chop off the bulbs and
you get them into a part and that works as well.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
When it really that really works works, She was hope
to toe confused.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
I didn't want to break it to her that there
was d's getting high on her poppies.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Ye works.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
My next door neighbor used to have garden shows. They
had her when I was growing up. There this crazily
beautiful garden next door. And during the garden shows there
used to be some younger people who didn't really look
like they'd be that interested in gardens, certainly not the
Trinity Garden show full of old people, and they'd be
wandering around just basically scope it. And then my mum
(21:43):
was walking up to get the paper one morning on
a Saturday morning, and she saw but she's noticed a
bit of a rustling, and because our driveway went up
through beside their property and and she noted a rustling.
And there were two guys down and down the bushes,
the grabbing the poppies from missus cox garden next door.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Hey, so you come back from London, cold Turkey, sober up,
and that's when you release pipeline under the ocean.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (22:15):
What's the timeline there?
Speaker 1 (22:16):
So the timeline I sobered up like ninety nine through
to about two thousand and two, two thousand and three.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Well, you would have thought I'm going pretty well.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Here I did. I was. I was doing very very well. Yeah, yeah,
And then I started traveling a bit more. I got
a drumming gig, started traveling a bit more. Of that
was going to Australia. And then that was when I
kind of discovered Heroin again in Australia, in Albourne, so
it was easy to cop over there. So that's I
started having little spats of kind of I called them
(22:47):
kind of my Heroin holidays. So I'd do that and
I come back and I'd be fine. I'd come off
it again and and it was manageable, and then we
started right and recording for Pipeline and the Ocean, and
then through an old legend drummer he kind of who
(23:10):
was buying pearls of someone in the scene. He put
me onto a guy that was able to procure what
I wanted, and then it all started started again.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
And this is a New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, oh wow, okay.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Right, So during the time, you know, in terms of
your own psychology, were you feeling like things were did
you feel like in trouble mentally or you felt like
it was just that was just the story of Milan
Boris at the time.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, I kind of thought this was my identity and
you know what I needed. I thought I needed it.
That wasn't right. I didn't need it. I just, you know,
in my own mind, believed that I did need it
and I wanted it. So I thought it was it
made me. I thought it made me impenetrable, you know,
impervious to you know, any kind of outside influence or
(24:06):
outside kind of opinions about myself. So I just I
just thought it was the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
And if there was a movie being made in the
second at the end of the second act there there
would reach a low point normally in this situation, what
was that low point for you?
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Are? The low points were all my relationships with my family,
my friends, especially the band. I mean, my relationship with
my father was suffering as well because he was a pharmacist,
so he could see exactly what's going on with me.
So it really did take its toll there, and I
was my behavior was awful, and my emotions were you know,
(24:52):
volatile to say the least. So it was it was, yeah,
it was a hard time for me, and it was
very very very very sick.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Right and then if some friends close to you said, right, there's.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Enough of that, they did, but it didn't change anything.
It had to come from me. So so I went
and got onto the methodone program pretty pretty quick, okay,
just to try and mitigate the whole kind of searching
for the drug.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
What happens there.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Are that as you get tested to see how much
heroin's in your system, and then they say, okay, you
are you know, you can actually get on the program
now because you have this much in your system. And
so that's what happens, and then you're on that kind
of book for as long as you want Okay, Yeah,
it's pretty horrible. Is that it's pretty horrendous. Yeah, it's
(25:39):
worse than heroin.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
So what is it?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Is it a tablet?
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Is it just a pill?
Speaker 3 (25:42):
A liquid? Right? And you just take it like a
cough medicine or pretty much?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, And you got to turn up every day for
it because they wouldn't give you a whole lot at once,
would they.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, No, you had to turn up every morning at
the pharmacy, which is also it's it's kind of it's
just shameful as well.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
It's a little bit humiliating him, really awful.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yet, wouldn't you go in that situation? Because I think
I've seen people. I've got a pharma seat the rough
from me, and I think I've seen people turning up
for it. And I've been in there early in the
morning and the people are ready to go in the morning.
They are like right there at the door. And I
thought to myself, wouldn't you just go? What the what
is it like? Five days of like pain, like five days.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Of cold full cold turkey?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yeah, because how long does a cold turkey take?
Speaker 1 (26:26):
It can take two weeks, oh, two weeks, it can
take it. But the worst part is the first week,
but then the second kind of the second week is
diabolical to It's like the struggle to really be motivated
to keep reading.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Oh really, yeah it's pretty Oh that sounds grim.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yes, that's grim. You can't sleep, you can't eat, you
can't really do anything.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Oh and you can't sort of distract yourself by like
I don't know, No, there's not taking something else.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Oh you could, but then you just run.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
You're a fan or something, you're a plas.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, maybe no, it doesn't work us.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Well, I'm glad you here.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
Yeah, jeez, that sounds that sounds Jesus.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
That's something. I mean, it's a fascinating story. Obviously, it's
your's your life. It's not a story, it's it's you
live the experience and now so so obviously, then then
you you put out pipeline under the ocean that goes well,
it does. Now, when you listen to the songs, how
(27:38):
do you feel about the Because you might be cruising,
you might be in the supermarket and hear some of
those songs, how do you feel about this? How do
you feel about the songs?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Now?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Are you about to perform them? From from start to finish?
Speaker 1 (27:48):
I mean, I love I love the songs. I don't
particularly go out and play the songs for myself, and
when I hear someone else put the song on. Let's
let's say I'm at the gym and I'm training and
someone puts my song on. I do not want to
hear it. I tell them to immediately. I don't want
to hear that.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
But that you don't want to hear What is it
that you don't want to hear about it?
Speaker 1 (28:08):
You know when you you know, when you listen back
to your own voice, your first recording of it, and
you're like, oh my god, who is that? I just
please shut up.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
It's a bit like listening what looks like seeing Jeremy
listen to his own voice at the start of this podcast.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
I don't hear the weird thing is that that just
because the way I pronounce something, and that annoys me.
But I if I see myself on TV or something
like that, I I don't see myself.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
It's not me. So you can hear right, you can
just associate yourself.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I have a full disassociation experience. I now look at myself, robot,
some character.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Jeremy Wells just more for you.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
But that I know that I have a relationship with
that person, but it's not really me.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
That's a good way of doing it, That's anyway I
can get through. I can't. The only way I can
do it is to not actually listen or not look
at it. Like everything I've done recently, I'm like, no,
I don't want to hear it, don't want to look
at it. Let might let my wife do that.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Oh yeah, okay, how was it done?
Speaker 1 (29:03):
It was good.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I know people who can't stop listening to themselves.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
I know a lot of people like that. Look, I can't.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I find quite strange. But sometimes I wonder whether that's
part whether you have to do that to get better.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Yes, yep, that is that is part of it, for sure.
Maybe that's why I haven't gone.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Yeah, it's my problem.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
I can't listen to any podcasts already, a broadcasts, even
when an AD comes on or a promo with my voice.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
That's yeah, yeah, I'm exactly Yeah, well that weird.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
But when you first hear yourself and you go, isn't
that what I thought? I sounded normal?
Speaker 3 (29:40):
That's so bad.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
I sound like a weirdo. Yeah yeah, So what's how's
everything going with the band. Now you guys have come
back together again. Well, you've always been friends and stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Close close brothers, ye know, we're like family. So yeah,
really really good. So it's it's it's been fun actually
getting back together and playing the songs and in the
entirety of the record. We did it for the first
time a few weeks ago and it was super fun. Yeah,
we just couldn't stop laughing.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Really, and you got all the keys worked out and
stuff like that. With g D churning to certain things,
there's no arguments over what was meant to be in
the first place.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
No, No, I try to keep all the keys pure
and the way they were. I don't really change the
keys of songs that I do, even in Zippelin, I
don't do it like you know, I just punished myself.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
So when you say Zipplin, so you touched on that
it's to come together kind of phenomenon.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
That's been what two or three years now, five years
of doing it.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Five years. Yeah, talk to us about that. Well, I
did that the first time I got that job was
we were they were doing Romeo and Juliet and I
think John Tooga was on that one as well, and
I got asked randomly, I think through Joel m'holland and Simone,
and they reached out to me and said do you
(30:58):
want to do this? And I said absolutely and I
did and then there was a song on there. There
was a rap song on the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack,
and they said do you want to do this as well?
And I'm like, I don't really rap, and but no
one else was going to do it, so yeah, but
I ended up rapping.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Oh yeah, yeah, okay, interesting.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, So I nailed that and so got the job
and it's been five years in. But also Mike, Mike
Hall and Matthias Jordan, they're both involved in They come
together yea. So it's like, you know, three fists of Pluto.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
So explain to come together like what it is because
basically every year a different.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Artist or different artists a different album.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Different album, and everyone comes together from various bands and genres.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yes, yeah, and about five generally five singers from YEP
from different parts of New Zealand and we all get together,
we collate like what what songs each each singer is
going to do? And the band had has the grueling
job of learning like forty songs generally forty Yeah, sometimes
forty songs, you know, like especially when they're doing the
(32:07):
Beatles and like that, those albums. And then and then
we go out and we do them live and we
do three shows. We do Wellington, christ Church and Auckland
and and before the week before we only have three
days to rehearse as a band.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Yeah, And must have been led Zeppelin.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Must have been challenging because Robert Plant's got some pretty
he's got some yeah, he's got some pretty high notes.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
He's got some high notes. He's got some pipes on them. Yeah, yeah,
so you can see high I can, I can.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, you gifted with the You're gifted with the high range.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
I am yep, yep, I give it. I give it
a good crack.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
And in terms of because I always interested in people
and singers, how voices change and develop over the years
and stuff like that, because I guess you're always stretching
that muscle, so you've not like you know, you never
lose that, You never lose it if you keep going.
Is that the way that it works, arranged all the
same as what it always was.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
It is, And I was future proofing. I wasn't doing
stretching too much of an open voice. It was quite
a bit of head voice in falsetto. So I can
still hit those notes. You know, I'm not doing anything
like Vince Neil or you know those he heard then recently.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
No, that's pretty pretty.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Really listen to it. Yeah, so those guys were not
future proofing, like.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Well, I actually I saw Guns and Roses a couple
of years ago and x Or Rose is it's yeah,
it's not great. A No, it's not great. But his
voice was so amazing for a while there was so unique. Yeah,
it couldn't keep going no like that.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Especially when you're playing so many shows like that and
just blowing it like like Robert Plant as well, his
voice started changing pretty early on as well, because they're
two are schedules so insane that he'd just been blowing
his voice out every single night, and so I think
seventy three it just started getting a little bit more
mentally going down and pitch.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
We had Jimmy Barnes on the on the podcast a
while back and he he reckons that his voice, he said,
the more gigs he does that, he said, it warms
up a lot. Yeah, his voice, he said it likes
to be blasted all the time.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yeah, he's a genetic anomaly. It's crazy he's and I
new that. Yeah, he's just built differently. Like I've talked,
I've spoken to Eja's daughter about it, and she also
says that he's just built differently. He just screams before right, Yeah,
like that's how he warms up streaming.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
And he's absolutely rich. Like he should have ruined his
voice because back what eighties and nineties his warm up
would be.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
A bottle of vodka.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
That would be the way that he warmed up for
a gig. So how it's still there. He's got a
crazy range though he does his Man, he can hurt
high notes and he still can. Yeah, and that's that
is that is remarkable. Okay, Will Malan, thanks so much
for coming.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
On, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Always great to chat to you. And and yeah, your
story is a fascinating story. I've always enjoyed your music
and yeah, so thank you for thanks for giving that
to us.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
It's my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
I appreciate it greatly, and thanks very much for coming.
An abyss of light with everything.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Cheers Man Radio, hold Aches Off the Record Podcast.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Why not subscribe?
Speaker 1 (35:19):
So they download automatically and don't forget to rate us
five stars.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Thanks mate.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Find out more about this podcast and the people who
make it at hodache dot co dot nz it
Welcome to Radio Hodokis Off the Record podcast with Jeremy Wells.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Milan Boris joins us on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Good day, Milan, welcome along, Welcome, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Oh it's nice to have you. We were in Texas
last week. Have you spent much time in Austin, Texas before.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I've been to Austin twice actually for the south by Southwest. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Oh how good?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
How good? Is so good? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Great city, great good, lame here, great folk Lane had
been before. I hadn't been before, but it's a place
like a lot of those cities, especially in the South.
I've been to Memphis before, and that's the city of music,
and you know Nashville as a city of music, and
I felt it in Austin too. Weirdly enough, the live
(00:47):
music scene there is alive, and well two hundred and
fifty live music venues in the city alone. Its nuts.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
It's very electric there.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It's a very deep, deep kind of like scene. I
reckon like a very Americana and also like alternative. Yeah,
and hepsterish and yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Just every bar has a stage, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
There's like dive bars everywhere that they're all set up
just to have a band coming and just plug in
and away you go.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
It was a great time. But while we're there, we
got an emergency notice text message.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
That's right, we did where you got so on on
you know, I always just assumed that you just get
it because in New Zealand service provider you only get
New Zealand ones. But we got one for a missing child.
Really yeah, at like nine in the morning. It's like
and I was like, looking at us, like a child
has been abducted, that they've been abducted from some time, Like, whoa.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
That's frightening, that's awful. I know it was awful.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
But then also we're in Texas and if there must
be worse things going on than an abductive child in
Texas at that time, but they chose to send us
a message and the targeted at just us.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Are we are we being profiled?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Well?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
The weird thing was that same day in Texas someone
was put to death via lethal injection for some you know,
murder that they committed. I'm like, yeah, I was the same.
I thought, surely there's there's terrible things going on in
the state, like heaps of them. So anyway, thanks for
(02:15):
coming in in front of you. You might see there's
some strips of wax.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
That's your back here, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yeah, it's my back bush.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
And it was like shaped as a train.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Look.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Yeah, I mean it was a map of Tasmania. I
haven't got any photos on my phone, so I have
to lead them all. But I'll show you before and
after that.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I mean, it's a crime that you were running that
thing in the first place to and.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Like and Milan, I'm going to look.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
I don't often flow throw my partner under the bus,
but she could have made me aware of what was
going on back there, but she didn't, purely because I
think she maybe enjoyed the fact.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
That's a classic.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
It's a proper I mean, that's an old school bush. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And it's also got a bit of a heart shape
to it.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Well, well that was that was because my partner, Tolsi,
actually shaved that into his back while we were Texas.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
A lot went on in Austin.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
It was a terrifying moment.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
A lot went on in Austin.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, But I mean growing up in Papacuta in the
nineteen eighties, you would have seen plenty.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Of bush, a lot of bush. Yeah, yep, yep, yeah,
what yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Paints a picture of what Papa cuta growing up in
the eighties, in the eighties or the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Seventies and eighties, it was, you know, it was very eclectic,
you know, like full of full of spunk and virility,
you know what I mean. It was, you know, it was.
It was a good place to grow up. I grew
up on a farm out in Park State Road, so
that that was pretty cool. So but I had to
(03:51):
walk past Park State School, which was also a bit
of a struggle because I went to Saint Mary's and
I was wearing a green uniform. Yeah, these guys were mufty,
and you know, you clashed.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
It's there to target on your back, as it was.
What music was playing in the in the Borisch household.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Mainly beatles are Bill Lives a little bit. My father
loved Bill Lives, So beatles mainly, That's about it, and
some Deli music.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
It was a musical household that you grew up and
though wasn't it it was yet because your family were
very musicals.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
My mother was exceptionally musical.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
What was what was? What were her musical.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Talents singing, right, yeah, so she was a singer and
her sister and then their father was also a singer.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
And I'm always interested in this because I wonder, you know,
and you as a musician growing up with you know,
being around musicians all your life. Are there any ever
any musicians that sort of appear out of non musical
families or is it is it a little bit like
a sporting Is it a genetic thing?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I'd say partially genetic, and also you know, luck is involved,
but also but then there's sorry, excuse me. Also there's
a desire to lift yourself up out of you know,
certain places like Bubba Cuta. So I really wanted to
get myself out of Pablakuda. So I thought one of
the avenues would be music pulsively, right, But it.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Was also for you. I know, you're a child star.
You originally attracted perhaps to the screen.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Well, I mean that was accidental because being Croatian. I
went to the Dalmatian Cultural Society and they were looking
for del kids for this role. And then they came
there and they asked, you know, could we get some
kids to audition, And so I was one of the
kids that was picked, and I went for the audition
and landed the role. I mean, it wasn't really something
I was looking for, but I just kind of landed
(05:48):
in my lap.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Okay. So you wouldn't describe yourself as an attention seeker
as a child.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Oh absolutely, I was. Yeah, yeah, constantly doing things to attention.
I used to dress up and you know, make a
fool of myself. And also I would get into trouble
a lot. I would. My father thought I was very
accident prone, and he was accurate. I was extremely excellent.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Prone, right, Okay, yeah, And so when did you decide
then that you were going to be a proper musician.
What was the what was there a moment?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
There was a moment, and the moment was actually I
spoke about this before. It was when Tim and I
we used to surf together. So thirteen fourteen, we were
around a campfire with a few other surfers and I
think it was Gusy, and we started playing the Honeypuffs song,
you know, stay fish. Yeah, someone was playing the guitar.
(06:49):
We're all singing it, and I thought to myself, Shit, man,
we got this, we can do it.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Hondre puffs. Yeah, sounds very Jack Johnson sitting around a.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Fire, a bunch of destins here. So that was the moment.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
So did you ever play that? Did Pluto ever play
that song?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
No, but I wish we did. We might play for
this for the show coming up. We'll see, we'll see
how we'll go.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
So tell us about Pluto.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
You read you guys have released some amazing songs, legacy
that still carries on.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
How did it all start? How did Pluto will start?
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Well, that's okay. So when I when I left school,
I left Saint Peter's, I decided I wanted to go
to SAE and learn how to become an audio engineer.
But really the desire there was to get into a
studio where we were able to just record whatever you
wanted to. So Tim also moved up from Wellington and
(07:42):
he went to SAE. Yeah, and so I decided to
leave school and join them. So that's when it kind
of that's when it all happened.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
So becoming like an engineer was just a vehicle for
you to be able to use the studio.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, but you kind of that was the way it
was though in those days, because you weren't. I mean
you might, I might have an eight track or a
four track. You could possibly record at home somehow, but
it was hard.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
It was much more difficult. I mean, the Tall Dwarfs
did it really well on four tracks, and we tried
to emulate that as well, like and then Elliott Smith
was doing it, but he was just a genius, and
we tried. Tim and I were pretty good at the
four track, but we really wanted to get into a
bigger studio and that was the way to do it.
I mean, both Tim and I were in the same class,
(08:26):
and things happened. I got and got banned from using
the studio in the end.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
So they got none of the fact that you know,
senty three hours of the hours was used for I
think he didn't like me much to the guy at
the head of it, but that's okay.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
But so like the band that I had recording, because
we'd have overnight sessions, they left the back door open,
and if you ever let the back door open, you
get suspended from using the studio. That's what happened to me. Well, okay,
it was accident.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
So oftentimes you find like musicians or artists or you know,
it might be even television makers whatever that you you
make stuff as a response to something that you either
dislike or you don't like inside of where you are.
(09:15):
I know that was a case of what I was
doing when we were making TV. It was we thought
that this type of TV was shit, and so we're
sort of making it as a response to that. The
New Zealand music scene when when Pluto came along was
was it was an interesting zone. It hadn't kind of
had its renaissance at that point. Now did how did
(09:38):
you feel about the New Zealand music scene when when
Pluto were just starting to crank up.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Well, and be honest, okay, I thought it lacked a
little bit of grit and a little bit of like
kind of depth, but not not in the sense of
the musicality or the song winning. I think more of
the production side the I thought that it was lacking.
But that's just from a personal perspective. But I was
(10:05):
listening to when when I was in London, our druma
brought over tape and it was Darcy Clay and that
just blew my mind. I was like, Wow, this guy's
kiwi and it was like, holy ship, I've got to
I've got to do better. I've got to be better more.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And the and the way that I mean that was
a unique sound that dares it cloys down. But what
and it's raw us and it's what.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Was it and it's honesty and it's it's just kind
of it was pure. It was pure music to me.
It was you couldn't And it also it was like
had no boundaries. I didn't. I could not tell that
it came from in z Like normally you can go
that that's it, that's Kiwi.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
But was it the York Street drum sound? Was that
the was it the specific drum sound that was coming
out of York Street in the in the mid ninety night.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
It may have been drum was just it's the live room.
They want that big, huge, live kind of room sound.
Didn't I wasn't into.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
It, no, because I always think that drums, for me,
it either sounds really good or if it sounds really good,
you kind of don't notice it. Yeah, if it sounds bad,
do you think something's going off? Something's going wrong here?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And especially with drums and bass, if they don't lock
in the way you want to, it's going to sound terrible.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
So in terms of the rock and roll lifestyle, we
need to take a break and we'll come back with
the rock and roll lifestyle and just a moment, please.
We're talking to Milan Borich from Pluto. They are reuniting
(11:44):
for a show at Double Whammy and Auckland on Saturday,
the eighth of November to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of
Pipeline Under the Ocean. They're also reissuing that on double
vinyl for the first time ever, which features a whole
lot of original tracks and also five previously unreleased songs
from the band's vault. So when things kicked off for Pluto,
(12:08):
I'm thinking early two thousands.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Yes, we.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Now know that you guys really got stuck into a
good dose of the rock and roll lifestyle. Was it
rock and roll lifestyle from the start? Or was the
rock and roll lifestyle a slow creep?
Speaker 1 (12:30):
And it was actually there early early on in before
Pluto came about, Like I went through the Ringer late
prior to actually recording the first record, So that was
in London, came back, cleaned up, and then recorded the
first record in nineteen ninety nine was Clean Living, and
then I think about two to three years into it
(12:52):
just started to get a bit dirty again.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Right, I'm fas a lot of people. I'm sure I
agree with me, but I'm fascinated by this part of
things because I watched, you know, I bought that first
Pluto album. I watched it all unfold from the sidelines,
and it seemed like something interesting was happening. I didn't
(13:16):
know exactly what was going on, but tell us about
the beginnings, the beginnings of all of that, the beginnings
of the debauchery.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
So do you want them in the beginning all the.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Well on the first half of the second half, Well,
I mean the beginnings of it, because there must have
been some fun. It always starts with fun and exploration,
doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
It does? Yeah, yeah, I mean I was really into
Altered States and the books I was reading, the music
I was listening to. It was just it was a
destination that I was always going to go to. So
I really really was experimenting and went to a country
that I could could easily get lost in experiment like
as much as I want, with you know, no boundaries,
no one, no one to tell me to put my
head in. So I went there and I went there hard,
(14:05):
and I got lost and I got in trouble and
it was years of addiction, and then I just decided
in nineteen ninety nine to run away from it all
from London back to New Zealand, and with the help
of my parents, I pulled through that cold Turkey and
then Tim was also back here and we started kind
(14:27):
of collecting the songs that we had written in London
and songs that we started writing again in New Zealand,
and so we wrote Hey Little when I got back
from London, and then we decided we had enough songs
and would borrow some money and go into Helen Young.
And so we went into Helen Young with Nick Cabot
and then met Matthias. Matthias played piano for us on
(14:51):
that record, and that was that, and we recorded the
first kind of the first like kind of group of
recordings for that record. Then Mike and Mike came about
and we finished off that record and then released it
in two thousand, I think two thousand and one.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
So all of that stuff was, all of that addiction
stuff was happening as early as the nineties.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, nineteen ninety five, I think it was really Yeah
for me, you.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Went to the UK and you thought, you know what
I'm going to get on.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
The smack pretty much pretty much. I was searching for
it for a very long time. So and if you
can't find it in New Zealand, no you can't. You know,
you can find poppy tea, but that's about it. You know,
maybe some pills. I'm not sure, but actually I am sure,
but excuse me, but yeah, So I decided to go
(15:41):
over there. My brother was living there, and I turned
up in London and I was like a kid in
a candy store. It was just it was there for me.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeah, London's like that. Yeah, it's a yeah, there's a
lot of opportunities.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
All though, it was hard to find find the heroines.
So the first place I found that was Zagreb in Croatia.
So I was there with my brother and Tim and
it was just kind of like the Civil war was
kind of, you know, simmering down, but it was still
some pockets of fighting. And so we're there and my
brother had some friends, these young kids, and they were
able to procure what I was looking for, right, I.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Mean, did you did you ask? You spotted some kids
and you thought you saw yourself?
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Well those guys, yeah, And I was very good at
spotting that yeah, yeah, very good at spotting.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, okay, uh and then so you found But I
always wondered about this because it's not a drug that
for some reason ever entered into my sphere. Because I
imagine this, it seems like there's a lot of there's
a lot of parlor below going on. You've got to
you've got to have you know, syringers and all sorts
(16:51):
of gotta Yeah, I've seen it on films before. There's spoons,
there's there's heating up of things. It's like, how the
hell do you know? What the hell are you doing?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Well, yeah, there is a ritual to it. But when
when I was in Zagreb, that was a bit different.
That wasn't we had none of that. It was mainly
just up the nose. Oh yeah, so that was that.
That was the first time. It was when I got
back to London and I kept on that I needed
to actually find it again, and then I located it
at the Purple I think it was the Purple Turtle
in Camden, so no, so yeah, in Camden, I think
(17:21):
the Purple Turtle. And I found a guy called Max.
He was Spanish and he took me back to his house,
and he had all the fits and everything right. So
I actually he taught me what to do, and he
set me up and and put me on my first
kind of Jenny.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And a smack university.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
He was running pretty much.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yeah, wow, because because did you even with with snorting heroin?
Do you get addicted to heroin even by snorting.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
It, smoking it, snorting it? And you felt you.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Felt that initiate it was. It was that fast, the addiction.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
It was just it's what it did for me. It's
it kind of it just blocked out everything. I did
not have any fear, I did not have any anxiety anymore,
any noise. It was just like I was at peace,
and I thought this was exactly where I wanted to be.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Right, and you and you didn't know the tales of
what had happened before, people who have thought themselves, you
know what this is me?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I thought, I thought I was immune to that.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
You were going to be the one. Yeah, You're going
to be the one that was the special one. And
so did how and so.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Musically through that period, you're still writing songs, You're still
playing yeah, yeah, prolifically.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah, this is the problem, This is the issue, isn't it. Yeah,
is that it's particularly that drug particularly is good for
writing music.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
It seemed to be like I thought it was. Yeah,
I thought it was. I mean, was it maybe? But
I mean did I need it? Maybe not? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, you know, like I don't the songs. You think
the songs probably would have come to you anyway.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
I think. So. I don't want to condone that that was,
you know, made me a good writer, because I don't
think it did. It made me a good addict. Yeah,
like a writer I was. I think I was always
going to be a good writer, Yeah, regardless of what
I was consuming.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Yeah. Are you of the belief that the songs exist
and in the ether and somewhere and you just have
to be open to gathering them?
Speaker 1 (19:16):
And that could be one of the things that that
is good with kind of olden states. It does open
up your supposed third eye and you can actually kind
of grab that stuff out of the ether, you know,
Like I mean, songs used to just come to me
out of nowhere, and I would I wouldn't even have
to write out lyrics. I could play my core progression
(19:37):
and the lyrics would just come out immediately.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Right Yeah, and then you've come back and you're probably
quite a different person to a lot of your friends
that you were hanging out with than when you leave.
They would have noticed that Milan's kind of changed a
bit here.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, and I'd lost a lot of idea, right, Okay, Yeah,
I didn't look very well, right, Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
And then so friends of sort of I imagine at that time,
were they talking to you about what was going on?
Were you telling them? Were you telling people what was
going on? Were you keeping it all secret?
Speaker 1 (20:08):
I kept it pretty secret, like Tim. Tim was my confident,
like he was my best friend, and so he knew
everything about it like you. Also he was also there
experiencing it with me at the time in London because
he was in London with me and then he left
London earlier. But yeah, Tim was the one I told
everything too, Okay.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Yeah, And when you got back to New Zealand then
and all of a sudden you realize that, you know,
you can't meet that guy at Camden and none of
that's kind of available. What happens at that point.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Well, that was when you had to get a little
bit more experimental, and that was just like the you know,
go to the boltpins with poppy seeds and that kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Does that Does that work? Does that work? Though? Not?
I mean it does work.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah, that's why they've got ridden in those bolts. Well
they've got rid of them.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
I always used to I was hope to confused.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
My grandmother used to grow poppies out the front of
her house in Mount Monganui.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
And so's that flower that all disappeared.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yep, that works. That you chop off the bulbs and
you get them into a part and that works as well.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
When it really that really works works, She was hope
to toe confused.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
I didn't want to break it to her that there
was d's getting high on her poppies.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Ye works.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
My next door neighbor used to have garden shows. They
had her when I was growing up. There this crazily
beautiful garden next door. And during the garden shows there
used to be some younger people who didn't really look
like they'd be that interested in gardens, certainly not the
Trinity Garden show full of old people, and they'd be
wandering around just basically scope it. And then my mum
(21:43):
was walking up to get the paper one morning on
a Saturday morning, and she saw but she's noticed a
bit of a rustling, and because our driveway went up
through beside their property and and she noted a rustling.
And there were two guys down and down the bushes,
the grabbing the poppies from missus cox garden next door.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Hey, so you come back from London, cold Turkey, sober up,
and that's when you release pipeline under the ocean.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (22:15):
What's the timeline there?
Speaker 1 (22:16):
So the timeline I sobered up like ninety nine through
to about two thousand and two, two thousand and three.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Well, you would have thought I'm going pretty well.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Here I did. I was. I was doing very very well. Yeah, yeah,
And then I started traveling a bit more. I got
a drumming gig, started traveling a bit more. Of that
was going to Australia. And then that was when I
kind of discovered Heroin again in Australia, in Albourne, so
it was easy to cop over there. So that's I
started having little spats of kind of I called them
(22:47):
kind of my Heroin holidays. So I'd do that and
I come back and I'd be fine. I'd come off
it again and and it was manageable, and then we
started right and recording for Pipeline and the Ocean, and
then through an old legend drummer he kind of who
(23:10):
was buying pearls of someone in the scene. He put
me onto a guy that was able to procure what
I wanted, and then it all started started again.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
And this is a New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, oh wow, okay.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Right, So during the time, you know, in terms of
your own psychology, were you feeling like things were did
you feel like in trouble mentally or you felt like
it was just that was just the story of Milan
Boris at the time.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, I kind of thought this was my identity and
you know what I needed. I thought I needed it.
That wasn't right. I didn't need it. I just, you know,
in my own mind, believed that I did need it
and I wanted it. So I thought it was it
made me. I thought it made me impenetrable, you know,
impervious to you know, any kind of outside influence or
(24:06):
outside kind of opinions about myself. So I just I
just thought it was the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
And if there was a movie being made in the
second at the end of the second act there there
would reach a low point normally in this situation, what
was that low point for you?
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Are? The low points were all my relationships with my family,
my friends, especially the band. I mean, my relationship with
my father was suffering as well because he was a pharmacist,
so he could see exactly what's going on with me.
So it really did take its toll there, and I
was my behavior was awful, and my emotions were you know,
(24:52):
volatile to say the least. So it was it was, yeah,
it was a hard time for me, and it was
very very very very sick.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Right and then if some friends close to you said, right, there's.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Enough of that, they did, but it didn't change anything.
It had to come from me. So so I went
and got onto the methodone program pretty pretty quick, okay,
just to try and mitigate the whole kind of searching
for the drug.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
What happens there.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Are that as you get tested to see how much
heroin's in your system, and then they say, okay, you
are you know, you can actually get on the program
now because you have this much in your system. And
so that's what happens, and then you're on that kind
of book for as long as you want Okay, Yeah,
it's pretty horrible. Is that it's pretty horrendous. Yeah, it's
(25:39):
worse than heroin.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
So what is it?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Is it a tablet?
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Is it just a pill?
Speaker 3 (25:42):
A liquid? Right? And you just take it like a
cough medicine or pretty much?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, And you got to turn up every day for
it because they wouldn't give you a whole lot at once,
would they.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, No, you had to turn up every morning at
the pharmacy, which is also it's it's kind of it's
just shameful as well.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
It's a little bit humiliating him, really awful.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yet, wouldn't you go in that situation? Because I think
I've seen people. I've got a pharma seat the rough
from me, and I think I've seen people turning up
for it. And I've been in there early in the
morning and the people are ready to go in the morning.
They are like right there at the door. And I
thought to myself, wouldn't you just go? What the what
is it like? Five days of like pain, like five days.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Of cold full cold turkey?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yeah, because how long does a cold turkey take?
Speaker 1 (26:26):
It can take two weeks, oh, two weeks, it can
take it. But the worst part is the first week,
but then the second kind of the second week is
diabolical to It's like the struggle to really be motivated
to keep reading.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Oh really, yeah it's pretty Oh that sounds grim.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yes, that's grim. You can't sleep, you can't eat, you
can't really do anything.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Oh and you can't sort of distract yourself by like
I don't know, No, there's not taking something else.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Oh you could, but then you just run.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
You're a fan or something, you're a plas.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, maybe no, it doesn't work us.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Well, I'm glad you here.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
Yeah, jeez, that sounds that sounds Jesus.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
That's something. I mean, it's a fascinating story. Obviously, it's
your's your life. It's not a story, it's it's you
live the experience and now so so obviously, then then
you you put out pipeline under the ocean that goes well,
it does. Now, when you listen to the songs, how
(27:38):
do you feel about the Because you might be cruising,
you might be in the supermarket and hear some of
those songs, how do you feel about this? How do
you feel about the songs?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Now?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Are you about to perform them? From from start to finish?
Speaker 1 (27:48):
I mean, I love I love the songs. I don't
particularly go out and play the songs for myself, and
when I hear someone else put the song on. Let's
let's say I'm at the gym and I'm training and
someone puts my song on. I do not want to
hear it. I tell them to immediately. I don't want
to hear that.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
But that you don't want to hear What is it
that you don't want to hear about it?
Speaker 1 (28:08):
You know when you you know, when you listen back
to your own voice, your first recording of it, and
you're like, oh my god, who is that? I just
please shut up.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
It's a bit like listening what looks like seeing Jeremy
listen to his own voice at the start of this podcast.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
I don't hear the weird thing is that that just
because the way I pronounce something, and that annoys me.
But I if I see myself on TV or something
like that, I I don't see myself.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
It's not me. So you can hear right, you can
just associate yourself.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I have a full disassociation experience. I now look at myself, robot,
some character.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Jeremy Wells just more for you.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
But that I know that I have a relationship with
that person, but it's not really me.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
That's a good way of doing it, That's anyway I
can get through. I can't. The only way I can
do it is to not actually listen or not look
at it. Like everything I've done recently, I'm like, no,
I don't want to hear it, don't want to look
at it. Let might let my wife do that.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Oh yeah, okay, how was it done?
Speaker 1 (29:03):
It was good.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I know people who can't stop listening to themselves.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
I know a lot of people like that. Look, I can't.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I find quite strange. But sometimes I wonder whether that's
part whether you have to do that to get better.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Yes, yep, that is that is part of it, for sure.
Maybe that's why I haven't gone.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Yeah, it's my problem.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
I can't listen to any podcasts already, a broadcasts, even
when an AD comes on or a promo with my voice.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
That's yeah, yeah, I'm exactly Yeah, well that weird.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
But when you first hear yourself and you go, isn't
that what I thought? I sounded normal?
Speaker 3 (29:40):
That's so bad.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
I sound like a weirdo. Yeah yeah, So what's how's
everything going with the band. Now you guys have come
back together again. Well, you've always been friends and stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Close close brothers, ye know, we're like family. So yeah,
really really good. So it's it's it's been fun actually
getting back together and playing the songs and in the
entirety of the record. We did it for the first
time a few weeks ago and it was super fun. Yeah,
we just couldn't stop laughing.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Really, and you got all the keys worked out and
stuff like that. With g D churning to certain things,
there's no arguments over what was meant to be in
the first place.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
No, No, I try to keep all the keys pure
and the way they were. I don't really change the
keys of songs that I do, even in Zippelin, I
don't do it like you know, I just punished myself.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
So when you say Zipplin, so you touched on that
it's to come together kind of phenomenon.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
That's been what two or three years now, five years
of doing it.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Five years. Yeah, talk to us about that. Well, I
did that the first time I got that job was
we were they were doing Romeo and Juliet and I
think John Tooga was on that one as well, and
I got asked randomly, I think through Joel m'holland and Simone,
and they reached out to me and said do you
(30:58):
want to do this? And I said absolutely and I
did and then there was a song on there. There
was a rap song on the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack,
and they said do you want to do this as well?
And I'm like, I don't really rap, and but no
one else was going to do it, so yeah, but
I ended up rapping.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Oh yeah, yeah, okay, interesting.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, So I nailed that and so got the job
and it's been five years in. But also Mike, Mike
Hall and Matthias Jordan, they're both involved in They come
together yea. So it's like, you know, three fists of Pluto.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
So explain to come together like what it is because
basically every year a different.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Artist or different artists a different album.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Different album, and everyone comes together from various bands and genres.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yes, yeah, and about five generally five singers from YEP
from different parts of New Zealand and we all get together,
we collate like what what songs each each singer is
going to do? And the band had has the grueling
job of learning like forty songs generally forty Yeah, sometimes
forty songs, you know, like especially when they're doing the
(32:07):
Beatles and like that, those albums. And then and then
we go out and we do them live and we
do three shows. We do Wellington, christ Church and Auckland
and and before the week before we only have three
days to rehearse as a band.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Yeah, And must have been led Zeppelin.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Must have been challenging because Robert Plant's got some pretty
he's got some yeah, he's got some pretty high notes.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
He's got some high notes. He's got some pipes on them. Yeah, yeah,
so you can see high I can, I can.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, you gifted with the You're gifted with the high range.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
I am yep, yep, I give it. I give it
a good crack.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
And in terms of because I always interested in people
and singers, how voices change and develop over the years
and stuff like that, because I guess you're always stretching
that muscle, so you've not like you know, you never
lose that, You never lose it if you keep going.
Is that the way that it works, arranged all the
same as what it always was.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
It is, And I was future proofing. I wasn't doing
stretching too much of an open voice. It was quite
a bit of head voice in falsetto. So I can
still hit those notes. You know, I'm not doing anything
like Vince Neil or you know those he heard then recently.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
No, that's pretty pretty.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Really listen to it. Yeah, so those guys were not
future proofing, like.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Well, I actually I saw Guns and Roses a couple
of years ago and x Or Rose is it's yeah,
it's not great. A No, it's not great. But his
voice was so amazing for a while there was so unique. Yeah,
it couldn't keep going no like that.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Especially when you're playing so many shows like that and
just blowing it like like Robert Plant as well, his
voice started changing pretty early on as well, because they're
two are schedules so insane that he'd just been blowing
his voice out every single night, and so I think
seventy three it just started getting a little bit more
mentally going down and pitch.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
We had Jimmy Barnes on the on the podcast a
while back and he he reckons that his voice, he said,
the more gigs he does that, he said, it warms
up a lot. Yeah, his voice, he said it likes
to be blasted all the time.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yeah, he's a genetic anomaly. It's crazy he's and I
new that. Yeah, he's just built differently. Like I've talked,
I've spoken to Eja's daughter about it, and she also
says that he's just built differently. He just screams before right, Yeah,
like that's how he warms up streaming.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
And he's absolutely rich. Like he should have ruined his
voice because back what eighties and nineties his warm up
would be.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
A bottle of vodka.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
That would be the way that he warmed up for
a gig. So how it's still there. He's got a
crazy range though he does his Man, he can hurt
high notes and he still can. Yeah, and that's that
is that is remarkable. Okay, Will Malan, thanks so much
for coming.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
On, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Always great to chat to you. And and yeah, your
story is a fascinating story. I've always enjoyed your music
and yeah, so thank you for thanks for giving that
to us.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
It's my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
I appreciate it greatly, and thanks very much for coming.
An abyss of light with everything.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Cheers Man Radio, hold Aches Off the Record Podcast.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Why not subscribe?
Speaker 1 (35:19):
So they download automatically and don't forget to rate us
five stars.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Thanks mate.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Find out more about this podcast and the people who
make it at hodache dot co dot nz it
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.