May 11, 2025 • 28 mins
Derek Lind has been writing songs and making music since the late 1970s, with seven albums to his name — including his latest, SOLO (2015). His songwriting has earned him two NZ Music Awards and a nomination for the APRA Silver Scroll, thanks to his honest, thoughtful lyrics that connect personal stories with bigger, universal themes. Critics have praised him for his humanity, compassion, and the depth in his work.
Alongside music, Derek is also a visual artist and Elam School of Fine Arts graduate. After years of teaching art and art history, he shifted his focus fully to creating — both through music and painting. Working from a small studio in the bushy hills of West Auckland, he continues to process life through his art, especially after the sudden loss of his wife in 2013. His recent paintings explore ideas of loss, grace, movement, and redemption.
Derek’s recent visual art explores spiritual and emotional terrain through bold colour, Te Reo Māori inscriptions, and layered symbolism. Living simply, he continues to create with passion and honesty—juggling bills, driving a $2000 car, and crafting new songs. With the support of patrons, Derek is preparing to record a new collection of songs and invites others to be part of the journey.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talks ed be
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Good A Happy Easter. I'm John Cown and this is
real life. If you've heard some of the interviews I've
been doing over the years, you'd be aware that I'm
always keen to hear people's story. But more than that,
I want to know what's at their core, the most
important thing, their drivers, their beliefs. And with my guest tonight,
that's not going to be hard to get to because
(00:37):
his heart and beliefs boil out of his paintings and
his music. Welcome Derek Lynd.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hey John, nice to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Now it's Easter. And have you been doing any artwork
related to Easter? Someone mentioned that you're doing some installation
or something regard. Yeah, we louted Easter.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
I've spent a little personal challenge and this is something
artists and writers do. They they sort of try to
find ways of tracking themselves into working. And I I
just saw some piles of plywood stacked against my shed
on ash Wednesday, March the fifth, and I thought, I'm
(01:18):
going to make an attempt to do the fourteen Stations
of the Cross, and they're all quite big paintings, about
twelve hundred high or six hundred milimeters wide, and I've
knocked them all off. So it was a personal challenge.
But yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Where are they being displayed at my local church which
is just up the road, Langham Baptist Church. Okay, I'm
glad they're not still this leaning against you, Garret.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
No, no, well it wasn't treated delaminating as we.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Speak, if they were. Okay, So Easter is obviously a
bit more than just chocolate and the holiday for you. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, it's a very significant holy time for me.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, okay, So tell me what is it about the
crucifixion of Jesus that means so much?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Well, the crucifixion is God's demonstration to me of his
need for justice. But on the other hand is infinite
and compassionate love and concern for his creation, and that
was borne out in the crucifixion.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Okay, how I mean this is for some people just
looking in from the outside, it's an execution, it's a torture.
It's a cruel death of someone who didn't deserve it.
But for people like yourself and for I suppose billions
of Christians it really does hold something to them. So yeah,
So how does it impact you personally? Well, it was
(02:45):
the most painful form of execution the Romans could come
up with. In fact, very few of any Romans ever
got crucified. That was saved for other people.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
But it echoes the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, need
for a sacrifice, to a tone for sin, for wrongdoing,
and Jesus became that sacrifice for me. And and today
we celebrate the resurrection, which which without it, the cross
(03:23):
would be kind of meaningless.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Okay, so you have the death, but that wasn't enough.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
No, that would that would just be a form of
martyrdom which we would probably recognize and remember and commemorate.
But no, it all hinges for me on the on
the resurrection.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Okay. And how does that impact your daily life? I
mean it's you can look back at that as a
thing of history maybe, but you see this as being
something that intersects with you personally.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Well, for me, it's it's I just feel that it
is my raison deetrich. If you want to try and
follow the person of Jesus Christ and to act accordingly
and to love others as I love myself and and
all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Okay, so that love doctrine, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Is that
the most appealing part of the teachings of Jesus for you?
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I think so.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
I think so. I think we get caught up often
on little prohibitions that we often invent ourselves as to
how we should live. And there's so many things that
we do within the church that think are things that
we've just made up. I mean, the stations of the
cross are a made up thing.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
So what are the stations of the cross?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
It's ready, it's the road from pilot who send him
to death, who condemned him to death, to the point
where he's buried in the term So the via dolorosa.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Basically Okay, so it's sort of almost like a no,
this is a terrible simplification, but it's almost like a
comic strip. It's a story telling of a telling of
the of the cruciffexion. It is.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I mean, you look at all the old Fresco cycles
that they kind of like comic scripts for the illiterate,
which they were, right.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I sometimes envy people like yourself who have eyes to
see art in a way that I obviously don't. And
you've spent time going around Europe and places looking at
some of these old as an artist, and and for
you it's not just it's not just a picture, No,
it's it's carrying something.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
Well.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I mean it helps if you can educate yourself a
little in these things, if you want to get more
out of it. But I mean I've done a few
trips to Europe and I felt very sorry for my
dear wife who after the empteenth church that I went
into because they're all free, she said, are you pop
in love? I'll just sit on the steps and eat
the sandwich. But yeah, I do find it quite compelling.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Right, your seven albums, because you're not just an artist
with a paint brush. You're also been turning out songs
and music for years. It's not just in the paintings
that your Christian faith comes out.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
No, No, I'm probably more well known for the music,
to be honest. Although I don't know anything about music.
I did study finance at university, so I know a
bit about that. But music is just an instinctial behavior
for me.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Okay, for someone who doesn't know much about music, turning
out seven albums as well as is quite a feat.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Yeah, well you get they get further apart the older
older I get. But I think you develop a self
critical faculty the more mature you get, and you don't
let as much garbage you get through the you.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Know, so you reckon your music's getting better and better.
I mean you're allowed to be slightly and modesty allowed.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
It should get better, shouldn't it.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Really?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
But I do think you look at any artist's career,
there's often a certain period where they seem to really peak,
they really hit a sweet spot, you knows, someone like
Picassos that.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, you know, and you're in your sweet spot or
you've passed it or you.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I'm probably past it. John, I don't know. I'm turning.
I'm nearly seventy years old, so but it used.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
To be old. Yeah, but you're barely in your prime.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Well he's opened parts of my body? Aren't telling me that?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I had a Fred talk about this idea of songwriting
called three chords and the truth would that be describing
your sort of songwriting style?
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Well, it describes a lot of country music, but yeah,
kind of. I do try and keep it relatively simple,
but I do spend a lot of time on the lyrics,
you know, I do work really hard on them, and
songs can take quite a long time to evolve, and
you might only get it partly written, and then you
go to some other unfinished songs that you've got stecked
(08:00):
away and you read those songs for speed parts for
the one that you're working on now. And so it
can be quite a long Yes, yes, I've been about years, John,
But yeah, it can be quite long and protracted. But
now and then stuff comes out that's really fast. It
comes out almost as fast as you can write it down.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
I'm talking with artists and musician Derek lind and we
can't show you any of his paintings over the radio,
but we can listen to some of his music. Let's
listen to Rusty Nail.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Rusty and a Dusty Rope. There's a scar in a
bar your head, there's a vacant crust and I am
love Lou, No understand, Rusting dusty Rope. There's a scar
(09:05):
in the part in your hand.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
There's a fake troll, Lou.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
I understand.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I seem to recall hearing this one years ago.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
There, Yeah, I don't know how long ago it was
that I wrote it, but it would be well over
forty years ago. Wow, And of all the songs I've written,
that would song would be the most requested of me.
And I don't tire of playing it still. It's not
a burden. But again, that's one of those songs that
came very quickly to me, almost as quick as it
(09:50):
took to the songs that is about as quick as
sing as it is to write, or was to write.
And the guts of it, Oh, it's again, it's rusty
that rusted down on dusty ray. It talks about a
love that I'll never understand, you know, a divine love
that's a bit beyond my more to comprehension. And yeah,
(10:11):
it's so there's not much to it. Again, it's only
three chords. I don't know why I wrote it in
the key of F for some reason. I never write
songs in the key of F, but I did. And
that was the first thing I thought. What I heard,
I know, I knew you'd picked up on that, John, Yeah,
but no, it's it's always been a bit of a
crowd favorite. It hasn't put my children through university or anything.
(10:33):
But there's some song are able to do. But yeah,
it served me.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Well, do you only write about Christian themes and your music?
Speaker 4 (10:41):
No?
Speaker 3 (10:42):
I just I just try and tell my story. I've
never I think when.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
So it's as much as it's part of you your faith. Yeah,
that everything comes out in your music, so it's part
of it. But do you write about other stuffy Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:55):
And I've always felt that way. I think that I
grew up in the church, in the church music scene,
and the temptation way back was to try and make
turn every song into a three minute tracked, a little sermon,
a little sermon, Yeah, this will win them over. That
(11:16):
I very quickly realized that that wasn't a direction I
should go in, and so I write about all sorts
of stuff, and hopefully my faith is embedded in what
I deliver. But I don't feel any moral obligation to
be a torch bearer for the faith.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
If only people realize that probably just preaching it people
doesn't really affect me as much as seeing a real
life lived out in front of them, unless you're living
out your life three a music.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Are you trying to John?
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
I remember playing at a university orientation somewhere in the country,
and all sorts of heenous things were going on all
around me, you know, with swilling beer and stuff like that.
And I sang my little songs around now and someone,
some well meaning person came up to me afterwards and said,
that was really good, Derek.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Do you preach as well? And I kind of I thought,
I sort of was. So you grew up in a
church family, and is that where you got your faith?
Is it was people influencing your family. Where did your
faith and your music come from with it?
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Well, I grew up in a church that had a
fairly strong evangelical preachy tradition, and there was a lot
of hell fire and brimstone sort of sermonizing that went on.
And as a kid, I think I became a Christian
every Sunday evening for a while there, you know what
I mean, because I was just terrified and.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Now that that style of Christianity doesn't come out in
your music.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
No.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
In fact, I would have thought that the type of
person I hear in your music would be almost a
little bit turned off and almost revolted by that approach. Well,
I think I.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Grew into being a you know, it wasn't a sudden
moment you know, it's just I got to a point
where I didn't feel I needed to pray for salvation
every Sunday night again. You know. It was, man, it
became much more than just fire insurance, you know. And
so it's it's sort of I grew into it as
(13:18):
opposed to going through some reckless divine experience.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I'm talking of Derek Linde, a very appropriate guest from
Easter Sunday, because his life is centered around the truth
of the resurrection and it bubbles out of his music
and his paintings. Derek, listen, listen to another song. Do
as You're told, Do as you're told.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
Me you love, stay warm and dry, do as you're told.
Speaker 6 (14:10):
School's out for summer, just like the Alice Cooper song,
a boy any lamb job Sure walks a.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Pretty girl along and we beyond the playground they carve
their names in a tree.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, it's just a love song, John Off my last album,
and it's it's just a generational love song. You know.
It talks about young love, and it talks about I
guess middle aged love, and it talks about old folks love.
And it sounds like a somewhat misogynistic title, but that's
(14:53):
that's kind of deliberate, because it's actually a fairly warm,
compassionate song.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Okay, I was preparing for this interview and I discovered
a whole lot of old videos on you. And what
are the ones I watched? Was you playing in a
bandstand and singinging alongside you? Was your beautiful wife Rah.
Then there was also Darlene, and both of those lovely
women have died.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah, don't be a backing singer for me.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
No, No, Well, because you know that was a love
song that you sang, and the love of your life
was taken for you, not she wasn't very old and
in a fairly traumatic way. And I'm just wondering, you
have pledged your life to a God who loves you,
and yet best time bad stuff happens, has it knocked
(15:43):
you fave rocked it, or at least evolved it? I
guess evolved. It might be true.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
Jong.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
You know, they talk about the six stages of grief
or whatever, and they talk about anger, But I never
got angry at God. I mean, you know, I was
grieving desperately for a long time. That well, I was just,
I don't know, completely incapable of doing much I'd get
(16:17):
in my car and drive and just get into a
get into a bit of a dreamy state. And i'd
started going to go to New markt and I ended
up in Otaho, you know, and I said, like a
danger on the road, you know. I just my head
wasn't straight. And so it took me quite a long
(16:38):
time to be sort of functional, really, But but I
never blamed a god for it, I reid, I think so.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
A few days after she died, I live out on
the Manico in the White Tacker, in the rainforest, and
I went for a walk down my local beach and
it was July and it was completely deserted, and I walked.
It was just a small bay and I walked from
one end to the other. I just need to get
out of house. And right through my walk down to
(17:12):
the end of the bay and back, a little fantail,
a little pea woker walker just followed me all the
way around, flitting around my head. And to me, that's
what they do. But to me at that time and
in that context and in that situation, I sort of
felt like this, this is sort of ra saying to me,
it's okay, I'm all right. I'm in a better place.
(17:34):
I'm good and that's that was the feeling I got
in that moment. And so and I've received, I received
at the time, so much support from you know, fellow Christians,
church members. They were they were just absolutely astonishing at
their level of support for me. So yeah, but you know,
(17:55):
I was never sort of pissed off of God, so
to speak.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Do you expect to see Rah again?
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Oh yeah, yeah, I've written songs about it.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah. Okay, so that's a central part of what you believe.
It was a life and a reunion. Yeah, absolutely, tell
us about ra because you met each other as teenagers.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
And yeah, she was sixteen, I was seventeen. It was
New Year's Eve nineteen seventy three. We went out for
six years. They got married and that will be forty
seven years ago.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Next month, when she was a Cook Island molding. Yea,
So it was that that would have been interesting meshing
in with her family and culture.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Yeah, h it was.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
And there was a little bit of kickback really yeah,
this is the early seventies, well, mid seventies, and a
little bit of kickback, which was interesting. But we hung
in there from both sides or yeah, but mainly props.
From my side, yeah, from my back out side, it's
the planets spun a few times since the land changed.
(18:59):
So when some of them came from the church, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
but you know, times have changed, and we hung in there,
and she was a much woman because she had this
extraordinary ability to meet complete strangers and within a few
minutes they were divulging their innermost feelings to her, you know.
(19:21):
And she had no regard for power, position, money, all
that sort of thing, and she was just bringing people
together in terms of hospitality. And right throughout our marriage
we had people living with us who were going through issues,
and we had strangers for well, not strangers, but non
family members for dinner pretty much every night.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Of the week.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, it sounds like she was a healer.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
She was, And so since she's gone, I've struggling.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
You know.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
I was sort of yearn to try and emulate that,
but I just don't have that capacity that she had
to just bring people together in a context of hospitality
and fellowship.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Maybe your music does. Maybe may I think that it.
In talking about your music with people, people get a
little bit emotional talking about your music and about you.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
That's nice.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
And because it is something that's there's a transcendent element
in it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Well, I mean if you just write songs out of
pure catharsis, it's that's kind of indulgent. You know, you
need to.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
It's also uncomfortable to listen to you.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yeah, I know, it's like primal screen therapy, or isn't
heah means good for the person screaming that was good
for the neighbors. Means make that record, but you know,
don't play it to us. But yeah, well that's it's
nice to hear. But you try and make a song
so that it has a universe personality, if you know
what I mean, so that there's some common ground, and yeah,
(20:53):
so that people can get something out of it for themselves.
It can't just be purely confessional.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah. I think your paintbrushes and your microphone and your guitar,
you've used them as a tool to help yourself and
also other people. I saw a series of paintings labeled
for Darling and a ah, yeah, another friend that passed away.
And so even in your painting, you can bring this across. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, well you know, again, it's just a series of
paintings based on my dear friend Darling who sank backing
for me for years.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And yeah, Okay, the faith that you talk about, it's
that you've described it in terms that are generous and
loving and it works for you in a comfortable New
Zealand setting. That you've taken it overseas as well. You've
done work with your fund in other countries. When you
(21:48):
when you're confronted with the poverty and need and the
pain in the world, is does your faith work there?
Does it says it's still ring? Is true when you're
seeing such need in the world.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's it is incredibly confronting to
see what poverty really looks like. You know, I'm a
musician and all my life I've kind of cried poor.
But in light of seeing that stuff, I don't have
(22:21):
a clue about what it means to be poor.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
You know what countries are you thinking of when you're.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
In Bangladesh, Pakistan? Yeah, you know all of those places
just extreme poverty and so and I've come to the
conclusion that poverty is it's not just about money. I mean,
I know, I don't know about being poor. I know
about being broke, but oh, you're an artist out of
(22:47):
the job description. But to be poor means to be
deprived of choice, to be deprived of options. And every
day you and I exercise a whole raft of options
that are the privy of the wealthiest people on the planet,
you know. And so you know, I'm loaded. Don't worry
about me.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, And but you have this God that loves you.
Does he love these people as well? And he loves
them as much? So why doesn't you know, do you ask?
You know, why why doesn't he intervene?
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Well, it's like the rainfalls on the just and the unjust,
you know. But I've seen extraordinary and experienced extraordinary hospitality
from these people.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
They will just give everything to feed you bountifully, you know.
And for me, it's very humbling. And I think some
of the most deeply faithful people I have met have
been living in those contexts.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Okay, so for them it's still.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Real, yeah yeah, yeah yeah, And for them it's incredible.
I mean, for some of them, it's it's dangerous to
be a believer, because they will be threatening the social
structures of the community that they live in that have
been run perhaps by people who are akin to gangsters,
you know, and these people threaten their domination of that
(24:16):
little society, that little community, because they say, you know,
this isn't right, this is not just we need to
do something about this. We need you know, we need schooling,
we need medicines. And they act upon their faith, you know,
but on the prompting of their faith, and so these
people are often under threat, you know, physical threat. So
(24:38):
it's very humbly for me.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Your last album is more than ten years ago now,
and it was written coming up to ten years yeah. Well, yeah,
and it was largely a response to your loss of Rah. Yeah.
Have you got another album in you? It's been a
long time between drinks.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Oh no, it doesn't seem that long though, John. A
lot's happened, But yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
I do.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
I'm currently not accepting any musical invitations or gigs because
my left hand is a bit unwell and it needs
operating on so I'm not really playing much guitar. So
when that hand is fixed up, I think I'll be
back into the studio. I've got I've got enough songs.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, oh well, something to look forward to. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
And we'll go out on another song that you picked
for us called cast the first shadow? Yeap, what's this about?
Speaker 3 (25:28):
It's kind of a song about Christ coming again. I
guess it was prompted by a little road trip extended
family did down the East Cape many years ago, and
I stumbled upon on a little crop, a little out well,
I can't what it's word, an out crop on the
coastline that had a little graveyard in it, and it
(25:52):
was predominantly a mouldi graveyard, and there were two crosses
in there that were made out of the old wooden
reflective roadside markers. And I thought, oh, I wonder how
those kiddies died, you know. And that's that's how I
sort of move into it. And I just casting the
first shadow is just when we see Jesus in his glory.
(26:14):
I want to be the one that casts the first shadows.
It's a wee bit sort of.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
In timey in time, in time right. Well, Derek, it's
been wonderful talking to you. Thank thank you for sharing
some of your Easter thoughts and with us, and thank
you for a lifetime of sharing your music and art.
My pleasure, John, this is real life. I'm John Cown.
I've been talking with artists and musician Derek Lynd, I
wish you are very happy Easter holiday and look forward
(26:39):
to being back with you again next Sunday night.
Speaker 5 (26:44):
It's just another day to me. M winga Ae majestic
from the heaven on the first day forever, all illusions
(27:06):
will be shadowed, all crosses vacated.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Oh, mystery is unrever.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
When I see his glory, I want to cast the
first shadow cast, the first shadow cast, the first shadow.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Good A Happy Easter. I'm John Cown and this is
real life. If you've heard some of the interviews I've
been doing over the years, you'd be aware that I'm
always keen to hear people's story. But more than that,
I want to know what's at their core, the most
important thing, their drivers, their beliefs. And with my guest tonight,
that's not going to be hard to get to because
(00:37):
his heart and beliefs boil out of his paintings and
his music. Welcome Derek Lynd.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hey John, nice to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Now it's Easter. And have you been doing any artwork
related to Easter? Someone mentioned that you're doing some installation
or something regard. Yeah, we louted Easter.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
I've spent a little personal challenge and this is something
artists and writers do. They they sort of try to
find ways of tracking themselves into working. And I I
just saw some piles of plywood stacked against my shed
on ash Wednesday, March the fifth, and I thought, I'm
(01:18):
going to make an attempt to do the fourteen Stations
of the Cross, and they're all quite big paintings, about
twelve hundred high or six hundred milimeters wide, and I've
knocked them all off. So it was a personal challenge.
But yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Where are they being displayed at my local church which
is just up the road, Langham Baptist Church. Okay, I'm
glad they're not still this leaning against you, Garret.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
No, no, well it wasn't treated delaminating as we.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Speak, if they were. Okay, So Easter is obviously a
bit more than just chocolate and the holiday for you. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, it's a very significant holy time for me.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, okay, So tell me what is it about the
crucifixion of Jesus that means so much?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Well, the crucifixion is God's demonstration to me of his
need for justice. But on the other hand is infinite
and compassionate love and concern for his creation, and that
was borne out in the crucifixion.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Okay, how I mean this is for some people just
looking in from the outside, it's an execution, it's a torture.
It's a cruel death of someone who didn't deserve it.
But for people like yourself and for I suppose billions
of Christians it really does hold something to them. So yeah,
So how does it impact you personally? Well, it was
(02:45):
the most painful form of execution the Romans could come
up with. In fact, very few of any Romans ever
got crucified. That was saved for other people.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
But it echoes the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, need
for a sacrifice, to a tone for sin, for wrongdoing,
and Jesus became that sacrifice for me. And and today
we celebrate the resurrection, which which without it, the cross
(03:23):
would be kind of meaningless.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Okay, so you have the death, but that wasn't enough.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
No, that would that would just be a form of
martyrdom which we would probably recognize and remember and commemorate.
But no, it all hinges for me on the on
the resurrection.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Okay. And how does that impact your daily life? I
mean it's you can look back at that as a
thing of history maybe, but you see this as being
something that intersects with you personally.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Well, for me, it's it's I just feel that it
is my raison deetrich. If you want to try and
follow the person of Jesus Christ and to act accordingly
and to love others as I love myself and and
all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Okay, so that love doctrine, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Is that
the most appealing part of the teachings of Jesus for you?
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I think so.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
I think so. I think we get caught up often
on little prohibitions that we often invent ourselves as to
how we should live. And there's so many things that
we do within the church that think are things that
we've just made up. I mean, the stations of the
cross are a made up thing.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
So what are the stations of the cross?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
It's ready, it's the road from pilot who send him
to death, who condemned him to death, to the point
where he's buried in the term So the via dolorosa.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Basically Okay, so it's sort of almost like a no,
this is a terrible simplification, but it's almost like a
comic strip. It's a story telling of a telling of
the of the cruciffexion. It is.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I mean, you look at all the old Fresco cycles
that they kind of like comic scripts for the illiterate,
which they were, right.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I sometimes envy people like yourself who have eyes to
see art in a way that I obviously don't. And
you've spent time going around Europe and places looking at
some of these old as an artist, and and for
you it's not just it's not just a picture, No,
it's it's carrying something.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
Well.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I mean it helps if you can educate yourself a
little in these things, if you want to get more
out of it. But I mean I've done a few
trips to Europe and I felt very sorry for my
dear wife who after the empteenth church that I went
into because they're all free, she said, are you pop
in love? I'll just sit on the steps and eat
the sandwich. But yeah, I do find it quite compelling.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Right, your seven albums, because you're not just an artist
with a paint brush. You're also been turning out songs
and music for years. It's not just in the paintings
that your Christian faith comes out.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
No, No, I'm probably more well known for the music,
to be honest. Although I don't know anything about music.
I did study finance at university, so I know a
bit about that. But music is just an instinctial behavior
for me.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Okay, for someone who doesn't know much about music, turning
out seven albums as well as is quite a feat.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Yeah, well you get they get further apart the older
older I get. But I think you develop a self
critical faculty the more mature you get, and you don't
let as much garbage you get through the you.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Know, so you reckon your music's getting better and better.
I mean you're allowed to be slightly and modesty allowed.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
It should get better, shouldn't it.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Really?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
But I do think you look at any artist's career,
there's often a certain period where they seem to really peak,
they really hit a sweet spot, you knows, someone like
Picassos that.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, you know, and you're in your sweet spot or
you've passed it or you.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I'm probably past it. John, I don't know. I'm turning.
I'm nearly seventy years old, so but it used.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
To be old. Yeah, but you're barely in your prime.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Well he's opened parts of my body? Aren't telling me that?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I had a Fred talk about this idea of songwriting
called three chords and the truth would that be describing
your sort of songwriting style?
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Well, it describes a lot of country music, but yeah,
kind of. I do try and keep it relatively simple,
but I do spend a lot of time on the lyrics,
you know, I do work really hard on them, and
songs can take quite a long time to evolve, and
you might only get it partly written, and then you
go to some other unfinished songs that you've got stecked
(08:00):
away and you read those songs for speed parts for
the one that you're working on now. And so it
can be quite a long Yes, yes, I've been about years, John,
But yeah, it can be quite long and protracted. But
now and then stuff comes out that's really fast. It
comes out almost as fast as you can write it down.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
I'm talking with artists and musician Derek lind and we
can't show you any of his paintings over the radio,
but we can listen to some of his music. Let's
listen to Rusty Nail.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Rusty and a Dusty Rope. There's a scar in a
bar your head, there's a vacant crust and I am
love Lou, No understand, Rusting dusty Rope. There's a scar
(09:05):
in the part in your hand.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
There's a fake troll, Lou.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
I understand.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I seem to recall hearing this one years ago.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
There, Yeah, I don't know how long ago it was
that I wrote it, but it would be well over
forty years ago. Wow, And of all the songs I've written,
that would song would be the most requested of me.
And I don't tire of playing it still. It's not
a burden. But again, that's one of those songs that
came very quickly to me, almost as quick as it
(09:50):
took to the songs that is about as quick as
sing as it is to write, or was to write.
And the guts of it, Oh, it's again, it's rusty
that rusted down on dusty ray. It talks about a
love that I'll never understand, you know, a divine love
that's a bit beyond my more to comprehension. And yeah,
(10:11):
it's so there's not much to it. Again, it's only
three chords. I don't know why I wrote it in
the key of F for some reason. I never write
songs in the key of F, but I did. And
that was the first thing I thought. What I heard,
I know, I knew you'd picked up on that, John, Yeah,
but no, it's it's always been a bit of a
crowd favorite. It hasn't put my children through university or anything.
(10:33):
But there's some song are able to do. But yeah,
it served me.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Well, do you only write about Christian themes and your music?
Speaker 4 (10:41):
No?
Speaker 3 (10:42):
I just I just try and tell my story. I've
never I think when.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
So it's as much as it's part of you your faith. Yeah,
that everything comes out in your music, so it's part
of it. But do you write about other stuffy Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:55):
And I've always felt that way. I think that I
grew up in the church, in the church music scene,
and the temptation way back was to try and make
turn every song into a three minute tracked, a little sermon,
a little sermon, Yeah, this will win them over. That
(11:16):
I very quickly realized that that wasn't a direction I
should go in, and so I write about all sorts
of stuff, and hopefully my faith is embedded in what
I deliver. But I don't feel any moral obligation to
be a torch bearer for the faith.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
If only people realize that probably just preaching it people
doesn't really affect me as much as seeing a real
life lived out in front of them, unless you're living
out your life three a music.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Are you trying to John?
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
I remember playing at a university orientation somewhere in the country,
and all sorts of heenous things were going on all
around me, you know, with swilling beer and stuff like that.
And I sang my little songs around now and someone,
some well meaning person came up to me afterwards and said,
that was really good, Derek.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Do you preach as well? And I kind of I thought,
I sort of was. So you grew up in a
church family, and is that where you got your faith?
Is it was people influencing your family. Where did your
faith and your music come from with it?
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Well, I grew up in a church that had a
fairly strong evangelical preachy tradition, and there was a lot
of hell fire and brimstone sort of sermonizing that went on.
And as a kid, I think I became a Christian
every Sunday evening for a while there, you know what
I mean, because I was just terrified and.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Now that that style of Christianity doesn't come out in
your music.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
No.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
In fact, I would have thought that the type of
person I hear in your music would be almost a
little bit turned off and almost revolted by that approach. Well,
I think I.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Grew into being a you know, it wasn't a sudden
moment you know, it's just I got to a point
where I didn't feel I needed to pray for salvation
every Sunday night again. You know. It was, man, it
became much more than just fire insurance, you know. And
so it's it's sort of I grew into it as
(13:18):
opposed to going through some reckless divine experience.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I'm talking of Derek Linde, a very appropriate guest from
Easter Sunday, because his life is centered around the truth
of the resurrection and it bubbles out of his music
and his paintings. Derek, listen, listen to another song. Do
as You're told, Do as you're told.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
Me you love, stay warm and dry, do as you're told.
Speaker 6 (14:10):
School's out for summer, just like the Alice Cooper song,
a boy any lamb job Sure walks a.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Pretty girl along and we beyond the playground they carve
their names in a tree.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, it's just a love song, John Off my last album,
and it's it's just a generational love song. You know.
It talks about young love, and it talks about I
guess middle aged love, and it talks about old folks love.
And it sounds like a somewhat misogynistic title, but that's
(14:53):
that's kind of deliberate, because it's actually a fairly warm,
compassionate song.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Okay, I was preparing for this interview and I discovered
a whole lot of old videos on you. And what
are the ones I watched? Was you playing in a
bandstand and singinging alongside you? Was your beautiful wife Rah.
Then there was also Darlene, and both of those lovely
women have died.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah, don't be a backing singer for me.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
No, No, Well, because you know that was a love
song that you sang, and the love of your life
was taken for you, not she wasn't very old and
in a fairly traumatic way. And I'm just wondering, you
have pledged your life to a God who loves you,
and yet best time bad stuff happens, has it knocked
(15:43):
you fave rocked it, or at least evolved it? I
guess evolved. It might be true.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
Jong.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
You know, they talk about the six stages of grief
or whatever, and they talk about anger, But I never
got angry at God. I mean, you know, I was
grieving desperately for a long time. That well, I was just,
I don't know, completely incapable of doing much I'd get
(16:17):
in my car and drive and just get into a
get into a bit of a dreamy state. And i'd
started going to go to New markt and I ended
up in Otaho, you know, and I said, like a
danger on the road, you know. I just my head
wasn't straight. And so it took me quite a long
(16:38):
time to be sort of functional, really, But but I
never blamed a god for it, I reid, I think so.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
A few days after she died, I live out on
the Manico in the White Tacker, in the rainforest, and
I went for a walk down my local beach and
it was July and it was completely deserted, and I walked.
It was just a small bay and I walked from
one end to the other. I just need to get
out of house. And right through my walk down to
(17:12):
the end of the bay and back, a little fantail,
a little pea woker walker just followed me all the
way around, flitting around my head. And to me, that's
what they do. But to me at that time and
in that context and in that situation, I sort of
felt like this, this is sort of ra saying to me,
it's okay, I'm all right. I'm in a better place.
(17:34):
I'm good and that's that was the feeling I got
in that moment. And so and I've received, I received
at the time, so much support from you know, fellow Christians,
church members. They were they were just absolutely astonishing at
their level of support for me. So yeah, but you know,
(17:55):
I was never sort of pissed off of God, so
to speak.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Do you expect to see Rah again?
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Oh yeah, yeah, I've written songs about it.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah. Okay, so that's a central part of what you believe.
It was a life and a reunion. Yeah, absolutely, tell
us about ra because you met each other as teenagers.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
And yeah, she was sixteen, I was seventeen. It was
New Year's Eve nineteen seventy three. We went out for
six years. They got married and that will be forty
seven years ago.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Next month, when she was a Cook Island molding. Yea,
So it was that that would have been interesting meshing
in with her family and culture.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Yeah, h it was.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
And there was a little bit of kickback really yeah,
this is the early seventies, well, mid seventies, and a
little bit of kickback, which was interesting. But we hung
in there from both sides or yeah, but mainly props.
From my side, yeah, from my back out side, it's
the planets spun a few times since the land changed.
(18:59):
So when some of them came from the church, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
but you know, times have changed, and we hung in there,
and she was a much woman because she had this
extraordinary ability to meet complete strangers and within a few
minutes they were divulging their innermost feelings to her, you know.
(19:21):
And she had no regard for power, position, money, all
that sort of thing, and she was just bringing people
together in terms of hospitality. And right throughout our marriage
we had people living with us who were going through issues,
and we had strangers for well, not strangers, but non
family members for dinner pretty much every night.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Of the week.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, it sounds like she was a healer.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
She was, And so since she's gone, I've struggling.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
You know.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
I was sort of yearn to try and emulate that,
but I just don't have that capacity that she had
to just bring people together in a context of hospitality
and fellowship.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Maybe your music does. Maybe may I think that it.
In talking about your music with people, people get a
little bit emotional talking about your music and about you.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
That's nice.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
And because it is something that's there's a transcendent element
in it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Well, I mean if you just write songs out of
pure catharsis, it's that's kind of indulgent. You know, you
need to.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
It's also uncomfortable to listen to you.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yeah, I know, it's like primal screen therapy, or isn't
heah means good for the person screaming that was good
for the neighbors. Means make that record, but you know,
don't play it to us. But yeah, well that's it's
nice to hear. But you try and make a song
so that it has a universe personality, if you know
what I mean, so that there's some common ground, and yeah,
(20:53):
so that people can get something out of it for themselves.
It can't just be purely confessional.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah. I think your paintbrushes and your microphone and your guitar,
you've used them as a tool to help yourself and
also other people. I saw a series of paintings labeled
for Darling and a ah, yeah, another friend that passed away.
And so even in your painting, you can bring this across. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, well you know, again, it's just a series of
paintings based on my dear friend Darling who sank backing
for me for years.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And yeah, Okay, the faith that you talk about, it's
that you've described it in terms that are generous and
loving and it works for you in a comfortable New
Zealand setting. That you've taken it overseas as well. You've
done work with your fund in other countries. When you
(21:48):
when you're confronted with the poverty and need and the
pain in the world, is does your faith work there?
Does it says it's still ring? Is true when you're
seeing such need in the world.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's it is incredibly confronting to
see what poverty really looks like. You know, I'm a
musician and all my life I've kind of cried poor.
But in light of seeing that stuff, I don't have
(22:21):
a clue about what it means to be poor.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
You know what countries are you thinking of when you're.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
In Bangladesh, Pakistan? Yeah, you know all of those places
just extreme poverty and so and I've come to the
conclusion that poverty is it's not just about money. I mean,
I know, I don't know about being poor. I know
about being broke, but oh, you're an artist out of
(22:47):
the job description. But to be poor means to be
deprived of choice, to be deprived of options. And every
day you and I exercise a whole raft of options
that are the privy of the wealthiest people on the planet,
you know. And so you know, I'm loaded. Don't worry
about me.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, And but you have this God that loves you.
Does he love these people as well? And he loves
them as much? So why doesn't you know, do you ask?
You know, why why doesn't he intervene?
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Well, it's like the rainfalls on the just and the unjust,
you know. But I've seen extraordinary and experienced extraordinary hospitality
from these people.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
They will just give everything to feed you bountifully, you know.
And for me, it's very humbling. And I think some
of the most deeply faithful people I have met have
been living in those contexts.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Okay, so for them it's still.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Real, yeah yeah, yeah yeah, And for them it's incredible.
I mean, for some of them, it's it's dangerous to
be a believer, because they will be threatening the social
structures of the community that they live in that have
been run perhaps by people who are akin to gangsters,
you know, and these people threaten their domination of that
(24:16):
little society, that little community, because they say, you know,
this isn't right, this is not just we need to
do something about this. We need you know, we need schooling,
we need medicines. And they act upon their faith, you know,
but on the prompting of their faith, and so these
people are often under threat, you know, physical threat. So
(24:38):
it's very humbly for me.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Your last album is more than ten years ago now,
and it was written coming up to ten years yeah. Well, yeah,
and it was largely a response to your loss of Rah. Yeah.
Have you got another album in you? It's been a
long time between drinks.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Oh no, it doesn't seem that long though, John. A
lot's happened, But yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
I do.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
I'm currently not accepting any musical invitations or gigs because
my left hand is a bit unwell and it needs
operating on so I'm not really playing much guitar. So
when that hand is fixed up, I think I'll be
back into the studio. I've got I've got enough songs.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, oh well, something to look forward to. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
And we'll go out on another song that you picked
for us called cast the first shadow? Yeap, what's this about?
Speaker 3 (25:28):
It's kind of a song about Christ coming again. I
guess it was prompted by a little road trip extended
family did down the East Cape many years ago, and
I stumbled upon on a little crop, a little out well,
I can't what it's word, an out crop on the
coastline that had a little graveyard in it, and it
(25:52):
was predominantly a mouldi graveyard, and there were two crosses
in there that were made out of the old wooden
reflective roadside markers. And I thought, oh, I wonder how
those kiddies died, you know. And that's that's how I
sort of move into it. And I just casting the
first shadow is just when we see Jesus in his glory.
(26:14):
I want to be the one that casts the first shadows.
It's a wee bit sort of.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
In timey in time, in time right. Well, Derek, it's
been wonderful talking to you. Thank thank you for sharing
some of your Easter thoughts and with us, and thank
you for a lifetime of sharing your music and art.
My pleasure, John, this is real life. I'm John Cown.
I've been talking with artists and musician Derek Lynd, I
wish you are very happy Easter holiday and look forward
(26:39):
to being back with you again next Sunday night.
Speaker 5 (26:44):
It's just another day to me. M winga Ae majestic
from the heaven on the first day forever, all illusions
(27:06):
will be shadowed, all crosses vacated.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Oh, mystery is unrever.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
When I see his glory, I want to cast the
first shadow cast, the first shadow cast, the first shadow.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
H For more from News Talk st B, listen live
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