October 4, 2025 • 16 mins
Kiwi pop icon Suzanne Lynch's had a long-running music career, and she's looking back on her legacy in a new memoir.
Lynch got her start at 14 after a chance encounter with guitarist Peter Posa, which led to the creation of The Chicks, often considered New Zealand’s first successful girl group.
Since then, she's worked with many well-known artists - and even toured the world with Cat Stevens twice.
"I was just doing something I loved, and I'm still doing something I loved. Until I started writing that book, I didn't realise just how much I'd done and I kept thinking - oh, I must mention this and I must mention that."
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Now, you were likely completely unaware of this.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
For the backing vocals of this song most Fabulous and
has a sang by a member of Kiwi Pop Royalty,
our very own Suvann Lynch famously noan as one Heart
of the Checks and longtime member of the Lady Killers.
She has had quite the career both here and overseas.
She sung with many well known artists and even toured
(00:36):
the world twice with Kat Stevens. Suzanne has revealed all
about her sixty year career in a memoir. It's called
Yesterday When I was young and Susanna is with me. Now, welcome, good.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Morning, good morning. Let's just talk about the who's and has?
Oh huh. Really was not expecting that. I mean, I
know that you've sung for a lot of people, but
I did not. How did that come about?
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Well, I was in the vocal group that I worked
with in London in a studio next door to Carl Douglas.
He was recording and his producer Biddoo just popped his
head and said, do you girls mind coming? And ha
After your session and we went no, sure, And so
there was Mac and Catie's coscern and macas a male
(01:20):
and three women, and I was one of the women,
and we all just went, oh ah, we had to
sound as low as we could go.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
And then you disappear and the next thing, you know,
the songs all over the place, and this is just
a nice limit you did for free.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Yeah, we just did it for free.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Let's go back to the beginning of your career. You
and your sister Judy were discovered at just fourteen years old.
Who became the checks What was it like getting discovered,
you know at such a young age.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Well, I was just doing what I was told to
be honest. Judy was she was sixteen. Actually she's older
than me.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I like the way you got that nearly people in
the interview.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Yes, I have to have to point it out. Six
and a half years older. And we just asked Peter
Poser for his autograph one day and he said, not
unless you sing a song. And we used to sing
around the piano when we were children with our mum
and Kevin Borich from the Larded Dars who lived next door,
and so we sang a song and they presto. Next thing,
(02:23):
we were in a recording studio recording a song, and
I was standing in Shortland Street Studios with my knees knocking,
ready to do the first television show I've ever done
when I was fourteen.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
So what's show business like for a teenager in the sixties? Oh?
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Well, for me, it was just a lot of fun, actually,
because I made the best friends of all the people
in our circle. But I did find I had really
difficult teenage years, only because no one ever asked me
out for a chart for a start, and I was
always busy working. But by the time I was sixteen,
(03:02):
I had fallen so in love with music and with
singing and entertaining. It didn't matter. I was having a
great time, because.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
You're right, it's not your typical teenager year.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Not your typical years. And I was busy, you know.
We always had to get our clothes made, we were
learning songs, we were sending off charts to people and
even doing Come On and Happen in. It was a
lot of work every day you worked to do the show.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
How does your parents feel about sending, you know, their
two young daughters out on the road touring and things
like that.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
When I look back, I'm amazed they even let us
do it. I can't believe they let us do it.
But my mother used to come as our chaperone, and
I think her eyes were well and truly opened on
the PJ Proby tour, for example.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
But you were very well behaved. I mean, reading this book.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
It wasn't all I was boring, thanks Drags and Rocket,
I was boring. I was definitely the girl next door.
I was always treated like the little kid's sister because
I was always four or five years younger than everybody else.
And when you're fourteen or fifteen and the other twenty,
that's a big, big difference, especially in those days.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So what impact did it have on you? You mentioned
how you discovered this, you know this, this true love
for singing and performing. But what other impact did it
have on you those early years? Early years?
Speaker 4 (04:22):
I think I was just doing something I loved, and
I'm still doing something I loved. I didn't until I
started writing that book. I didn't realize just how much
I'd done, and I kept thinking, Oh, I must mention this,
and oh I must mention that. So how did it
affect me back then? I think I was so young.
I was just having a jolly good time with all
(04:44):
my friends like Larry Morris, Shane, Ray Columbus, Ray Wolfe,
you know all those people, and we're still all great
friends after all these years. We've made a really solid
There was a lot of camaraderie in those days with
the groups like the Clefton Airs and the Rebels, you know,
just camaraderie.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
You went solo after five years or so, eventually ended
up in London, and I think that this is a
part of your career I'm not sure that people are
quite so familiar with. First of all, tell me how'd
you end up in London?
Speaker 4 (05:15):
I did a tour here with what's his name, Valdunican?
Do you remember Valdunican? He used to sit in the
rocking chair with him, know who you mean in those days.
And I did a tour with him, and at the
end of the tour he said to me would I
go to London and perform on his television show? And
of course, me, being a yes person, said yes, of
(05:36):
course I will, and then thought, oh dear, but I
took it, arrived in the mail and my husband, my
new husband, we'd only have been married about six months off,
we went to London to do his television show, and
just before I walked on, he told me that not
to worry, there's only nineteen million people probably watching. So
(05:57):
that was once again my knees were knocking.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Did your niece? Did your niece? Have they stopped knocking?
Did they stop?
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Not? Really not. When I sing on my own fine
with the Lady Killers, I mean I've got company. And
when I was with Judy doing the Chicks songs, I
was fine, But on my own I always found it
a bit difficult. That's why I liked being in a
vocal group. I think in London because the artist had
all the pressure out the front. I was just singing
(06:25):
and having a great time.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
It was a six month return ticket, but you ended
up staying. What was London like at that time? Fantastic?
Speaker 4 (06:33):
I mean the first thing it was walked down Carnaby
Street and Penny Lane. I wanted to go there. We
went and looked at the Palace. So we had a
little bit of a break before we suddenly got really
really busy and just decided we had to stay. Really
because we both started getting a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Tell me how that's sort of all unfolded because you
worked with some incredible people over there. You did backing
vocals for Olivia and Newton, John, Meatloaf, Lulu, and you
worked alongside Luther Vandross. How did that all kick off
and how does that progress become? You just get a reputation,
do you get a reputation?
Speaker 4 (07:10):
I think yes. I mean Tony Vasconto, who was married
to Mary Hopkin, who remains a very close friend of mine.
He was on a tour here in New Zealand with
my husband Bruce and Borrow at his double bass, and
this is how simple things in those days could happen.
He just said, oh, I hear you coming. You know,
he knew I was going to London, and he said,
(07:31):
I'll get in touch when you get there. I might
be able to get you on a session Bruce, because
he knew Bruce was a really good player, and he did.
He got him straight into session work and Bruce is
a very very good bass player, so he started getting
a lot of work. And I met up with Dave
and Joey McCrae, who are Kiwi's, and Joey said, what
(07:51):
about you know, Resurrecting Bones our vocal group with We
formed it with an American girl, Jackie Sullivan, who used
to work with Tom Jones in the States. So and
I had a history of working on television, you know,
different live shows and all that. So every kind of
music we were presented with we understood. And the English people
(08:14):
we found were quite sort of. There was a group
there called the Ladybirds who were great and they were
the first cool vocal group, but they only sang in
one style. And we came along us crazy Kiwi's and
an American and we sang any style they wanted. Because
I'd had all that training from Kevin Moore and ra
columphus on, come on and happen. In of one week,
(08:36):
you were this person, the next week you were someone
you know, had to sing a Lulu song. Then you
had to sing someone else's Petulia Clark or somebody. So
I sort of knew every genre.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
That's interesting. You also went to a party at David
Bowie's house. What what's it David Bowie party?
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Like it was just like anybody's party really here, it
was just a party. Were at his house and he said, oh,
you know to Mary and I he said, oh, come on,
have you look at my new kimono I'm just gonna
wear on my next tour, and Lutha Vandross was there,
you know, I mean, it was just you know.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
So, what's it like rubbing shoulders with these people? Is
it a big deal or actually is it just you know,
is it a job you do and people that you
hang out with it's not really.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Well, I discovered that they're just people like us. I mean,
it's you know, I've never been overly impressed. I don't know.
I hope to say it, but you know, I'm so
and say, okay, hi, you know, I don't know. I'm
just I'm just me.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
You. The thought of this book is written by Yusuf
Islam aka Kat Stevens, and you became close friends. How
did you two meet?
Speaker 4 (09:41):
I cried when I read what he wrote because I
didn't realize he felt that way. To be honest, how
do we meet? It was in the recording studio. Bruce,
my husband, was already playing bass for him in his
core band, rhythm section and bones. My vocal group got
called to go in and do a session at the
same studio, and we didn't even think about it. We
(10:04):
just walked in and Bruce said to me what are
you doing here? And I said, I'm here to do
a session. What are you doing here? And Paul Samuel Smith,
who was the producer, said, do you two know each other?
You both speak the same funny language, and we said, yeah,
we're married. And so that's when I did the over
(10:24):
a Young session recording session for Cat Stevens. And of
course he was about to go off on tour, and
both Bruce and I ended up going on two world
tours with him.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Does a world tour in the seventies look quite different
to how they would look today or still quite similar?
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Quite similar? I think, Oh, they've got a lot more
fancy lights and dancers, and I mean it's a bit
these days, it's a huge production. I mean, our guys
were like having to get there and bolt the stage together,
and as we're doing the encore, they were unbolting, starting
to unbolt the bolts so that, you know, we could
(11:04):
fly to the next town and they could get it
all in the trucks and drive to the next town.
When we were in the States and we had a
tiger and we had doves and we had you know,
I mean, it was it was wonderful fun. But we
were away for thirteen months on the second tour and
show every other day, and everybody survived well because we
were all. I mean, you can't help but become really
(11:25):
good friends when you're away. We became like a big family. Really.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
It was quite a perfectionist, wasn't he total?
Speaker 4 (11:32):
And I love that about him because I'm afraid to
say I'm a bit of a perfectionist myself, but yeah,
he was. He was fantastic to work for. And if
we did a we always do a sound check, which
would last quite a while, and if we got through
it quickly because the sound all happened magically, he'd start
(11:54):
working on a news you know, show us a new
song and we'd start learning that. So it was amazing time.
And as I say, at the time, I was just
there doing yeah, okay, you know, everything's fine. Now I
sort of realized what it was. It was pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Your return to New Zealand. Was that hard to come
back to New Zealand after you know, world tours and
you know, being in London and things.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Yes, yeah, I wasn't that keen to come home at all.
In fact, or Old Bruce had to take me back
to London and we stayed for six months, which was
very clever of him, because then I realized, no, no,
it's actually time. You know, punk rock was in there
was all that going on. I had a small child,
my son was born in Wimbledon, and trying to drag
(12:40):
a little eight month old or a year old child
to recording sessions was not particularly helpful. So no, we
came back and he brought him to Mandrel Recording Studios
here and produced some great records.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Actually, and I've interviewed your son many times over the
year as well, and another very talented musician in the
family and things. What I love about this memoirs is
that I'm reading it and there is so much in here.
I mean, you never stop, you always, and this is
something that I really love. You are still singing to
(13:15):
this day. This is something you love. It doesn't matter
how big how small we you are, you just continue
to keep performing.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
I think you know, you always do the same performance,
whether there's five people or five thousand in the audience.
You give your all. And I just adore entertaining people
and I love singing still. So for me, I'm so
happy about the fate. I've actually made a living out
of something that's been completely joyous for me.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
When you were sitting just waiting in our studio to
come and chat to me, somebody came in and said, Hi,
I just want to introduce myself. You talk my sister,
and I'm sure that happens a lot, because that's something
else that you're really passionate about and you love, is
your vocal coaching and mentoring of.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Your I'm very keen to pass on what I've learned
over the years to all the up and coming pupils
and things. And I've got a young man at the moment,
Nathan Fry, who's Oh, he's just doing amazing things. As
kids I've taught since they were eight or ten, and
now they're fifteen and they're all getting careers, which is fantastic.
I just want to encourage them, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
So you when you came back to New Zealand, I
didn't realize this, but that you ended up as the
voice of some of our most well known jingles seem
to do. I think you did every jingle possible for
a day, embarrassing you and any crummer.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Yes, it got embarrassing, honestly.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yes, How did that feel to go from traveling the
world to coming back and singing jingles.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
I was quite happy about that actually, because it meant
I had just had my daughter at that point, and
Murray Grindley is a perfectionist. So I was in familiar
territory and I recorded Stebbings and Margaret Stebbing, would you know,
take Amy and my daughter in a little carrycott thing,
and she just put her under the desk. And she
(15:03):
got quite cross because she as soon as she heard
the music, she goes to sleep. She got quite cross
because she said, I never get a cuddle, she never
wakes up. So I'd do a session that is the
session pickam me up, go and pick Andrew up from
come to Garden.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
But it's just another example of how you took whatever
opportunities were there and a front of you, yeah keeps. Oh, look,
it's been such a delight to talk to you. The
book is fantastic. I must make a quick note of
the wedding dress photo, which I know you weren't sure
whether to put it or not, but just the outfits
in the sixties and through the seventies and things. It
really is just I'm sure a lot of people are
(15:39):
going to have a way another short you look. I yes,
that is way to but they're fabulous, are absolutely fabulous.
Thank you so much for coming and thanks Susan Lynch.
The book is called Yesterday When I Was Young. It
is in stores now.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news Talks. It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeart rate yo
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Now, you were likely completely unaware of this.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
For the backing vocals of this song most Fabulous and
has a sang by a member of Kiwi Pop Royalty,
our very own Suvann Lynch famously noan as one Heart
of the Checks and longtime member of the Lady Killers.
She has had quite the career both here and overseas.
She sung with many well known artists and even toured
(00:36):
the world twice with Kat Stevens. Suzanne has revealed all
about her sixty year career in a memoir. It's called
Yesterday When I was young and Susanna is with me. Now, welcome, good.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Morning, good morning. Let's just talk about the who's and has?
Oh huh. Really was not expecting that. I mean, I
know that you've sung for a lot of people, but
I did not. How did that come about?
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Well, I was in the vocal group that I worked
with in London in a studio next door to Carl Douglas.
He was recording and his producer Biddoo just popped his
head and said, do you girls mind coming? And ha
After your session and we went no, sure, And so
there was Mac and Catie's coscern and macas a male
(01:20):
and three women, and I was one of the women,
and we all just went, oh ah, we had to
sound as low as we could go.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
And then you disappear and the next thing, you know,
the songs all over the place, and this is just
a nice limit you did for free.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Yeah, we just did it for free.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Let's go back to the beginning of your career. You
and your sister Judy were discovered at just fourteen years old.
Who became the checks What was it like getting discovered,
you know at such a young age.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Well, I was just doing what I was told to
be honest. Judy was she was sixteen. Actually she's older
than me.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I like the way you got that nearly people in
the interview.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Yes, I have to have to point it out. Six
and a half years older. And we just asked Peter
Poser for his autograph one day and he said, not
unless you sing a song. And we used to sing
around the piano when we were children with our mum
and Kevin Borich from the Larded Dars who lived next door,
and so we sang a song and they presto. Next thing,
(02:23):
we were in a recording studio recording a song, and
I was standing in Shortland Street Studios with my knees knocking,
ready to do the first television show I've ever done
when I was fourteen.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
So what's show business like for a teenager in the sixties? Oh?
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Well, for me, it was just a lot of fun, actually,
because I made the best friends of all the people
in our circle. But I did find I had really
difficult teenage years, only because no one ever asked me
out for a chart for a start, and I was
always busy working. But by the time I was sixteen,
(03:02):
I had fallen so in love with music and with
singing and entertaining. It didn't matter. I was having a
great time, because.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
You're right, it's not your typical teenager year.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Not your typical years. And I was busy, you know.
We always had to get our clothes made, we were
learning songs, we were sending off charts to people and
even doing Come On and Happen in. It was a
lot of work every day you worked to do the show.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
How does your parents feel about sending, you know, their
two young daughters out on the road touring and things
like that.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
When I look back, I'm amazed they even let us
do it. I can't believe they let us do it.
But my mother used to come as our chaperone, and
I think her eyes were well and truly opened on
the PJ Proby tour, for example.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
But you were very well behaved. I mean, reading this book.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
It wasn't all I was boring, thanks Drags and Rocket,
I was boring. I was definitely the girl next door.
I was always treated like the little kid's sister because
I was always four or five years younger than everybody else.
And when you're fourteen or fifteen and the other twenty,
that's a big, big difference, especially in those days.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So what impact did it have on you? You mentioned
how you discovered this, you know this, this true love
for singing and performing. But what other impact did it
have on you those early years? Early years?
Speaker 4 (04:22):
I think I was just doing something I loved, and
I'm still doing something I loved. I didn't until I
started writing that book. I didn't realize just how much
I'd done, and I kept thinking, Oh, I must mention this,
and oh I must mention that. So how did it
affect me back then? I think I was so young.
I was just having a jolly good time with all
(04:44):
my friends like Larry Morris, Shane, Ray Columbus, Ray Wolfe,
you know all those people, and we're still all great
friends after all these years. We've made a really solid
There was a lot of camaraderie in those days with
the groups like the Clefton Airs and the Rebels, you know,
just camaraderie.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
You went solo after five years or so, eventually ended
up in London, and I think that this is a
part of your career I'm not sure that people are
quite so familiar with. First of all, tell me how'd
you end up in London?
Speaker 4 (05:15):
I did a tour here with what's his name, Valdunican?
Do you remember Valdunican? He used to sit in the
rocking chair with him, know who you mean in those days.
And I did a tour with him, and at the
end of the tour he said to me would I
go to London and perform on his television show? And
of course, me, being a yes person, said yes, of
(05:36):
course I will, and then thought, oh dear, but I
took it, arrived in the mail and my husband, my
new husband, we'd only have been married about six months off,
we went to London to do his television show, and
just before I walked on, he told me that not
to worry, there's only nineteen million people probably watching. So
(05:57):
that was once again my knees were knocking.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Did your niece? Did your niece? Have they stopped knocking?
Did they stop?
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Not? Really not. When I sing on my own fine
with the Lady Killers, I mean I've got company. And
when I was with Judy doing the Chicks songs, I
was fine, But on my own I always found it
a bit difficult. That's why I liked being in a
vocal group. I think in London because the artist had
all the pressure out the front. I was just singing
(06:25):
and having a great time.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
It was a six month return ticket, but you ended
up staying. What was London like at that time? Fantastic?
Speaker 4 (06:33):
I mean the first thing it was walked down Carnaby
Street and Penny Lane. I wanted to go there. We
went and looked at the Palace. So we had a
little bit of a break before we suddenly got really
really busy and just decided we had to stay. Really
because we both started getting a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Tell me how that's sort of all unfolded because you
worked with some incredible people over there. You did backing
vocals for Olivia and Newton, John, Meatloaf, Lulu, and you
worked alongside Luther Vandross. How did that all kick off
and how does that progress become? You just get a reputation,
do you get a reputation?
Speaker 4 (07:10):
I think yes. I mean Tony Vasconto, who was married
to Mary Hopkin, who remains a very close friend of mine.
He was on a tour here in New Zealand with
my husband Bruce and Borrow at his double bass, and
this is how simple things in those days could happen.
He just said, oh, I hear you coming. You know,
he knew I was going to London, and he said,
(07:31):
I'll get in touch when you get there. I might
be able to get you on a session Bruce, because
he knew Bruce was a really good player, and he did.
He got him straight into session work and Bruce is
a very very good bass player, so he started getting
a lot of work. And I met up with Dave
and Joey McCrae, who are Kiwi's, and Joey said, what
(07:51):
about you know, Resurrecting Bones our vocal group with We
formed it with an American girl, Jackie Sullivan, who used
to work with Tom Jones in the States. So and
I had a history of working on television, you know,
different live shows and all that. So every kind of
music we were presented with we understood. And the English people
(08:14):
we found were quite sort of. There was a group
there called the Ladybirds who were great and they were
the first cool vocal group, but they only sang in
one style. And we came along us crazy Kiwi's and
an American and we sang any style they wanted. Because
I'd had all that training from Kevin Moore and ra
columphus on, come on and happen. In of one week,
(08:36):
you were this person, the next week you were someone
you know, had to sing a Lulu song. Then you
had to sing someone else's Petulia Clark or somebody. So
I sort of knew every genre.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
That's interesting. You also went to a party at David
Bowie's house. What what's it David Bowie party?
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Like it was just like anybody's party really here, it
was just a party. Were at his house and he said, oh,
you know to Mary and I he said, oh, come on,
have you look at my new kimono I'm just gonna
wear on my next tour, and Lutha Vandross was there,
you know, I mean, it was just you know.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
So, what's it like rubbing shoulders with these people? Is
it a big deal or actually is it just you know,
is it a job you do and people that you
hang out with it's not really.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Well, I discovered that they're just people like us. I mean,
it's you know, I've never been overly impressed. I don't know.
I hope to say it, but you know, I'm so
and say, okay, hi, you know, I don't know. I'm
just I'm just me.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
You. The thought of this book is written by Yusuf
Islam aka Kat Stevens, and you became close friends. How
did you two meet?
Speaker 4 (09:41):
I cried when I read what he wrote because I
didn't realize he felt that way. To be honest, how
do we meet? It was in the recording studio. Bruce,
my husband, was already playing bass for him in his
core band, rhythm section and bones. My vocal group got
called to go in and do a session at the
same studio, and we didn't even think about it. We
(10:04):
just walked in and Bruce said to me what are
you doing here? And I said, I'm here to do
a session. What are you doing here? And Paul Samuel Smith,
who was the producer, said, do you two know each other?
You both speak the same funny language, and we said, yeah,
we're married. And so that's when I did the over
(10:24):
a Young session recording session for Cat Stevens. And of
course he was about to go off on tour, and
both Bruce and I ended up going on two world
tours with him.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Does a world tour in the seventies look quite different
to how they would look today or still quite similar?
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Quite similar? I think, Oh, they've got a lot more
fancy lights and dancers, and I mean it's a bit
these days, it's a huge production. I mean, our guys
were like having to get there and bolt the stage together,
and as we're doing the encore, they were unbolting, starting
to unbolt the bolts so that, you know, we could
(11:04):
fly to the next town and they could get it
all in the trucks and drive to the next town.
When we were in the States and we had a
tiger and we had doves and we had you know,
I mean, it was it was wonderful fun. But we
were away for thirteen months on the second tour and
show every other day, and everybody survived well because we
were all. I mean, you can't help but become really
(11:25):
good friends when you're away. We became like a big family. Really.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
It was quite a perfectionist, wasn't he total?
Speaker 4 (11:32):
And I love that about him because I'm afraid to
say I'm a bit of a perfectionist myself, but yeah,
he was. He was fantastic to work for. And if
we did a we always do a sound check, which
would last quite a while, and if we got through
it quickly because the sound all happened magically, he'd start
(11:54):
working on a news you know, show us a new
song and we'd start learning that. So it was amazing time.
And as I say, at the time, I was just
there doing yeah, okay, you know, everything's fine. Now I
sort of realized what it was. It was pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Your return to New Zealand. Was that hard to come
back to New Zealand after you know, world tours and
you know, being in London and things.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Yes, yeah, I wasn't that keen to come home at all.
In fact, or Old Bruce had to take me back
to London and we stayed for six months, which was
very clever of him, because then I realized, no, no,
it's actually time. You know, punk rock was in there
was all that going on. I had a small child,
my son was born in Wimbledon, and trying to drag
(12:40):
a little eight month old or a year old child
to recording sessions was not particularly helpful. So no, we
came back and he brought him to Mandrel Recording Studios
here and produced some great records.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Actually, and I've interviewed your son many times over the
year as well, and another very talented musician in the
family and things. What I love about this memoirs is
that I'm reading it and there is so much in here.
I mean, you never stop, you always, and this is
something that I really love. You are still singing to
(13:15):
this day. This is something you love. It doesn't matter
how big how small we you are, you just continue
to keep performing.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
I think you know, you always do the same performance,
whether there's five people or five thousand in the audience.
You give your all. And I just adore entertaining people
and I love singing still. So for me, I'm so
happy about the fate. I've actually made a living out
of something that's been completely joyous for me.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
When you were sitting just waiting in our studio to
come and chat to me, somebody came in and said, Hi,
I just want to introduce myself. You talk my sister,
and I'm sure that happens a lot, because that's something
else that you're really passionate about and you love, is
your vocal coaching and mentoring of.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Your I'm very keen to pass on what I've learned
over the years to all the up and coming pupils
and things. And I've got a young man at the moment,
Nathan Fry, who's Oh, he's just doing amazing things. As
kids I've taught since they were eight or ten, and
now they're fifteen and they're all getting careers, which is fantastic.
I just want to encourage them, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
So you when you came back to New Zealand, I
didn't realize this, but that you ended up as the
voice of some of our most well known jingles seem
to do. I think you did every jingle possible for
a day, embarrassing you and any crummer.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Yes, it got embarrassing, honestly.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yes, How did that feel to go from traveling the
world to coming back and singing jingles.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
I was quite happy about that actually, because it meant
I had just had my daughter at that point, and
Murray Grindley is a perfectionist. So I was in familiar
territory and I recorded Stebbings and Margaret Stebbing, would you know,
take Amy and my daughter in a little carrycott thing,
and she just put her under the desk. And she
(15:03):
got quite cross because she as soon as she heard
the music, she goes to sleep. She got quite cross
because she said, I never get a cuddle, she never
wakes up. So I'd do a session that is the
session pickam me up, go and pick Andrew up from
come to Garden.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
But it's just another example of how you took whatever
opportunities were there and a front of you, yeah keeps. Oh, look,
it's been such a delight to talk to you. The
book is fantastic. I must make a quick note of
the wedding dress photo, which I know you weren't sure
whether to put it or not, but just the outfits
in the sixties and through the seventies and things. It
really is just I'm sure a lot of people are
(15:39):
going to have a way another short you look. I yes,
that is way to but they're fabulous, are absolutely fabulous.
Thank you so much for coming and thanks Susan Lynch.
The book is called Yesterday When I Was Young. It
is in stores now.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news Talks. It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeart rate yo
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