October 20, 2025 • 36 mins
Today on the pod you'll hear a heck of a chat from Milan Borich - his band Pluto are celebrating 20 years of their album Pipeline Under The Ocean, and he joins us for a really honest chat about the album and his battles with addiction.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Get a. It's Jerry here from the Heidechy Breakfast, just
letting you know that if you're listening to the podcast
but didn't know that we also do a live radio show,
we do. And if you're wondering how to find out
what frequency to listen to us in your area, just
text north or south as An Island to three four
eight three so you take you know. Now, stop talking. Sorry,
(00:21):
you're not meant to talk over to. Sorry, that is
a public service announcement. Sorry for people who are listening
to the podcast who don't know that we do a
radio show, well.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
If it's a public announcement, give them to send that
text alert out.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Just get there.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Who was in charge of that, he's on the hot
button on that. He sends him out at three in
the morning.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Just get them to do that.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Oh man. Milan Boris joins us on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Good a, Milan, welcome along, Welcome, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Oh it's nice to have you. We were in Texas
last week. Have you spent much time in Austin, Texas before?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I've been to Austin twice actually for the south by Southwest. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Oh, how good?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
How good?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
It is?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
So good?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, great city. Yeah, great here, great Folk Lane had
been before. I hadn't been before, but it's a 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 lostin too. Weirdly enough,
(01:20):
the live music scene there is a live and well
two hundred and fifty live music venues in the city alone.
Its nuts.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
It's very electric there, you know, and it's a very deep,
deep kind of like scene I reckon, like very Americana
and also like alternative.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah yeah, and hepsterish and yeah. Just every bar has
a stage, you know what I mean, like like dive
bars everywhere that they're all set up just to have
a band come in and just plug in and away
you go.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
It was a great time. But while we're there, we
got an emergency notice text message.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
That's right, we did where you go 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. But we got one for a missing child. Yeah,
at like nine in the morning. It's like and I
was like looking and it's like a child has been
thought that they've been abducted from some time, Like, whoa.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
That's frightening. That's awful.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I know it was awful, but then also we're in
Texas and 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 it
just us. Are we are we being profiled?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Well? The weird thing was that same day in Texas
someone was put to death via lethal injection for some
you knows 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,
(02:48):
thanks for coming in in front of you. You might
see there's some strips of wax.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
That's your back here, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, it's my back bush.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Yeah, And it was like shaped as a train.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Look yeah, I mean it was a map of Tasmania.
I haven't got any photos on my phone, so I
have deleted them all, but I'll show you before and
after that.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I mean, it's a crime that you were running that
thing in the first place.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
To and like and Milan, I'm going to look. 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 3 (03:28):
That's a classic.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
It's a proper I mean it's an old school bush. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It's also got a bit of a heart shape to it.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Well, well that was because my partner, Tolsi, actually shaved
that into his back while we were in Texas. A
lot went on in Austin. It was a terrifying moment.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
A lot went on in Austin.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, but I mean growing up and Papa Cuta in
the nineteen eighties, you would have seen plenty of bush.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
A lot of bush. Yeah, yep, yep.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, what yeah paints a picture of Papacuda growing up
in the eighties, in the eighties or the seventies, eighties.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Seventies and eighties, it was you know, it was very eclectic,
you know, like full of full of spunk and virility.
You know, 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
that was pretty cool. So, but I had to walk
(04:25):
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 and yeah, these guys were
mufty and you know, clashed.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
It's there to target on your back as it was. Yeah,
what music was playing in the in the Borisch household?
Speaker 3 (04:40):
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 1 (04:49):
It was a musical household that you grew up on, though,
wasn't it?
Speaker 3 (04:52):
It was?
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, because your family were very musical.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
My mother was music. My mother was exceptionally musical.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
What was what was what were her musical talents?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Singing?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Right?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah, so she was a singer and her sister and
then their father was also a singer.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Wow. 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 3 (05:27):
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 Buppacuta. So I really wanted to get
myself out of Pablakuda. So I thought one of the
avenues would be music pulsively.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Right, But it was also for you. I know, you're
a child star. You're originally attracted perhaps to the to
the well.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
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 in
(06:21):
my lap.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Okay, So you wouldn't describe yourself as an attention seeker
as a child.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Oh absolutely, I was, yeah, yeah, constantly doing things to
attract 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
(06:47):
extremely accident.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Prone, right, okay, yeah, And so when did you decide
then that you were going to be a proper musician?
Was what? Was there? A moment?
Speaker 3 (06:58):
There was a moment, and the moment it 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, yeah, someone was
(07:21):
playing the guitar. We're all singing it, and I thought
to myself, ship man, we got this. We can do
it a hundred buffs.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, sounds very Jack Johnson sitting around a fire a
bunch of distance here.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
So that was the moment.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
So did you ever play that? Did Pluto ever play
that song? No?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
But I wish we did. We might play for the
show coming up. We'll see, We'll see how we'll go.
So tell us about Pluto.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
You've read you guys have released some amazing songs, legacy
that still carries on.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
How did it all start. How did Pluto will start? 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 he went
(08:15):
to SAEH and so I decided to leave school and
join them. So that's when it kind of that's when
it all happened.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
So becoming like an engineer was just a vehicle for
you to be able to use the studio.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah, but you kind of that was
the way it was though in those days, because you
weren't I mean, you might have an eight track or
a four track. You could possibly record at home somehow,
but it was hard.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
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, 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, and
(09:00):
things happened. I kind of got banned from using the
studio in the end.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
So they got none of the fact that you know,
three hours hours was used for I think.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
He didn't like me much to the guy at the
head of it. But that's okay. 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 1 (09:31):
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.
I know that was a case of what I was
doing when we were making TV. It was we thought
(09:53):
that this type of TV was ship and so it
was sort of making it a response 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. How did how did you
feel about the New Zealand music scene when when Pluto
(10:14):
were just starting to crank up.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Well, and be honest, okay, I thought it lacked a
little bit of grit and and a little bit of
like kind of depth, but not not in the sense
of the musicality or the song writing. I think more
of the production side that I thought that it was lacking.
But that's just from a personal perspective. But I was
(10:38):
listening to when when I was in London, our drama
brought over a 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.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
More in the in the way that I mean. It
was a unique sound that does it closed out? But
what and it's rawn us and what was.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
It and it's honesty and 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 1 (11:16):
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 nineties
may have been, isn't what that drum was?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Just it's the live room. They want that big, huge,
live kind of room sound. And I wasn't into it.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
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 3 (11:49):
And especially with drums and bass, if they don't lock
in the way you want to, it's gonna sound terrible.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
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, we're
talking to Milan Borich from Pluto. They are reuniting for
(12:20):
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,
(12:45):
I'm thinking early two thousands.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Yes, we.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
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 I saw a.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Slow creep 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,
(13:26):
and then I think about two or three years into
it just started to get a bit dirty again.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Right. A lot of people, I'm sure 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 know exactly what was
(13:53):
going on, But tell us about the beginnings, the beginnings
of all of that, the beginnings of the debauchery.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
So do you want them in the beginning all the.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Well on the first half of the second half, I
mean the beginnings of it, because there must have been
some fun. It always starts worth fun and exploration, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
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 to tell me to put my head in.
(14:38):
So I went there and I went there hard, 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
(15:00):
Tim was also back here and we started kind 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
(15:21):
we went into Helen Young with Nick Cabot and then
met Matthias. Matthias played piano for us on that record,
and that was that, and we recorded the first kind
of the first like kind of group of recordings for
that record, and 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 1 (15:43):
So all of that stuff was, all of that addiction
stuff was happening as early as the nineties.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeap, nineteen ninety five, I think it was reality. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
For me, you went out to the UK and you thought,
you know what I'm going to get on the.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Smack pretty much pretty much. I was searching for it
for a very long time. So and if you.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Can't find it in New Zealand, no you can't.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
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 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 2 (16:25):
Yeah, in London's like that. Yeah, it's a yeah, it's
there's a lot of opportunities.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Although it was hard to find find the heroine. So
the first place I found that was in 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.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I mean, did you did you ask you spotted some
kids and you thought you saw yourself? Well those guys.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yeah, And I was very good at spotting that yeah, yeah,
very good at spotting.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
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 hula below going on. You've got to
you've got to have you know, syringers and all sorts
(17:27):
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 3 (17:37):
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, right, and then I located
it at the Purple I think it was the Purple
Turtle in Camden, so no, so yeah, in Camden, I
(17:57):
think 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 journey.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
And a smack university. He was running pretty much.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah wow, because because did you even with with snorting heroine,
do you get addicted to heroin? Even by snorting it?
Speaker 3 (18:24):
You're really smoking a snorting it and.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
You felt you felt that initiate it was. It was
that fast, the addiction.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
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 1 (18:46):
Right, and you and you didn't know the tales of
what had happened before, people who thought themselves, you know
what this is me?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
I thought I was. I thought I was immune to that.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
You were going to be the one. Yeah, you're going
to be the one, the special one, and so did
how and so musically through that period, you're still writing songs,
You're still playing yeah, yeah, prolifically.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah. This is the problem. Yeh Yeah, this is the issue,
isn't it. Yeah? Is that it's particularly that drug particularly
is good for writing music.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
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. Yeah,
you know, like I don't.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
The songs you think, well, the songs probably would have
come to you anyway.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
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 1 (19:43):
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 3 (19:52):
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 my core
(20:13):
progression and the lyrics would just come out immediately.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
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 left.
They would have noticed that Milan's kind of changed a
bit here.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yeah, and I'd lost a lot of idea, right okay, Yeah,
I didn't look very well.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Right Okay. And then so your friends have 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 3 (20:45):
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 care
He was in London with me, and then he left
London earlier. But yeah, was the one I told everything too.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Okay, 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 3 (21:20):
Well, that was when you had to get a little
bit more experimental. And that was just like the you know,
go to the bulpins with poppy seeds and that kind
of thing.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Does that does that? Does that work? Does that work?
Though not? I mean it does work.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, that's why they've got ridden in those bulbs. They've
got rid of them.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I always used to I was confused. My my grandmother
used to grow poppies out the front of her house
in Mount Monganui and says that flower that all disappeared.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Yep, that works. That you chop off the bulbs and
you get them into a part and that works as well.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
When it really that really works, it works. She was
hope was to confused. I didn't want to break it
to her that there was dudes getting high on your
poppies works.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Yeah. On the 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
(22:20):
then my mum was walking up to get the paper
one morning on a Saturday morning and she saw a
she's noticed a bit of a rustling, and because our
driveway went up through beside their property and she noted
a rustling and there were two guys down and down
on the bushes, the grabbing the poppies from missus cox
(22:43):
garden next door.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Hey, so you come back from London, cold Turkey, sober up,
and that's when you release pipeline under the ocean, Is
that right? What's the timeline there?
Speaker 3 (22:55):
So the timeline I sobered up like ninety nine through
to about two thousand and two, two thousand and three.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Well, you would have thought I'm going pretty well here
I did.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
I was doing very very well. 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
in Australia in a Melbourne so it was easy to
cop over there. So that's I started having little spats
(23:25):
of kind of I called them kind of my Heroin holidays.
So I'd do that and I'd come back and I'd
be fine. I'd come off it again and it was manageable.
And then we started writing and recording for Pipeline and
the Ocean, and then through an old legend drummer he
(23:51):
kind of who 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 1 (24:01):
And this is in New Zealand. Yeah, oh wow, okay, right,
So during the time, you know, in terms of your
own psychology, were you feeling.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Like things were did you feel.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Like in trouble mentally or or you felt like it
was just that was just the story of Milan Borich
at the time.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yeah, I kind of thought this was my identity and
you know what I needed. I thought I needed it,
and and 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,
(24:45):
you know, impervious to you know, any kind of outside
influence or outside kind of opinions about myself. So I
just I just thought it was the right thing to do.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
And if there was 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 what was that low point for you?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Are? The low points were all my relationships with my family,
my friends, especially the band, and and and 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
(25:32):
toll there. And I was my behavior was awful, and
my emotions were you know, 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 1 (25:45):
Right, and then if some friends close to you said, right, that's.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
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 methadone program pretty pretty quick, okay,
just to try and mitigate the whole kind of searching
for the drug.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
What happens there.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
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
(26:26):
worse than heroin.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
So what is it? Is it a tablet? Is it
just a pill? A liquid? Right?
Speaker 2 (26:31):
And you just take it like a cough medicine or
pretty much?
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yeah, and you've got to turn up every day for
it because they wouldn't give you a whole lot at once,
would they.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah, No, you had to turn up every morning at
the pharmacy, which is also it's kind of it's just
shameful as well. It's a little bit humiliating him to Ye,
it's really awful.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah, wouldn't you go in that situation? Because I think
I've seen people. I've got a pharma seat through from me,
and I think I've seen people turning up for it.
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 2 (27:09):
Of cold, full cold turkey, Because how long does a
cold turkey take?
Speaker 3 (27:14):
It can take two weeks. 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.
That's like the struggle to really be motivated to keep breathing.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Oh really, it's pretty Oh that sounds grim.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
That's you can't sleep, you can't eat, you can't really
do anything, and.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
You can't sort of distract yourself by like I don't know, no,
there's not taking something else.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Oh you could, but then you just can't.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Euro fine or something Europe plus.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah, maybe no, it doesn't work. Oh well, I'm glad
you're here.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, jeez, that sounds it sounds Jesus fascinating.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
I mean, it's a fascinating story. Obviously, it's you, it's
your life. It's not a story, it's it's you live
the experience and now. So obviously, then then you put
out pipeline under the ocean. That goes well, it does. Now,
when you listen to the songs, how do you feel
(28:25):
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? Now? Are you about to perform them from
from start to finish?
Speaker 3 (28:35):
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 1 (28:53):
But that you don't want to hear what is it
that you don't want to hear about it?
Speaker 3 (28:56):
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 2 (29:03):
It's a bit like listening looking seeing Jeremy listen to
his own voice at the start of this podcast.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
I don't hear the weird thing is that just because
the way I pronounced something, and that annoys me. But
I if I see myself on TV or something like that,
I don't see myself.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
It's not me. So you can get right. You can
just associate yourself.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I have a full disassociation experience. I now look at myself, robots,
some character Jeremy Wells just more for you, but that
I know that I have a relationship with that person,
but that's not really me.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
That's a good way of doing it.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
That's anyway I can get through.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
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, I don't want to
hear it, don't want to look at it. My wife
do that?
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Oh yeah, okay, how was it?
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Doing it?
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Was good? I know people who can't stop listening to themselves.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
I know a lot of people like that.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
I can't. I find quite strange. But sometimes I wonder
whether that's part whether you have to do that to
get better.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Yes, yep, that is, that is part of it for sure.
Maybe that's why I haven't gone.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
My problem.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I can't listen to any podcasts or radio broadcasts, even
when an ad comes on or a promo with my voice,
I'm exactly that.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, well that weird. But when you first hear yourself
and you go, isn't that what I thought? I sounded normal?
That's so bad. 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.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
And stuff, close close brothers. Yeah, you 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
and and 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. Really.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, And you got all the keys worked out and
stuff like that. With de tuning to certain things, there's
no arguments over what was meant to be in the
first place.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
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 Zipplin. I
don't do it like you know, I just punish myself.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
So when you say Zipplin, so you touched on that
it's to come together kind of phenomenon. That's been what
two or three years now of five years of doing it.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Five years.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah, talk to us about that.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Well, I did that. The first time I got that
job was we were doing they were doing Romeo and
Juliet and I think John Touga 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 want to do this? And I
said absolutely, and I did, and then there was a
(31:49):
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 1 (32:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, okay, interesting.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Yeah, So I nailed that and so I 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 yeah, and so it's like, you know, three
fists of Pluto.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
So explain to come together like what it is because
basically every year, different artists or different artists a different albums,
different album yeah, and everyone comes together from various bands
and genres.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Yes, yeah, and about five generally five singers from yeah,
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 has the grueling job
of learning like forty songs generally forty, yeah, sometimes forty songs,
(32:54):
you know, like especially when they're doing the Beatles and
like that those albums. And then and then we go
out and do him live and we do three shows.
We do Wellington, christ Church and Auckland and before the
week before we only have three days to rehearse as
a band.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
And must have been led Zepplin. Must have been challenging
because Robert Plant's got some pretty he's got some he's
got some pretty high notes.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
He's got some high notes he's got some pipes on them.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yeah, so you can see high I can, I can.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Yeah, you gifted with the you're gifted with the high range.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
I am yep, yep, I give it. I give it
a good crack.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
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 lost you know, you never
lose that. You never lose it if you keep going.
Is that the way that it works? You arranged all
the same as what it always was.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
It is, And I was future preofing. 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 you heard them recently.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
No, that's pretty pretty really listen to it.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Yeah, so that those guys were not future proofingly well.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I actually I saw Guns and Roses a couple of
years ago, and x Or Rose is it's yeah, it's
not great, an it's not great, but his voice was
so amazing for a while they was so unique. Yeah,
it couldn't keep going.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
No like that, 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 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 pitching.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
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, the he said, it warms
up a lot. Yeah, he's always he said, it likes
to be blasted all the time.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, he's a genetic anomaly. It's crazy. Yeah, he's and
I knew 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.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Streaming, and he's absolutely rich.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Like he should have ruined his voice because back what
eighties and nineties, his warm up would be a bottle
of vodka. That would be the way that he warmed up.
For a gig, so how it's still there.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
He's got a crazy range though he does his man,
he can hurt high notes and he still can.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yeah, and that's that is that is remarkable. Okay, Walmlan,
thanks so much for coming on, Thank you for having me.
I'm always great to chat to you, and and yeah,
your story is a fascinating story. And and yet we
were I've always in Georgie music and yeah, so thank
you for thanks for giving that to us.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
It's my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
I appreciate it greatly, and thanks very much for coming
in and best of black with everything.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Cheers man.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
I just want to leave you guys with a bit
of Milan singing. YouTube with the streets have no name
because you just set listen to it.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
It's so good.
Get a. It's Jerry here from the Heidechy Breakfast, just
letting you know that if you're listening to the podcast
but didn't know that we also do a live radio show,
we do. And if you're wondering how to find out
what frequency to listen to us in your area, just
text north or south as An Island to three four
eight three so you take you know. Now, stop talking. Sorry,
(00:21):
you're not meant to talk over to. Sorry, that is
a public service announcement. Sorry for people who are listening
to the podcast who don't know that we do a
radio show, well.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
If it's a public announcement, give them to send that
text alert out.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Just get there.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Who was in charge of that, he's on the hot
button on that. He sends him out at three in
the morning.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Just get them to do that.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Oh man. Milan Boris joins us on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Good a, Milan, welcome along, Welcome, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Oh it's nice to have you. We were in Texas
last week. Have you spent much time in Austin, Texas before?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I've been to Austin twice actually for the south by Southwest. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Oh, how good?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
How good?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
It is?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
So good?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, great city. Yeah, great here, great Folk Lane had
been before. I hadn't been before, but it's a 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 lostin too. Weirdly enough,
(01:20):
the live music scene there is a live and well
two hundred and fifty live music venues in the city alone.
Its nuts.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
It's very electric there, you know, and it's a very deep,
deep kind of like scene I reckon, like very Americana
and also like alternative.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah yeah, and hepsterish and yeah. Just every bar has
a stage, you know what I mean, like like dive
bars everywhere that they're all set up just to have
a band come in and just plug in and away
you go.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
It was a great time. But while we're there, we
got an emergency notice text message.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
That's right, we did where you go 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. But we got one for a missing child. Yeah,
at like nine in the morning. It's like and I
was like looking and it's like a child has been
thought that they've been abducted from some time, Like, whoa.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
That's frightening. That's awful.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I know it was awful, but then also we're in
Texas and 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 it
just us. Are we are we being profiled?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Well? The weird thing was that same day in Texas
someone was put to death via lethal injection for some
you knows 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,
(02:48):
thanks for coming in in front of you. You might
see there's some strips of wax.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
That's your back here, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, it's my back bush.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Yeah, And it was like shaped as a train.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Look yeah, I mean it was a map of Tasmania.
I haven't got any photos on my phone, so I
have deleted them all, but I'll show you before and
after that.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I mean, it's a crime that you were running that
thing in the first place.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
To and like and Milan, I'm going to look. 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 3 (03:28):
That's a classic.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
It's a proper I mean it's an old school bush. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It's also got a bit of a heart shape to it.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Well, well that was because my partner, Tolsi, actually shaved
that into his back while we were in Texas. A
lot went on in Austin. It was a terrifying moment.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
A lot went on in Austin.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, but I mean growing up and Papa Cuta in
the nineteen eighties, you would have seen plenty of bush.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
A lot of bush. Yeah, yep, yep.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, what yeah paints a picture of Papacuda growing up
in the eighties, in the eighties or the seventies, eighties.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Seventies and eighties, it was you know, it was very eclectic,
you know, like full of full of spunk and virility.
You know, 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
that was pretty cool. So, but I had to walk
(04:25):
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 and yeah, these guys were
mufty and you know, clashed.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
It's there to target on your back as it was. Yeah,
what music was playing in the in the Borisch household?
Speaker 3 (04:40):
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 1 (04:49):
It was a musical household that you grew up on, though,
wasn't it?
Speaker 3 (04:52):
It was?
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, because your family were very musical.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
My mother was music. My mother was exceptionally musical.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
What was what was what were her musical talents?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Singing?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Right?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah, so she was a singer and her sister and
then their father was also a singer.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Wow. 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 3 (05:27):
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 Buppacuta. So I really wanted to get
myself out of Pablakuda. So I thought one of the
avenues would be music pulsively.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Right, But it was also for you. I know, you're
a child star. You're originally attracted perhaps to the to
the well.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
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 in
(06:21):
my lap.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Okay, So you wouldn't describe yourself as an attention seeker
as a child.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Oh absolutely, I was, yeah, yeah, constantly doing things to
attract 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
(06:47):
extremely accident.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Prone, right, okay, yeah, And so when did you decide
then that you were going to be a proper musician?
Was what? Was there? A moment?
Speaker 3 (06:58):
There was a moment, and the moment it 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, yeah, someone was
(07:21):
playing the guitar. We're all singing it, and I thought
to myself, ship man, we got this. We can do
it a hundred buffs.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, sounds very Jack Johnson sitting around a fire a
bunch of distance here.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
So that was the moment.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
So did you ever play that? Did Pluto ever play
that song? No?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
But I wish we did. We might play for the
show coming up. We'll see, We'll see how we'll go.
So tell us about Pluto.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
You've read you guys have released some amazing songs, legacy
that still carries on.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
How did it all start. How did Pluto will start? 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 he went
(08:15):
to SAEH and so I decided to leave school and
join them. So that's when it kind of that's when
it all happened.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
So becoming like an engineer was just a vehicle for
you to be able to use the studio.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah, but you kind of that was
the way it was though in those days, because you
weren't I mean, you might have an eight track or
a four track. You could possibly record at home somehow,
but it was hard.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
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, 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, and
(09:00):
things happened. I kind of got banned from using the
studio in the end.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
So they got none of the fact that you know,
three hours hours was used for I think.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
He didn't like me much to the guy at the
head of it. But that's okay. 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 1 (09:31):
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.
I know that was a case of what I was
doing when we were making TV. It was we thought
(09:53):
that this type of TV was ship and so it
was sort of making it a response 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. How did how did you
feel about the New Zealand music scene when when Pluto
(10:14):
were just starting to crank up.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Well, and be honest, okay, I thought it lacked a
little bit of grit and and a little bit of
like kind of depth, but not not in the sense
of the musicality or the song writing. I think more
of the production side that I thought that it was lacking.
But that's just from a personal perspective. But I was
(10:38):
listening to when when I was in London, our drama
brought over a 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.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
More in the in the way that I mean. It
was a unique sound that does it closed out? But
what and it's rawn us and what was.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
It and it's honesty and 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 1 (11:16):
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 nineties
may have been, isn't what that drum was?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Just it's the live room. They want that big, huge,
live kind of room sound. And I wasn't into it.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
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 3 (11:49):
And especially with drums and bass, if they don't lock
in the way you want to, it's gonna sound terrible.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
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, we're
talking to Milan Borich from Pluto. They are reuniting for
(12:20):
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,
(12:45):
I'm thinking early two thousands.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Yes, we.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
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 I saw a.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Slow creep 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,
(13:26):
and then I think about two or three years into
it just started to get a bit dirty again.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Right. A lot of people, I'm sure 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 know exactly what was
(13:53):
going on, But tell us about the beginnings, the beginnings
of all of that, the beginnings of the debauchery.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
So do you want them in the beginning all the.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Well on the first half of the second half, I
mean the beginnings of it, because there must have been
some fun. It always starts worth fun and exploration, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
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 to tell me to put my head in.
(14:38):
So I went there and I went there hard, 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
(15:00):
Tim was also back here and we started kind 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
(15:21):
we went into Helen Young with Nick Cabot and then
met Matthias. Matthias played piano for us on that record,
and that was that, and we recorded the first kind
of the first like kind of group of recordings for
that record, and 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 1 (15:43):
So all of that stuff was, all of that addiction
stuff was happening as early as the nineties.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeap, nineteen ninety five, I think it was reality. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
For me, you went out to the UK and you thought,
you know what I'm going to get on the.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Smack pretty much pretty much. I was searching for it
for a very long time. So and if you.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Can't find it in New Zealand, no you can't.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
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 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 2 (16:25):
Yeah, in London's like that. Yeah, it's a yeah, it's
there's a lot of opportunities.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Although it was hard to find find the heroine. So
the first place I found that was in 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.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I mean, did you did you ask you spotted some
kids and you thought you saw yourself? Well those guys.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yeah, And I was very good at spotting that yeah, yeah,
very good at spotting.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
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 hula below going on. You've got to
you've got to have you know, syringers and all sorts
(17:27):
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 3 (17:37):
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, right, and then I located
it at the Purple I think it was the Purple
Turtle in Camden, so no, so yeah, in Camden, I
(17:57):
think 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 journey.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
And a smack university. He was running pretty much.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah wow, because because did you even with with snorting heroine,
do you get addicted to heroin? Even by snorting it?
Speaker 3 (18:24):
You're really smoking a snorting it and.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
You felt you felt that initiate it was. It was
that fast, the addiction.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
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 1 (18:46):
Right, and you and you didn't know the tales of
what had happened before, people who thought themselves, you know
what this is me?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
I thought I was. I thought I was immune to that.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
You were going to be the one. Yeah, you're going
to be the one, the special one, and so did
how and so musically through that period, you're still writing songs,
You're still playing yeah, yeah, prolifically.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah. This is the problem. Yeh Yeah, this is the issue,
isn't it. Yeah? Is that it's particularly that drug particularly
is good for writing music.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
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. Yeah,
you know, like I don't.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
The songs you think, well, the songs probably would have
come to you anyway.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
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 1 (19:43):
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 3 (19:52):
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 my core
(20:13):
progression and the lyrics would just come out immediately.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
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 left.
They would have noticed that Milan's kind of changed a
bit here.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yeah, and I'd lost a lot of idea, right okay, Yeah,
I didn't look very well.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Right Okay. And then so your friends have 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 3 (20:45):
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 care
He was in London with me, and then he left
London earlier. But yeah, was the one I told everything too.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Okay, 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 3 (21:20):
Well, that was when you had to get a little
bit more experimental. And that was just like the you know,
go to the bulpins with poppy seeds and that kind
of thing.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Does that does that? Does that work? Does that work?
Though not? I mean it does work.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, that's why they've got ridden in those bulbs. They've
got rid of them.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I always used to I was confused. My my grandmother
used to grow poppies out the front of her house
in Mount Monganui and says that flower that all disappeared.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Yep, that works. That you chop off the bulbs and
you get them into a part and that works as well.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
When it really that really works, it works. She was
hope was to confused. I didn't want to break it
to her that there was dudes getting high on your
poppies works.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Yeah. On the 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
(22:20):
then my mum was walking up to get the paper
one morning on a Saturday morning and she saw a
she's noticed a bit of a rustling, and because our
driveway went up through beside their property and she noted
a rustling and there were two guys down and down
on the bushes, the grabbing the poppies from missus cox
(22:43):
garden next door.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Hey, so you come back from London, cold Turkey, sober up,
and that's when you release pipeline under the ocean, Is
that right? What's the timeline there?
Speaker 3 (22:55):
So the timeline I sobered up like ninety nine through
to about two thousand and two, two thousand and three.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Well, you would have thought I'm going pretty well here
I did.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
I was doing very very well. 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
in Australia in a Melbourne so it was easy to
cop over there. So that's I started having little spats
(23:25):
of kind of I called them kind of my Heroin holidays.
So I'd do that and I'd come back and I'd
be fine. I'd come off it again and it was manageable.
And then we started writing and recording for Pipeline and
the Ocean, and then through an old legend drummer he
(23:51):
kind of who 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 1 (24:01):
And this is in New Zealand. Yeah, oh wow, okay, right,
So during the time, you know, in terms of your
own psychology, were you feeling.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Like things were did you feel.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Like in trouble mentally or or you felt like it
was just that was just the story of Milan Borich
at the time.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yeah, I kind of thought this was my identity and
you know what I needed. I thought I needed it,
and and 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,
(24:45):
you know, impervious to you know, any kind of outside
influence or outside kind of opinions about myself. So I
just I just thought it was the right thing to do.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
And if there was 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 what was that low point for you?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Are? The low points were all my relationships with my family,
my friends, especially the band, and and and 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
(25:32):
toll there. And I was my behavior was awful, and
my emotions were you know, 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 1 (25:45):
Right, and then if some friends close to you said, right, that's.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
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 methadone program pretty pretty quick, okay,
just to try and mitigate the whole kind of searching
for the drug.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
What happens there.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
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
(26:26):
worse than heroin.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
So what is it? Is it a tablet? Is it
just a pill? A liquid? Right?
Speaker 2 (26:31):
And you just take it like a cough medicine or
pretty much?
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yeah, and you've got to turn up every day for
it because they wouldn't give you a whole lot at once,
would they.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah, No, you had to turn up every morning at
the pharmacy, which is also it's kind of it's just
shameful as well. It's a little bit humiliating him to Ye,
it's really awful.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah, wouldn't you go in that situation? Because I think
I've seen people. I've got a pharma seat through from me,
and I think I've seen people turning up for it.
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 2 (27:09):
Of cold, full cold turkey, Because how long does a
cold turkey take?
Speaker 3 (27:14):
It can take two weeks. 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.
That's like the struggle to really be motivated to keep breathing.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Oh really, it's pretty Oh that sounds grim.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
That's you can't sleep, you can't eat, you can't really
do anything, and.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
You can't sort of distract yourself by like I don't know, no,
there's not taking something else.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Oh you could, but then you just can't.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Euro fine or something Europe plus.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah, maybe no, it doesn't work. Oh well, I'm glad
you're here.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, jeez, that sounds it sounds Jesus fascinating.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
I mean, it's a fascinating story. Obviously, it's you, it's
your life. It's not a story, it's it's you live
the experience and now. So obviously, then then you put
out pipeline under the ocean. That goes well, it does. Now,
when you listen to the songs, how do you feel
(28:25):
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? Now? Are you about to perform them from
from start to finish?
Speaker 3 (28:35):
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 1 (28:53):
But that you don't want to hear what is it
that you don't want to hear about it?
Speaker 3 (28:56):
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 2 (29:03):
It's a bit like listening looking seeing Jeremy listen to
his own voice at the start of this podcast.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
I don't hear the weird thing is that just because
the way I pronounced something, and that annoys me. But
I if I see myself on TV or something like that,
I don't see myself.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
It's not me. So you can get right. You can
just associate yourself.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I have a full disassociation experience. I now look at myself, robots,
some character Jeremy Wells just more for you, but that
I know that I have a relationship with that person,
but that's not really me.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
That's a good way of doing it.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
That's anyway I can get through.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
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, I don't want to
hear it, don't want to look at it. My wife
do that?
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Oh yeah, okay, how was it?
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Doing it?
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Was good? I know people who can't stop listening to themselves.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
I know a lot of people like that.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
I can't. I find quite strange. But sometimes I wonder
whether that's part whether you have to do that to
get better.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Yes, yep, that is, that is part of it for sure.
Maybe that's why I haven't gone.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
My problem.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I can't listen to any podcasts or radio broadcasts, even
when an ad comes on or a promo with my voice,
I'm exactly that.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, well that weird. But when you first hear yourself
and you go, isn't that what I thought? I sounded normal?
That's so bad. 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.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
And stuff, close close brothers. Yeah, you 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
and and 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. Really.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, And you got all the keys worked out and
stuff like that. With de tuning to certain things, there's
no arguments over what was meant to be in the
first place.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
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 Zipplin. I
don't do it like you know, I just punish myself.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
So when you say Zipplin, so you touched on that
it's to come together kind of phenomenon. That's been what
two or three years now of five years of doing it.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Five years.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah, talk to us about that.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Well, I did that. The first time I got that
job was we were doing they were doing Romeo and
Juliet and I think John Touga 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 want to do this? And I
said absolutely, and I did, and then there was a
(31:49):
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 1 (32:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, okay, interesting.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Yeah, So I nailed that and so I 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 yeah, and so it's like, you know, three
fists of Pluto.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
So explain to come together like what it is because
basically every year, different artists or different artists a different albums,
different album yeah, and everyone comes together from various bands
and genres.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Yes, yeah, and about five generally five singers from yeah,
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 has the grueling job
of learning like forty songs generally forty, yeah, sometimes forty songs,
(32:54):
you know, like especially when they're doing the Beatles and
like that those albums. And then and then we go
out and do him live and we do three shows.
We do Wellington, christ Church and Auckland and before the
week before we only have three days to rehearse as
a band.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
And must have been led Zepplin. Must have been challenging
because Robert Plant's got some pretty he's got some he's
got some pretty high notes.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
He's got some high notes he's got some pipes on them.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yeah, so you can see high I can, I can.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Yeah, you gifted with the you're gifted with the high range.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
I am yep, yep, I give it. I give it
a good crack.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
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 lost you know, you never
lose that. You never lose it if you keep going.
Is that the way that it works? You arranged all
the same as what it always was.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
It is, And I was future preofing. 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 you heard them recently.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
No, that's pretty pretty really listen to it.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Yeah, so that those guys were not future proofingly well.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I actually I saw Guns and Roses a couple of
years ago, and x Or Rose is it's yeah, it's
not great, an it's not great, but his voice was
so amazing for a while they was so unique. Yeah,
it couldn't keep going.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
No like that, 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 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 pitching.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
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, the he said, it warms
up a lot. Yeah, he's always he said, it likes
to be blasted all the time.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, he's a genetic anomaly. It's crazy. Yeah, he's and
I knew 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.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Streaming, and he's absolutely rich.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Like he should have ruined his voice because back what
eighties and nineties, his warm up would be a bottle
of vodka. That would be the way that he warmed up.
For a gig, so how it's still there.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
He's got a crazy range though he does his man,
he can hurt high notes and he still can.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yeah, and that's that is that is remarkable. Okay, Walmlan,
thanks so much for coming on, Thank you for having me.
I'm always great to chat to you, and and yeah,
your story is a fascinating story. And and yet we
were I've always in Georgie music and yeah, so thank
you for thanks for giving that to us.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
It's my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
I appreciate it greatly, and thanks very much for coming
in and best of black with everything.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Cheers man.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
I just want to leave you guys with a bit
of Milan singing. YouTube with the streets have no name
because you just set listen to it.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
It's so good.
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