Interview with former Verlaines bassist Mike Stoodley, late 2005

How did you first hook up with the Verlaines?

I think I first heard the Verlaines at the start of 1984 on the Dunedin Double, a 2x12 45's featuring the Chills, Sneaky Feelings, Stones and Verlaines. I was staying in a friend's student flat in Wellington, having just moved there for my first ever job as a trainee radio operator with NZ Broadcasting. Must admit it didn't make much impression on me; at the time I was into Cabaret Voltaire's The Crackdown and Echo and the Bunnymen's Porcupine, both of which had, how shall I say, higher production values. The local stuff I was familiar with was the Gordons justly famous first LP, and the early Skeptics - they originated in Palmerston North where I grew up. I had seen the Stones (the Dunedin version) a few months earlier when they supported New Order in Wellington, but I thought they were god-awful. Hanging around before the gig, I heard someone soundchecking. They were playing "3 Blind Mice". For a horrible while I thought it was New Order mucking around. I guess I wasn't at that stage attuned to the Dunedin perspective on ironic rock-stardom. I saw Childrens Hour and the Chills at Victoria University Orientation that year. I liked Childrens Hour - the bass player had a Musicman Stingray like mine, and Chris Mathews had a great voice and was a charismatic singer. The Chills were very, very loud.

I moved to Invercargill (the furthest south town on NZ's South Island) in the 2nd half of '84, about when Death and the Maiden and 10 o'clock in the Afternoon were around. I can remember buying Death and the Maiden, probably on the basis of what I read in the local music mag Rip It Up. I didn't get it. In fact one night when working late rewiring a radio studio with a colleague, I put it on when he asked what kind of music I liked. The production and singing sounded so awful that I broke it in half and tossed it into the bin! A couple of months later I tried 10 O'clock 'cos the guy at the Invercargill record store recommended it. This one I "got" immediately. This was about the time the Chills' "Pink Frost" came out; needless to say that was on high rotate.

My radio tech job wasn't really panning out so I moved to Dunedin at the start of '85 - mainly because I wanted to be where this music was coming from. I enrolled at university and duly dropped out, but of course a lot of the Dunedin bands played gigs in the university hall or common room, "wet lunches" on Fridays, at the nearby bar The Oriental or at the Empire at the other end of town. So I first saw the Verlaines play in the university common room - the line-up was Graeme, Jane and Robbie. They were pretty exciting, as most people at the time would probably testify, and Graeme was terrific to watch, with trademark long-sleeved white shirt and scruffy jeans. I didn't know anyone in the band scene at that time so my perspective was very much one of audience member.

I don't think The Verlaines played a lot over the next few years as Jane moved to Auckland; I don't particularly recall any gigs, though I guess there were. I think it was mid-late '88 when I joined. There was a big article/interview in the Otago Daily Times. The only thing I remember about it was that Graeme said something to the effect that he didn't know what they were going to do with Jane in Auckland. I'm not sure if he actually said they were looking for a bass player, but that's sure how I interpreted it! There was no question in my mind that I wanted that spot. So right away I walked from North East Valley shops where I had read the paper over to where I thought Graeme lived by the University. Turned out he was no longer there but the people gave me his new address up the hill in Queen St so off I went to there. Knocked on the door, was opened by Jenny (Graeme's partner's daughter). I pretty much said something like "Hi does Graeme live here? It said in the paper that the Verlaines need a new bass player?".

What have you been doing since you left the Verlaines? Are you still active in the music scene?

I left after University Orientation '94 (bands play gigs for new students), which came after the American tour to support Way Out Where. I had known my time was up for quite a while before that, and stayed for as long as I could while getting something worthwhile out of it. But eventually the minuses outweighed the pluses and I was gone. The plusses were of course playing some great music, the opportunity to tour to Australia, the States and England, and recording Way Out Where in Los Angeles in a big studio with a decent producer. I had set a personal goal of playing on Way Out Where when I heard the demos - I thought it was a great set of songs. Once it was recorded, I wasn't going to bail without at least trying the tour to support it. The minuses were no money, no chance of getting any money, the mechanics and politics of keeping a band going, and stupid tours to nowhere places in NZ. So I went to University and ended up with an IT degree and now I manage IT networks and security.

Haven't really been involved in music since I left the band; I played on the demos and did a gig on a railway wagon at the Dunedin railway station for Martin Phillips/The Chills' Sunburnt CD (as did Graeme), in '95 I think. Yes it was an odd gig.

I helped my friends Jeff Harford (drums - Bored Games, the Rip), Paul Winders (Verlaines), Kiri Winders (Paul's sister) record a CD called "e minor" under the moniker Valve. That was recorded in the old Radio NZ studios in Dunedin, which is also used for the rock music course Graeme lectures at Otago Uni. It was by far the most fun and most satisfying experience I've ever had in a recording studio, and it reinforced my feeling that I didn't like the way the Verlaines approached recording. The difference could be very crudely summarised as I'm a "throw the faders up, record lots of everything and get the big picture right", while Graeme's a "re-record everything until its note-perfect" person. I would rather layer up many guitar takes and sounds, and Graeme would rather do one track that's spot on. My experience is that by the time it's that "perfect" you've well and truly lost the plot. I get very quickly to the "no one's going to notice or care except you" stage! Graeme is also of the "work yourself into the ground 12 hours a day" school where success is measured in cigarettes smoked, bottles of whisky downed and sleep lost. I just don't buy into it. He makes a peculiar virtue out of digging a hole and trying to climb out of it (see his comments on this site about SDE and OTM!). That's the way Graeme is and that's part of what makes his music what it is. My choice was simply that I didn't need or want to be part of that any more. That's not the whole story of course, and there are plenty of areas where we would be in total agreement in our goals and approach to recording and playing.

The last Verlaines release was Over the Moon which I wasn't involved in. Russell Flemming played bass on that.

Recently (late 2004, 2005) I've played a couple of low key gigs with another ex-Dunedinite Peter Hobbs. We had a go at incorporating bass into his band Kitset (usually drums, keys, guitar, vocals, no bass), but it didn't work out. I entertain myself by building the occasional electric guitar out of spare bits - a fun hobby - and going to see bands, which is one advantage Auckland has over Dunedin - at least international bands come here!

Mike with one of the guitars he built

Do you keep in touch with other members of the band?

To some extent. Most of them are at the other end of the country. I think Jane is the only other ex Verlaine in Auckland - I see her now and then at gigs. See Victor Grbic (former sound engineer) occasionally at gigs. Saw Robbie Yeats at a David Mitchell gig in Auckland early '05. I see Greg Cairns pretty regularly; he works in Wellington as a museum exhibition director and plays quite a lot. Further South, I keep in touch with Darren Stedman and Paul Winders. Darren runs a boutique wine shop and still drums, Paul is a primary school teacher and also still plays (did a solo gig in Riverton recently). Haven't seen Graeme for a while - we usually catch up when he/they play in Auckland.

When did you first start playing the bass? Do you play any other instruments?

Like most kids, I had a crack at piano for a few months. Then I didn't do anything until I was about 14 and took music at high school. My dad had a big and well played classical music LP collection, so I was pretty comfortable with orchestral music. For some reason, not sure what, I wanted to play double bass. But the school didn't have one, so I took up the cello as the next best thing. I cottoned on pretty quickly, and played in the local youth orchestra and symphonia. I didn't really start listening to "rock" music till I was about 16/17, and even then it was a pretty grisly start. A friend lent me Duran Duran's first LP, Spandau Ballet's first LP, and Ultravox's Vienna. I liked Spandau Ballet, and remember telling her that Duran Duran was too punk for me. Another friend told me that Vienna sucked and I should listen to Ha Ha Ha instead (its quite different to Vienna). So I did, and started borrowing more interesting stuff from other friends.

About this time the school music department bought a bass guitar and amp, and I picked it up straight away - it was too easy...frets...no need to worry about intonation anymore, and it was more bass than the cello. My first ever band thing was at a school show in the school library, playing terrible covers of a few songs of that album. To my music teacher's consternation the cello playing was all downhill from there, culminating in my failing the Grade 6 exam after not practicing anything. I think in that time I did spend a lot of time listening to early Cure, U2, Wire, Psychedelic Furs, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Gang of Four. The Cure's Three Imaginary Boys (Boys Don't Cry in the US) was my favourite teach-yourself-to-play-bass cassette.

I eventually got to have a go on double bass, and played that briefly in the local symphonia. They were pretty desperate. During these few years I also played cello in local theatrical shows - "My Fair Lady", "Gang Show"... I can't remember what else. Plus bass guitar in a couple of shows, and also tried playing bass guitar in the neighbours square dancing band, the "Hootenany Hoedowners". All decked out in red and white tea-towel shirts. I didn't have a clue, tried to do walking basslines when all I needed to do was go I-V-I-V. I dunno why they didn't tell me that. Oh yes, and while in the later stages of dropping out of 7th form, I played bass in my first ever "proper" band Rose City Riot. "Rose City" is the tourist moniker given to my hometown Palmerston North. We were an Oi band, played covers of the British punk/post-punk/Oi/skinhead bands. Pretty terrible, but that did include my first experience of stringing a few notes together between chord changes (instead of just following the guitar one-fingered), playing the Clash's "Career Opportunities". That was a big moment. About this time I bought my first proper bass guitar, a Musicman Stingray, and amp - a 200 watt valve amp with 2 15" speaker bins. So I went from mangling the cello in the family lounge to making a racket in my bedroom with this bass stack 5 feet high.

By this time (1982-83) I was quite keen on industrial music like Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, and Joy Division/New Order. Also liked Simple Minds. Still do actually, but am very specific about which bits.

Is music a passion or a hobby? Would you give up your day job if you could make a living playing music full-time?

Well it was a passion, hard to say whether it still is. I guess so, and yes I would drop everything if I could make a good living out of it. But by the end of my time in the Verlaines it was pretty obvious that not very many musos make a decent living, and I needed to get a career. So I did, and I have.

Who are your influences? Which musicians do you respect most?

I can't really think of any bass playing influences. I don't even follow bass players. The only ones I can think of are Fernando Saunders (on Lou Reed's Blue Mask and Legendary Hearts) and Robert Vickers (on the Go-Betweens Spring Hill Fair and Liberty Bell and the Black Diamond Express). He was beautiful and played with a finger pick on his thumb. Flick Rhind from Dunedin band Cassandras Ears had something cool going - I can remember watching her play and wondering how she made it look so easy and fluid. But I don't try and play like them. To me the bass is just part of the music in general. If there is something cool, I find it's usually because it works in the context of the song rather than someone being a great bass player. Actually, my time in the Verlaines has shaped the way I play now (if and when I do), in that I actually set out to be as little like I used to be as possible. So I aim for very minimal, not much movement, not much range. To a large extent this is because I became disillusioned with how the activity in Verlaines basslines didn't translate in the live environment, and concluded that rock bottom structural bass playing was more effective. I did try long and hard to get a bright, clear, solid bass sound that would punch through, but I don't believe it was ever achieved. I am a closet gearhead. Formative moment - a Chills gig at Sammy's in Dunedin, probably '92? - with Terry Moore playing bass. Heard in isolation, he had a crystalline bass sound, like someone whacking the low notes on a piano, coming out of a PA. I thought "that's great, that's what I want to sound like". And then the rest of the band started and the bass just disappeared. I thought "what's the point?".

I do however have some guitar heroes - Tom Verlaine of Television fame, Will Seargant from Echo and the Bunnymen, Bernard Sumner of New Order. I love Swervedriver. Graeme is an outrageous, inspiring, fantastic, guitar player.

Respect? Bill Direen

What other bands have you worked with?

Valve, as mentioned above. From 85-95 I did a fair bit of sound engineering for lots of local bands, mostly recording them at Radio One (Otago University Student Radio) or mixing live gigs. Some of these resulted in LPs or CDs, I helped with the Dead C's first 4 song 7" and first LP "DR503", engineered Glovepuppet's "Someone Elses Dream", Tin Soldier's "Hell of a Time", Death Ray Cafe's "Built on Good and Right", The Puddle's "Songs for Emily Valentine", most of My Deviant Daughter's CD (can't remember the name), may well have done some Dating Godot, and a few tracks for Sneaky Feelings. The Sneaky Feelings tracks were added to the CD release of "Send You" and are embarrassing from an engineering point of view. I tracked them at Radio One, Mike Churnside mixed one there, and then they took the tapes to Writhe in Wellington (Skeptics, Bailter Space studio) where the rest were mixed. The result is thin and weedy, which I'm pretty sure is because of a difference in tape deck or noise reduction set-up. If you record on one set-up and play back on another, you are courting sonic disaster unless both studios use the same standards. I would say they didn't.

The Puddle recordings were done after Way Out Where, so I had learnt a pile of new engineering tricks from watching Joe Chiccarelli which I applied to reasonable effect I think. One thing I was amazed by was the amount of compression and eq used at every stage (tracking, mixing and then mastering), the key being the quality of equipment being used meant the sounds were enhanced. By comparison, cranking cheap gear to that degree results in an awful noise. Other memorable moments would include the demos for Ready To Fly, which I later remastered and prefer to the released CD, and the demos for the Snapper EP. It's heartbreaking to hear the version of "Snapper and the Ocean" on the CD Shotgun Blossom when you know the demo. :( I have also received the occassional credit for stuff I had nothing to do with...!

What is the public attitude towards bands like the Verlaines in New Zealand? Are NZ musicians elevated to demigod status like they are in the U.S., or is it more laid-back?

The public in general would be largely unaware of bands like the Verlaines or any of our contemporaries - it was very much a University type of scene. What is quite funny is now and then an old Flying Nun tune will appear in a TV programme or advertisement and I think "aahh, someone who liked those bands at varsity has filtered into a position of influence".

How has the Kiwi music scene changed since you first started out?

It's a lot more professional and career oriented - there is now an industry of sorts, and there wasn't before the mid 90's. Which means we have a lot of mainstream NZ bands on mainstream TV and radio, which is great even though I personally find them crushingly dull. Once upon a time there was as good as no NZ music on NZ radio. For years a debate raged (in a feeble kind of way) as to whether the government should enforce a kiwi music quota for radio so bands could get some sort of exposure. Eventually they did, and lo and behold, radio stations found success by exceeding the quota. So nowadays we have our very own versions of all the overseas genres, plus a particularly NZ fusion of pacific music styles. There is some really good stuff going on in amongst it all and I'd far rather have it this way than what it was 15 years ago.

What is your favourite memory of being in the Verlaines? Least favourite?

Paul Winders can be a very funny guy. He did a great strip show for us in a New York apartment...

I really enjoyed the apartment complex we stayed in Burbank while recording Way Out Where - short drive back from the studio... the pool... the spa...

We did a gig in Auckland once where I felt like we owned the stage. That was a great feeling that didn't occur too often.

I clearly remember Shayne Carter (Straightjacket Fits) having a disastrous time at a CBGB's showcase gig. His amp kept cutting out (pretty disastrous for the kind of sound they made) and I spent the whole gig crouching behind his amp holding the cable between the amp and speaker trying to keep it going. People left, they stopped as soon as they could (after about 6 songs) and stomped off! It was one of those nights where it all went wrong.

Our last tour of the US was supporting Buffalo Tom and Bettie Serveert, at a time when they were pulling pretty good crowds. Supporting them took quite a bit of pressure off us, in that we weren't trying to make ends meet playing to a handful of people, and typically we finished earlier in the night than if we were headlining. Learnt a lot from Buffalo Tom, particularly about having a big, simple, effective guitar sound. But a real bonus for me was that I got to play on Chris's bass rig, which was an Ampeg SVT valve amp and matching Ampeg 8x10" speaker cabinet. This was simply the best thing I have ever played through in my life, and the way good equipment enables you to play, rather than bash, an instrument is quite incredible. After the tour it was like "well why would I bother playing again if it's not through that rig?" It was hard to step down from that, and I didn't last much longer!

I got really pissed off when recording "Heavy 33" for the Red Hot and Blue compilation. I should preface this with the fact that it was a privilege to be doing it at all and Joe Chiccarelli came over to Australia to record it and I imagine put a lot more time and effort into it than he needed to. But "Heavy 33" is an odd song and really depends on having a solid groove going. We did a lot of takes trying to get that groove and eventually settled on a combination of two different takes, which Joe would splice together (still using tape in those days). We called it a night and came back the next day to do overdubs onto the spliced together version. But something wasn't gelling - where was that groove? Turned out the wrong take had been spliced and as we were limited for time we had no choice but to press on with what was a lesser backing track. :( Due to the fact that I didn't feel Joe valued anyone's input other than Graeme's, I had no time for mistakes on his part.

What was a typical recording session like?

&$%%@#ed.

During recordings, were there ever any conflicts over how a song should be played?

Not really. Probably the most contentious moments were during the Way Out Where sessions. In pre-production (basically a week of full-on practice in a practice studio), there were some ridiculous times with Joe Chiccarelli telling Darren what kick drum pattern to play. "No no, go 'budda budda bam pa!', not 'budda budda pa bam!'" kind of stuff. But that's inconsequential compared to the benefits gained. There was some debate about whether to resolve the ending of "Cathedrals Under the Sea" or leave it hanging, and I think Joe Chiccarelli talked Graeme into cutting a few bars from "Blanket Over the Sky", if I remember correctly. Neither exactly a big drama!

There was however considerable grief between myself and Victor over the recording/production of Ready to Fly. Basically we were not on the same wavelength at all. To my eternal surprise and disappointment Graeme chose to sit on the fence. I had thought we had established a really good blueprint on the demos and that we were going to do the same but better in the studio, but it all went horribly wrong. We ended up in a terrible nowhere land between my idea of a good sound and Victor's. I agree with Graeme's comments - we needed a producer to sort it out, and Greg would have been sacked because he didn't produce a rock drum sound. It was a huge disappointment, as I really like a lot of these songs.

Was the band ever a 'family' or did the members go their separate ways after the work was done?

Well we all had our own lives but Graeme and Jo are very hospitable and entertaining company and I had a lot of fun times with them. I don't know how you'd be in a band without it being a very close-knit group. I certainly felt I shared with Graeme a very strong vision of what the music could be. I believe everyone did their best to make this thing as successful as it could be. Of course that just makes it all uglier when it does fall apart!

What was your favourite song to perform 'live'? Least fave?

I always enjoyed "It Was Raining" - there is a bass slide that was always fantastic. It was the first song I played (at a lunchtime gig at Graeme's old high school) and my very first note in public was a mistake - a C instead of a G - and I wish I'd repeated that the last time I played it.

I grew to hate "Slow Sad Love Song", simply because it became such a cliché final song in the set - big noisy ending etc and because I had to start it with octave E's, which always sounded crap. Particularly humiliating as it sounds great on the record 'cos its flooded in reverb.

Was never really happy with the bassline in "Gloom Junky" - I'd do that differently now.

What was the best concert you've ever seen? Worst?

Some outstanding ones:
Bird Nest Roys, Oriental, Dunedin 87? They had a great friendly, happy vibe.
Franz Ferdinand, Auckland, 2004, a lot of fun.
Crow, anywhere, anytime. An awesome, compelling band.

Most disappointing - George Clinton, Auckland '05. I was hoping for some funk, didn't think it was funky or even interesting.

What's in your CD player/on your record player right now?

The Saints - "All Fools Day" (it's late Sunday, it doesn't have to be demanding does it?)
Pacifier - "Pacifier" (The band - more properly known as Shihad - don't like it but I thinks it sounds great)
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm

If you could be anywhere in the world right now, doing anything you wish -- where would you be?

In Dunedin co-recording Valve with Stephen Stedman.

Last good...
- book you read: Donna Tartt's The Secret History
- film you saw: Batman Begins!
- concert/show you attended: Interpol in San Francisco, and I really enjoyed local band the Mint Chicks here in Auckland a few months back...

Many thanks to Mike for his time and patience