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Barry Saunders — new solo album Zodiac

“The country thing was a place where I found a voice really,” says Barry Saunders, frontman for iconic Kiwi country act The Warratahs, who has just released his fifth solo album, Zodiac. “It’s music from my early childhood, and music that my parents played all the time. It was the way I wanted to talk in song.”

As with his previous solo album Red Morning, it’s produced by David Long of Muttonbirds/Six Volts fame. Long looked outside Saunders’ usual musical contacts to gather a fresh rhythm section for the recording.

“I’d never met any of them before,” says Saunders, “David said he wanted to put together a very different band, I said okay and that’s what he came up with. It felt good right from the start.” Backing musicians include drummer Craig Terris (Cassette), bassist Jules Desmond (D-Super, Letterbox Lambs) and keyboardist Steve Gallagher. “They are great players,” he says, “They really give it some energy and personality.”

David Long provides most of the guitar work, including guitars, lap steel, banjo and mandolin. Other guests on Zodiac include Caroline Easther (The Chills, Let’s Planet), Phoenix Foundation’s Samuel Flynn Scott, Cassette’s Tom Watson and The Warratahs’ violinist Nik Brown.

First single “Here Comes Tomorrow” is earthy folk-rock, along the lines of Paul Kelly. “Still No Word From You” has the minor key edge of a traditional country song, painting a picture of a dark, almost mythical landscape. And “All Day Bay” leans very much towards Irish folk, revealing his family’s Northern Irish roots and his early career as a young player touring the UK in an Irish band.

That’s not his only musical influence — Saunders is happy to reminisce about the Christchurch R&B scene in the 1960s, where Chants R&B led a movement that paralleled the British blues explosion. “Apart from the Chants, the first time I got completely flattened by a gig was seeing Muddy Waters at the Christchurch Town Hall. I saw him when he was really in his stride, shortly after the Rolling Stones found him at Chess Records.”

Saunders says he’s always been a big fan of The Shadows, which may explain why there’s usually an instrumental included on his albums. But the instrumental on Zodiac, “Dark Star”, originally had words. “I wrote it much earlier but I just took the words off. I love instrumentals, I like playing them because they’re a break for my voice yet they’re a voice of their own. It’s the same thing as with classical music — it throws up a picture and you can get inside and walk around it. It also gives me a bit of a chance to just play guitar — I’m not great shakes on the guitar but I like playing it. It’s funny what comes through as you get older — stuff comes through that you forgot was even there. It’s probably my Hank Marvin thing from when I was younger.”

He also covers the Phoenix Foundation’s breakthrough song “Going Fishing”, offering a whole new musical interpretation. “It sort of got in my head and I couldn’t get it out,” he says. “Every few years a song does that to me; I really enjoyed singing it. Sometimes I really like to be a singer, without it being my song. I think it’s the most beautiful love song. I just love the ‘I’m done with all this thinking’ line, especially coming from a guy who thinks way too much.”

“I suppose you’re a product of how and where you grew up,” says Saunders. “I grew up in the country and that’s always been my thread. I have made a conscious effort to move away from it at times but it just keeps coming back. I think it’s just the way it’s meant to be.”

Video: Barry Saunders — “Here Comes Tomorrow”