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When it comes to phoned interviews, You can’t get any more real than talking to a Louisiana-born legend of swamp-pop. Warren Storm is 73 and has been playing drums and singing soulful vocals since the 1950s.

Back in 1958, his version of the old country tune “Prisoner’s Song” and its flip-side “Mama Mama Mama (Look What Your Little Boy’s Done)” met with chart success, selling a quarter of a million copies.

[Keep reading for the chance to win tickets to Lil' Band O' Gold... UPDATE: passes all gone now, Congrats to winners and thanks to those who emailed]

Right now though, Storm is at home in the Cajun cultural capital of Lafayette, Louisiana, where he and his wife are getting ready to clean some shrimp for dinner. The shrimp has been harvested from the Gulf of Mexico, but Storm assures me that it’s all good where they got it. “And,” he claims, “Hurricane Harriet is the best cook in Louisiana.”

Storm divides his time between his own band and swamp-pop supergroup Lil’ Band O’ Gold, who are visiting New Zealand in late September to play shows in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. It’s a followup tour after the group’s successful trip to the Byron Bay Blues Festival in Australia earlier in the year.

“It’s a great thrill for us to be going out there to Australia and New Zealand. It was a thrill to play at Byron Bay, we didn’t expect the people to enjoy our music like they did. It’s hard to believe you can take your music to another country and they love it there.”

Swamp-pop is essentially a blend of Cajun and Rhythm and Blues music, something Storm once described as “White guys, singing Black music, damn good”.

“What’s great about it,” he says, “it has got a beat and folks can dance to it. They can listen to it and they can dance to it. Everyone in Lil Band O’ Gold has their own band and we just get together for this special occasion. And when we do that, it’s like magic, you know. Lil Band O’ Gold is special.”

Warren Storm sure knows special. He was school buddies with songwriter Bobby Charles, who died earlier this year. In their youth, the pair made regular visits from their hometown of Abbeville to New Orleans to see Fats Domino and others play. It was a huge inspiration for both young men.

“We grew up together, went to school together, me and Bobby Charles,” he says, “and I was with him when he wrote all those hits. We’d go to New Orleans to see Fats Domino. Some of his band members would play after hours, you know. It’s unbelievable when I think back to how it was, it was the greatest experience. Now when we look back to the fifties, it’s more special than we thought. It was like a dream, man.”

Charles would write hits for Fats Domino and others, including the classics “Walking To New Orleans” and “See You Later Alligator”, later a hit for Bill Haley and the Comets. As for Storm, he fell in love with the style of Fats Domino’s drummer Charlie “Hungry” Williams and formed his own band the We-Wows, which was followed by the Jive Masters and many others.

Storm played on most of his own singles — he says he’s played drums “for all my life” — and was a renowned studio drummer on many blues sessions. These days he tends to forgo the drum seat to stand at the mic and sing. “Now that I’m older it’s hard,” he says, “but for this special occasion I’ll do it.”

Lil’ Band O’ Gold has released two albums – the latest, The Promised Land, has a song by Bobby Charles called “I Don’t Wanna Know”. “It’s one of my all time favourite songs. It’s about a guy who fell in love with a chick in New Orleans. He doesn’t wanna go because he might see her face. It’s hard for me to sing because I love New Orleans, I’ve been doing the jazz fest for 12-14 years, something like that. Every year.”

While Storm is a genuine music legend, performing outside the USA is still a novelty and he says he’s really looking forward to playing in New Zealand. “This is gonna be a thrill,” says Storm. “I wish I’d done this when I was 30 years old, not 73. But I’m gonna enjoy it anyway, it’s gonna make me feel young again.”

Lil’ Band O’ Gold is playing four NZ shows — Thursday 23 September at Refuel, Dunedin; Friday 24 September at Al’s bar, Christchurch; Saturday 25 September at San Francisco Bath House, Wellington; and Sunday 26 September at the Kings Arms in Auckland. Tickets from Ticketmaster & Real Groovy (Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland) & Marbecks (Dunedin)

To enter the draw to win a double pass to one of the shows — that’s Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch or Dunedin — write to us at [UPDATE: passes all gone now, congrats to winners and thanks to those who emailed] with “Lil’ Band O’ Gold” in the subject line and specify which show. We’ll be drawing the winners this time next week. In the meantime, here’s some footage of Lil’ Band O’ Gold, filmed at the Louisiana JazzFest.

Video: Lil’ Band O’ Gold