A Hand Grenade of Waiata

I had heard of Dillistrate in passing, many moons ago, in my rugged uni days. I knew that they were musical royalty. They’ve been heralded before as legends, ‘musical weapons’ on the kiwi music scene for years. The duo…Henare ‘H’ Kaa and Tim, who had worked together for years and years before Dillistrate. Henare and Tim had both been part of Aaron Tokona’s famed ensemble, AHoriBuzz.

Over their musical tenure, Dillistrate has a dominating musical presence across the board. Numerous songs written by them. They’ve been in the New Zealand Top 20 charts five times, with two commercially successful albums under their belt. The duo has presented time and time again uplifting lyrics through the use of te ao Māori, which has seen their waiata ‘Ko Tātou Te Ahi (produced in collaboration with Tiki Taane) selected as the theme for New Zealand Cricket worldwide. Their bilingual hit ‘Party In My Head (Tāwara Ana)’ and their Waiata Anthems releases ‘Kei Whati Te Marama’, ‘Ko Tātou Te Ahi’ and ‘Taku Aroha’, spent at least 20 weeks in the national RadioScope Te Reo Māori Airplay Top 20.

Creativity is such a complex thing to grapple with for an artist. It can lurk, almost like a dormant hand-grenade, in the back alley-ways of the brain. Listening to ‘Freak’ (featuring KEI) which came out last year, and Dillistrate’s latest single, ‘We Built This World With Aroha’ (set to be launched at the start of February), I was amazed once again by Dillistrate’s soulful vocals.

I wanted to pick at the creativity of their brains, so sat down with Dillistrate and KEI and talked on ‘Freak’ (featuring KEI), their latest single, ‘We Built This World With Aroha’ and what to expect in the future.

How did the song, ‘Freak’ come to be? What was its origin story?
KEI: I’ve been a massive fan of Dillistrate ever since I was younger. The mesh of genres. Artists not fitting in a box has always been a huge inspiration to me. I remember when I first co-wrote the song, I played it to H. I wasn’t fully happy with the song. I think it was missing something, to be honest. Once he heard it, he was like: ‘okay, we gotta work on this.’

For all three of you, I guess your main goal is to connect. It’s important for any artist. How did it feel, for you guys to connect to your audience through the release of ‘Freak’ last year?

HENARE: It always feels great when you put something new, or when you put things back into the ether. I wouldn’t say it’s ‘nerve-racking’, but it’s definitely a release. People know, hopefully, how much work we’ve put into the track. The feedback has been incredible. It’s a great song, and it’s a pleasure working on great, original things.

K: Like H said, it’s an absolute pleasure with any piece of art you put out there. I think with anything, I do get a bit of anxiety around it, based on the reaction of people. Based on what I’ve heard, everyone has been obsessed with it.

TIM: It’s always a terrifying prospect, especially when it’s coming from a place of emotional honesty. There is honesty and anxiety there. Then waiting for a response…I don’t want to speak for the other two, but I overthink everything. There’s a solo bit at the end of the track, and I’m always like: ‘mate, shut up and play a few less notes, honestly’. But I don’t think anyone else is thinking that.

How did you guys first fall in love with music? How did the journey start for you all?
T: Music’s always been in the blood, really. My dad’s a singer, my grandad was a jazz trombonist. It’s always sorta been around the place. I remember getting a toy keyboard when I was four years-old, and I was obsessed! I never put it down. Then I got into music at school and continued to study it alongside H. Then it just ballooned out of control.

H: Yeah, I finished high-school with nothing really to do. But I always had this burning desire to do music. When I met Tim at high-school, it’s just become this turn-pike ever since. It’s been great; the best decision I ever made.

K: My family has always been into music. It’s always been around me, you know. I was obsessed with it at school, made heaps of connections and kept doing it, really. Same with Tim, it just ballooned out of control.

How would you guys describe your music to those who haven’t heard it before?

K: Separate from ‘Freak’, my music is a mash-up of all these genres. I’d grown-up as a jazz singer, but I’ve also done rock-drumming. So, describing my sound, there are lots of inspirations, and different things happening.

T: I think that’s the same with me and H, different from what’s on this track. We come from different places, relatively speaking, with earlier influences. That mash-up of those together is what we do. We just throw it all into the pot and stir it up. Stylistically, there are elements of electronica, rock, hip-hop, dub and reggae. It’s quite a tricky question to give an answer to. But it’s all part of the process. We’re just trying to make this as genuine an expression as we can. We hope people will connect to that honesty.

Talking to Tim and H, Dillistrate is truly kiwi music royalty. In your past work, I really like your linguistic switch into te reo…

T: We get so much from our use of te reo. Artistically, and vocally, there are things you can’t get from normal English. English is very directional, from my perspective. Te reo Māori has something that I’ve always wanted to capture in lyrics, but never had the words. I’m definitely not the mātanga reo of the band…I’m just a student. Our message with Dillistrate is to uplift and illustrate te reo and our way of doing that is through waiata Māori. Mashing English and te reo together normalizes the language as much as we can.

H: It’d always been a thing I wanted to do. It was actually someone else who came up with the idea. They asked if they could translate one of our songs into te reo Māori. It was then that we realized how much meaning it gave the song. And then it charted! Our first song to land on the charts. I was like: ‘oh s**t! First Māori song to land on the ‘white’ charts, how good!’ For Tim and I, it went then to an EP and then an album and the journey led us to this. To globalize te reo. The perception of te reo is out-dated 50-60 years. I think it’ll be waiata Māori that changes that perspective.

Tell me, then, about Dillistrate’s new single, ‘We Built This World With Aroha’…

T: ‘We Built This World’ With Aroha combines multiple elements and areas of inspiration for us as a band. It is an upbeat, joyful waiata with a massive emphasis on major chords throughout, with that constant pulse kick-drum driving it along. The main pattern of the song sounds like a guitar, but to record it we actually used a muted harp (with our sound tech, Jamie, muting the strings while we worked out how to play it) and a piano with the strings mute. That took three people awkwardly crowding around a very small part of the piano to mute the string while I played the part. It’s a waiata with a lot of heart, so it took a lot of heart to put it all together.

What was it that inspired ‘We Built This World With Aroha’s creation?

T: We were driven to write ‘We Built This World’ With Aroha as a celebration of waiata reo Māori and te ao Māori. It’s all about us wanting to build a world together that promotes and celebrates how awesome te ao Māori is. We see our platform as using waiata reo Māori to introduce these ideas to as many people as we possibly can, so that they can see, hear and experience the awesomeness that we have in te ao Māori. We also want to build a world that celebrates and expresses aroha in all its forms. It’s also us calling on our whānau puoro to join us in this mission, and to encourage everybody to engage wherever they can and enhance their own lives in the process.
What would you guys say your creative processes are?

T: Whenever it strikes I’ve gotta act on it right then and there. Or I convince myself that it’s a terrible idea and I shouldn’t do it. There’s connection with nature, friends, family, whānau…all of that contributes to this deep emotional tapestry for writing music. There’s this great quote from Elvis Costello when an interviewer asks him how he writes his songs. His response: ‘a deadline.’ You take all this inspiration from different places, with the rich tapestry of stuff, but you gotta bookend it. I can write, but then not come up with any stuff. That’s where working with others is critical. That’s why H and I work so well together. And why I think [‘Freak’] is such a good track, because we all contributed to it.

H: I think it’s a combination of things, the deadline thing definitely works. Collaboration is another thing. I’m writing all the time. That, coupled with a big bag of weed and we’re ready to go, you know! Joking about the weed; just beers and good friends.

K: I’m a huge procrastinator, so a deadline is what really gives me a kick-up-the-arse. It comes and it goes. My phone is full of voice-memos. Lyrics, melodies, whatever. I just try to capture it as best as I can.

Who would we say are our biggest inspirations?

T: I’ve actually been delving into the windmill scene in the UK. Bands like Black Country, New Road, Squid are utterly bats**t, but interesting. Also I’m really getting into ambient stuff, which makes no sense, with no melodic direction at all. Bit all over the place at the moment.

H: Where do I start? Listened to a lot of Sabrina Carpenter, weirdly. I’m quite a big fan of following the trends. Sorta the same as me wanting to evolve the use of te reo. I just like listening to how other artists evolve their sounds. How their production sounds, and what they’re doing differently. Olivia Dean, even Tay Swiddy/Taylor Swift gets in there too. And of course, gotta represent the OG’s. Prince, Stevie Wonder. And K-Pop is a guilty pleasure.

K: Mine is always changing. I’m the type of person who obsessively listens to a song for a week, until I’m sick of it. If the song sticks around longer, it’s gotta be good. A lot of Raye, Little Simz, Maro.

What does the future look like for you guys?

H: More music! All those trains you gotta jump on as they go past.

T: There’s something we’re inevitably chipping away at. We’re working on a whole bunch of demos. Just taking everything as it comes.