Che Fu interview, 2001

Che Fu in 2001 - photo by Gary Brandon. The pic on
his shirt is Che as a baby with his dad, Tigi Ness

Che - Sidestepping The Sophomore Slump
By Mark Bell,  NZ Musician vol 9 no7 Aug/sep 2001


There's a tendency in the music press to put a successful artist's so called 'sophomore album', the all-important second one, under the critical microscope. A tendency to search, with something approaching relish, for indicators of waning songwriting prowess, a weakening grip on the flair and originality that brought on the initial rush of success.

It should be remembered that a songwriter has their whole life to accumulate the material for a debut album, but may only get a year to record the follow-up.

"He's a one trick pony!", "The Emperor has no clothes!" they look to shriek.

In short, critics display what may fairly be described as a closeted desire to take the sophomore album down a peg or two. And so we have Che (the former Che Fu) stepping up to the 'difficult second album' plate. If he's worried about the reception he's in for, he certainly doesn't show it. His air of calm confidence is based not only on the exceptional commercial and critical success he's enjoyed so far, from Supergroove through the hit DLT collaboration Chains to his platinum-selling solo debut '2 B Spacific', but also on the knowledge that he's come up with another cracker - with his integrity intact.

Far from dredging around in the bottom of the barrel, Che gives the impression that he's only just getting into his stride. He's not trying to re-invent the wheel here, just playing to his strengths - sweet soulful vocals, stripped back production, reggae tinges, hip hop beats and heart-felt raps. He refers to the new work as "sequential", which crystallises quite nicely where it sits in his body of work.

I meet Che in his home studio, a tiny shed nestled out the back of a suburban house in Auckland's Western Springs. The most prominent feature of his set-up other than his two gleaming turntables, is a brand spanking G4 loaded up with Pro Tools 001, courtesy of new label Sony Music's sublime policy of fitting out their artists with top-line tools to hone their craft.

I'm quietly thankful for a Sony boo-boo, whereby I got to hear the un-mixed album before returning it to a red-faced promotions manager. This does not usually happen, but it sure helps in asking album-specific questions!

My first impression is of an album with one foot in the digital domain and one firmly planted in the organic/human camp.

"I'm so happy that that's the first thing you say man," enthuses Che. "That's pretty much the aesthetic crux of it. Musically that's what I'm after."

Looks like we're off to a good start. So was there was a lot of agonising and sifting to get the final tracklist?

"That's probably one of the reasons why the album was a little bit long coming this year," he says, "mainly because I was trying to get the right 12 or 13 songs. Since the last album I've written quite a few songs, but this year I was still after that particular 12 or so that really fit together. I like to do the concept album thing, do it in one concise piece so it's more flowing."

Recording did not get off to a particularly auspicious start due to a misunderstanding with Outback Studios, a primarily film post-production studio that was originally slated for the recording. A new alternative had to be found quickly, Revolver Studios and in-house engineer Neil Baldock coming to the rescue at the eleventh hour.

"I didn't think he (Neil) would be around to do the record and I was quite surprised he was actually in town to do it. He did have some work set up, but he basically said that he'd like to stay back in New Zealand and do my record. I was keen and so we kicked it off at Revolver."

With the new Pro Tools set-up Che was able to work up the material with the assistance of his very hot band (now called Crate, in reference to the DJ's box of vinyl goodies), meaning that time spent in the dollar-chewing big studio environment could be kept to a minimum.

"Basically most of it was pretty much done in pre-production here," he says. "I set out the basic recipe before I headed in there, still with the mind that there could be a bit more magic added in the studio. There's probably about two or three songs which I had in that sort of bag, but the other nine I was pretty sure of, because the record is pretty much 50/50 the traditional style of basslines, keys, guitars and melodies and the other 50% are samples."

The arrangements, while admittedly unmixed at the time, share the now trademark Che style of economy, clarity and groove. I ask Che if he layers the compositions, then strips them back to the pivotal elements that end up in the final mix.

"Some songs start out with a really sort of concise idea and other songs - there is no formal plan of attack. The song grows how it does whether it's from the bassline or a keyboard line or a word. But overall when I record I do spend a long time taking stuff out to try and get as much headroom as I can, to try and leave the least amount, that's what I like to do."

With a successful solo album already under his belt, I ask if there was anything he learnt last time which caused him to take a different approach to recording the new material.

"Yeah, this time around I've been a lot more hands-on on the sonic side of things. I've put up my hand and have really thrown myself into the more technical side, the engineering side of things. I've spent the last three years learning various programmes and samplers, just to try and get a grasp on that sort of thing and to try and interpret other people less and go straight to the desk myself. Basically to articulate myself a lot better through the machinery rather than working through someone else. You also lose something in the translation. I bring it back to having the gear at home."

He makes a nice analogy here: "It's like I've got the map, rather than telling someone else how to lead me."

Working with the new band - Chip Mathews on bass; Godfrey De Grut (ex-The New Loungehead) on keyboards, sax and flute; Paul Russell (ex-Supergroove) on drums, Brain Taite (Twelve Tribes of Israel) on guitar; DJ P Money (NZM Feb/March cover boy) on the turnies and James Levi running samples - involved collaborating with the players at the most formative stages of a song's development.

Che explains his rationale for this: "Musically I've been collaborating a lot with the band. Initially I will come up with the crux of the idea, and then I'll throw it over to the band and bounce it off them, depending on their different areas. Like with the bass player - I'll have this idea and I'll go 'Do you think this is stink? Do you reckon this will work?' It's been really good with Chip and Godfrey and Brian Taite because it's basically a new line-up and writing songs together is a good way to get the band cohesion happening.

"Initially we'd go out and gig and we'd just play the first album, and as far as the live thing for me, there was still a bit of a feeling that the band was playing covers of stuff that they didn't originally play on. So I really wanted to make a strong point of writing songs with the band so that when we go out, there was that natural feeling in there."

Completing the line-up under the wider network of collaborators that Che refers to as 'The Village' are rapping off-siders Ras Daan, Phatmospheric and new addition Hazaduz, whose contributions, some of them in Maori, prove that New Zealand rap has finally found its own unique voice. Che speaks with enthusiasm of the burgeoning hip hop scene nationwide, particularly self-help organisations like Dawn Raid which foster and develop new talent that would otherwise go un-noticed by the multi-nationals.

However, on the general state of well-being of the New Zealand music industry he has this to say: "No, I don't think it's healthy. Healthier, and getting a lot better. It would be cool to have a quota in, but we shouldn't have to have a quota. I mean the reality of the situation is a lot of the commercial stations won't play New Zealand music unless we have a quota. I would like to see a lot more support in that way, because I feel to just put it on the local roster for that token thing, they don't really push it. It sucks when you know there's international label-mates who get really good promotion and seem to over-ride that particular label's local roster. That doesn't seem right to me."

Sage words indeed. Yet as long as we have artists with the talent and integrity of Che making records, we may yet look forward to the day when token radio play is a thing of the past.

Che's Studio Gear
Pro Tools 001
G4 computer
Akai Sampler
Eight-channel Allen & Heath mixing desk
2 x Vestax Quartz Direct Drive SL1200 MK2 turntables
Vestax PMC 05 Pro 2 mixing controller
Korg electric piano
DAE 8 channel analogue/digital converter