RIP Roger Perry

Roger Perry at Box Photo: Brigid Grigg-Eyley.

From NZ Herald:

"Roger Perry. 2 July 1966 - 5 June 2026. Rest in Love our brother. Lauren, Jackson and families are grateful for the outpouring of love and respect for Roger from so many friends here and around the world. Your arohanui means so much to us. An Aotearoa DJ music legend taken too soon.

"The family are respecting Roger's wish to not have a funeral service, after the very recent losses of both our parents, Gwenyth (13 March) and David (20 May) Perry. We support his many friends wish to have a celebration at a later date."

Audioculture via Facebook, 6 June 2026; "If you went out clubbing in Auckland in the 80s to 2000s, you knew Roger Perry. Roger was, for some three decades, one of the kings of the Auckland dancefloor, the DJ who other DJs looked up to and were inspired by. Sadly, we lost Roger yesterday. 

Roger was more than just a DJ, though. In the 1980s, he actively and successfully worked towards integrating our nightlife, moving venues away from the days when brown faces were turned away at many places. He was a primary reason inner-city venues so embraced Pacifika in the 1990s.

He also broke new music repeatedly - he was the first to play house music in Aotearoa and mixed local music into the mix, championing bands like The Chills and Ardijah on the dancefloor. 

His earliest recordings were with the Headless Chickens, with whom he toured. He and Grant Fell ushered in a new era of multimedia dance parties. He worked with DLT, Slave, Otis, and Dubhead [as Stylee Crew] on some of our early sound systems. 

Teaming up with Joost Langeveld and others, he helped usher in a new era of local electronic and house music through their Reliable Recordings label. His 2001 CD, bpmmix02, was a number one album on the compilation charts. 

There's so much more, and our profile of Roger will be published over the next week or two, but in the interim, enjoy our Ten trailblazing Auckland dance parties and promoters story, which features Roger heavily."

That photo at the top of Roger at Box has a flyer for a gig he was involved with running, called Raze The Roof (see photos of it on Audioculture, by Byran Murphy). Held at the Powerstation in 1989, our band Hallelujah Picassos got on the bill. Zoom in on the flyer - they mis-spelled Roger's first name, hehe.

Russell Brown writes: 'On the stage that night were a young Hallelujah Picassos, who had begun the year as the Rattlesnakes, then adopted the new name as their music evolved. Guitarist Peter McLennan recalls it as a time when the borders between band scene and the clubbing world were more porous than they are now.

Hallelujah Picassos – Tony de Raad, Bobbylon and Roland. - Brian Murphy

“We had some good connections in the Auckland club scene, from going out dancing a lot, and just hanging out. It was the best way to hear new music, whether that was rap, funk, electro, whatever. High Street was a fun place to be. You could wander up and down the street, in and out of bars and clubs – De Brett’s, Bob Bar, Escape, Alfie’s, Siren and later Celebre/Box – then go have breakfast at Rosinis, which was open 24 hours at the weekends.

“So there was a lot of cross pollination in the scene. Plus, the 1987 crash had left a lot of office and warehouse space empty, so people were living all over the inner city and having parties with DJs and bands. It was a fun time!”

'There was a particular connection with dance music for the Picassos. Singer Roland (aka Harold) Rorschach and the band’s then-bass player Tony de Raad (later in David Kilgour’s Heavy Eights) had both come to Auckland from Whakatane at the same time as their friend, whose name would become synonymous with Auckland clubland: DJ Roger Perry.

'Perry was playing that night too – and amid the mash-up of genres, he was playing house music. One of the photographs here shows him playing two big tunes of the time: Joe Smooth’s ‘Promised Land’ and Inner City’s ‘Good Life’.

More:

Box and Cause Celebre: two clubs that changed Auckland nightlife - RNZ, Tony Stamp -  2023

21 records, for Roger Perry - by Simon Grigg

The Stylee Crew (later known as 37 Degrees). Clockwise from top left: DLT, Roger Perry, Stinky Jim, Dubhead, Slowdeck. - Photo by Darryl Ward.