OPSHOP ARE: Matt Treacy_Guitar Jason Kerrison_Vocals Bobby Kennedy_Drums Tim Skedden_Guitar We'd break into the school hall and set up and jam all day. It was wicked, says Opshop's singer/guitarist Jason Kerrison about his time at the Christchurch Catholic boy's school, St Bedes. The first thing is we had to nick the key off the caretaker who was one of the priests and then we made a copy of it and every Sunday we had free reign of the hall. Kerrisons' partners in crime in those school days were guitarists Matt Treacy and Tim Skedden who are both in Opshop now. But before the five-piece Auckland band got together permanently Kerrison spent many years crafting and playing his songs solo. Eventually he looked to expand his sound and gathered together the band that Opshop are today. In 2002 they signed a recording deal with Siren Records, making them label mates with Goldenhorse. In May 2004 the trio of old schoolmates, along with drummer Bobby Kennedy and bass player Ian Munro, released their debut Opshop album, You Are Here. Kerrison is a storyteller. Be it a story about meeting his fellow band mates at school; to family parties in Invercargill; to abandoning his car in the middle of an intersection because he wanted to talk to Neil and Tim Finn who were walking along the street. I was born in Invercargill says Kerrison wisely. I was brought up in a musical family. My grandmother was always playing music in church, and she was fully involved in church; Mum was a party pianist when there was a party, which was most weekends with my family. Mum would be on the piano jamming out. That doesn't make me a pianist; I'm stink at piano. Dad's a drummer and has been for years and still plays drums and has been in covers bands for years. I shifted to Christchurch after the floods the floods were in 1984, was it? The Invercargill floods? I think so, he remembers. Treacy looks over at his band mate in disbelief and laughs, After the floods. So dramatic aye? In history these floods don't rate a mention. It was a huge change in our lives anyway, laughs Kerrison. Our neighbours were coming past in a row boat, on our street. It was just the weirdest thing, water lapping at our doorstep.So anyway, he says quickly, we moved to Christchurch in 1984 and met Matt at St Bedes a few years later. We were in our first ever band together and it was called Crumb, but no one else seems to remember that, says Kerrison. It was Vivid, protests Treacy jokingly. We basically became a Living Colour covers band. We just loved that album. I still listen to that album to this day, says Kerrison. It's now come full circle for Opshop. Danny Saber, the engineer on Living Colour's 2003 comeback album, Collideøscope, also worked with U2, Bowie, Rolling Stones and more, is the same person who mixed Opshop's debut album in Los Angeles. US producer Brady Blade who subsequently produced Brooke Fraser's What To Do With Daylight album was the man behind the boards while recording at Auckland's York Street Studios. After signing with Siren Records (becoming label mates with Goldenhorse and Ben King) in 2002 they went into York Street Studios the following year to begin the album. Going into record the album'we really had no idea, says Treacy thoughtfully. We had a bunch of songs and we believed the group of songs would find a theme in themselves. When you listen to the lyrics, and the musical content you can get a theme from that. But going into it, and trying to consciously put down a plan and say this is where it has to be and what we have to do we'd say we had little idea what so ever. That's why you pull someone in like Brady. He takes you places you haven't been, he reasons. Kerrison: It's quite challenging. You have certain expectations and you want to fulfil them as a band. What Brady did, I guess the analogy for me, is that it's like a drum skin over a drum. Brady's the guy who s tweaking it here, and stretching us there. So by the end of the record we've stretched ourselves out from what we've previously known ourselves to be. We certainly extended ourselves on certain tracks, and certain vibes on certain tracks Kerrison wrote the song Secrets which ended up being Opshop's second single as a ballad. Now, it's a beefy, ballsy, charging song that never lets up. Blade loved the ballad and was adamant it was the next single but he wanted Kerrison to play it twice the tempo. The look on my face, he pauses. And that's another thing that happened in the studio was the phrase, The face. Every time you were the person under the microscope and Brady's trying out different ideas, stretching your boundaries, and you'd be like, looking at him going, Are you sure man? Are you sure man? And you know, you'd make that face, everyone gets that face.But Treacy is quick to point out that Blade has an amazing ability of not forcing himself on your music which means the band's original intent is retained. He knows that in yourself you'll find it because he trusts you as a musician. The beautiful and honest No Ordinary Thing features Brooke Fraser on piano. The rising star offered to play on the song because Kerrison was having a mare trying to get the piano parts together. I remember distinctly sitting in the control booth and she was tracking that song, he says. It was amazing adds Treacy. It's like watching someone paint, says Kerrison in amazement. In general there's a certain amount of amazement for Opshop that they're actually releasing their debut album because they used to sit around at band practices at St Bedes and talk about doing just this. It's a responsibility, plus it's an accelerating unknown that's like, What are we getting ourselves into here? says Treacy. But really, it comes down to the rocking chair test. We want [an album] to be proud of 30 or 40 years down the track that we can say, This is us.
Check out the artist's website:
http://www.opshopmusic.comTrack List:
1. Behind the Sun
2. Nothing Can Wait
3. Being
4. Saturated
5. Nexus
6. Thrown
7. Secrets
8. Low Tide
9. No Ordinary Thing
10. Breathing Space
11. Awaken
12. Levitate
13. Oxygen
14. Lighter Than Air
15. Hey You
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