Mikey’s back with the band! The irrepressible DJ and TV star says he has no regrets... well, a few (particularly those parking tickets). Interview by
Steve Kilgallon.
Mikey Havoc’s brow is beaded with sweat. In a couple of hours, Havoc and his band, Push Push, will play their first gig together in 24 years. His phone trills with texts and calls about the guest list, and Havoc is struggling to sit still and concentrate on the conversation. ‘‘I am f ...... excited about tonight,’’ he says, sitting alongside the stage at Burger Fuel’s corporate headquarters, where Push Push will play this intimate comeback showcase.
‘‘I am feeling...’’ He tails off, and exhales. ‘‘I feel in a bit of a mental haze.’’
In the years since Push Push opened for AC/DC at Mt Smart, had their three top-10 singles and an album that reached No 3, Havoc has presented radio shows, conceived madcap television, and done a bit of acting. But right now, it feels like we’re in 1991 again, Havoc still signing on and driving a Mk 1 Escort, relentlessly touring down the country in an old Bongo van and staying in s...box hotels. Did they make any money? ‘‘Shit no.’’
For two decades after Push Push split, its five members never found themselves in the same room together. Havoc – who was then just Michael Roberts – and bassist Steve Aplanalp met when they were 5; they collected guitarist Andy Kane and drummer Scott Cortese as 11-year-olds at Rangitoto College; guitarist ‘‘Silver’’ a little later. It was Aplanalp who first mooted some sort of reunion about three years ago. Havoc, at first cautious, was surprised how much fun it was. For a long time, he says, he had avoided that chapter of his life.
‘‘I didn’t listen to the album [A Trillion Shades of Happy, 1992] for 10 years, not once. I was really worried I would listen to it and be embarrassed by it, or annoyed at the production, or think the lyrics were dickish... when I did listen to it after all that time, I thought ‘this is awesome, I don’t care if anyone else in the world likes it, this is really cool’.’’
Energised, he began talking to people who said Push Push’s music defined their youth, or that a particular guitar solo was the best they’d ever heard, that Song 27 was the greatest slice of music ever. It evokes what must have been a powerful youthful ambition. There was, Havoc says, this thing then of being considered ‘‘not bad for a New Zealand band’’. He wanted more, to be a ‘‘proper going concern’’. The others wanted to move permanently to Australia, and he didn’t: he thought they would get submerged into the Aussie pub rock scene and that their prospects were better trying to make it from home. ‘‘But maybe that’s what I told myself. Maybe I was scared to leave home. But I do love this country and it does have a lot to offer.’’
It has, despite the zeniths and nadirs