The Questionnaire

Jason Kerrison

Former Opshop frontman Jason Kerrison recently released his debut single and has plans to reunite with the band that made him famous. Interview by

Alexander. Mike What are you plugging right now?

A Wonderful Way – the first single and music video from next year’s solo album, and that the Opshop fellas are reforming for Homegrown 2018.

What’s your idea of perfect happiness?

I tend towards the Eckhart Tolle/Jim Carrey idea of happiness these days, in that it’s not so much about being happier it’s more about dissolving unhappiness through practising things like acceptance and mindful presence. I also really enjoy time with family and friends, music, and being in nature, especially up on The Great Northern Retreat in the Mangamuka mountain range. Special.

Which living person do you most admire?

Elon Musk is a real life Tony Stark (Iron Man)-like character. He wants to make the world a better place and appears to be actually doing it.

What is your most prized material possession?

The flesh I live in. I’ve had my share of minor injuries this year through various forms of training: a broken rib, two broken fingers, a rebroken foot, two black eyes, and I’m nursing a repetitive strain shoulder injury from guitar (rolls eyes). I’ve recently promised myself to look after my human form better but perhaps more importantly I’m nurturing the idea that I don’t have to identify with the body as much as the consciousness that inhabits it. Corporeal impermanence is a thing.

What is the most adventurous thing you have done that has taken you out of your comfort zone at the time?

Acting in a dual role for the Taieri Musical Society’s Grease in Dunedin last year. At one point in the Arena show I was riding a Ghost hoverboard on a dark narrow stage covered in dry ice in the dark with shades on, dressed in a bright blue sequin shirt and a white faux leather jacket, complete with chrome sparkly spiky bits. This is all while singing, remembering choreography and delivering the lines of Beauty School Dropout. That was one out of the box.

What gets your back up?

That some people still actually think I’ve built a biblical-like ark and continue to pursue a line of questioning with the same intellectual rigour and curiosity of the lazy journos that perpetuated the original story.

If you could time travel, where would you go and why?

I’d want to go to visit the Sumer region back around 3800BC. I’m interested in knowing who the ancient Sumerian culture were in contact with to know exactly what it looked like to approach our solar system from outer space. They knew all about the outer planets and counted them from outer to inner, as recorded on the Sumerian tablets. Curious stuff that only the likes of a time machine could satiate.

What life lesson would you pass on to your children?

Circumstances don’t matter, only state of being matters. The greatest gift we have is that life is meaningless. In that everything is a prop and it is us humans who ascribe meaning to absolutely everything. Therefore life is a phantasm and it’s waiting for you to choose how to experience it. Choose wisely.

What job would you do other than your own and why?

I’d like to work in an area that advocated and promoted preparedness for natural disasters or civil emergencies. I’d aim to make Bug Out Bags readily available for every family and every business as part of a government subsidised programme encouraging personal and whanau responsibility and safety in the event of a catastrophe.

If you were given three wishes what would they be?

First: Bug Out Bags at the ready in every home and business in New Zealand for free! Second: That by the end of summer I will have partnered with a like-minded company or individuals to realise a market for the 30,000 plus litres a day of Northland’s best spring water sourced from our Great Northern Retreat. That’d be helpful. Taking all offers. Third: Universal peace, love, and bliss.