Singer lays down Antarctic Roots
Warren Maxwell’s new obsession is Antarctica. Sarah Catherall finds he could talk about it forever...
Warren Maxwell always thought of Antarctica as an impossible place to visit – the frozen equivalent of going to Mars or stepping on the moon.
Basking in the sun on Massey University’s Wellington campus, the Trinity Roots frontman and music lecturer tends to be drawn to warmer climes.
But he pushes an Antarctica cap further over his face.
The icy continent is his latest ’’addiction’’, and he grins talking about its impact on his life, having recently returned with photographer Jason O’Hara from a nine-day trip as visiting artists.
The pair travelled to Antarctica for their project, #60shadesofwhite – O’Hara, a senior design lecturer, photographed and took a terabyte of photos and video footage, while Maxwell recorded the sounds which will be the genesis of his first solo album. He is also considering a composition challenge for young musicians, using the sounds of Antarctica, such as a recording of Weddell seals.
As chilled out as the icy continent, Maxwell says: ‘‘Antarctica is the purest place you can imagine. I sincerely feel that Jason and I have become part of the place and have become kaitiaki (guardians).’’
Through their project, the duo hope to be an artistic voice for science. They follow in the path of other artists who have visited before on the Artists to Antarctica Programme – photographer Anne Noble, musician Dave Dobbyn and writers Margaret Mahy and Bill Manhire.
’’I hesitated at first when Jason asked me to join him,’’ says Maxwell, who first met the photographer during a Trinity Roots photoshoot. ‘‘I didn’t want to waste the seat. It’s a big responsibility and quite a privilege to go there.’’
Never on his wish list, Maxwell says: ’’It was always so crazy to think that you could visit it. Kaitaia and Sydney, yeah, but not Antarctica.
‘‘Now, however, I’m obsessed. Usually when I get a question, ‘How was a gig, or how was a tour?’ I tune off. But I could talk about it forever.’’
Was Antarctica what he expected? ‘‘More. Those Royal Society mountains – they’re gobsmackingly beautiful,’’ he says, sucking in his breath. ‘‘Purity, it’s the way I describe it. It just left me breathless.’’
From the day they stepped off the Air Force plane, Maxwell began recording the sounds he heard – the cracking and creaking of ice as they walked across it, the interviews with scientists, divers and workers at Scott Base, along with the sounds made by Weddell seals swimming beneath the ice, recorded when the pair dangled a GoPro down a hole.
‘‘The ice changes pitch every time you walk, depending on the thickness. These Weddell seals were like bird songs. It was like an alien psychedelic forest. It was really synthesising, but all from nature.’’
Travelling to the Ross Sea, they spent the night in arctic tents. Wrapped in layers of sleeping bags, melting ice dripped on their faces as they slept. ’’The ice was two metres thick. You can hear it cracking,’’ Maxwell says, mimicking the sounds.
Maxwell thinks he has five years of inspiration. ’’I haven’t released any solo material before, so an album from it would be cool.’’
During their trip, the musician played a gig to New Zealanders at Scott Base, and he was then invited to play at the American station’s McMurdo Bar one night.
Outside O’Hara’s university office, a wall is covered with rows of photographs. Some are of Maxwell or a lone penguin far off in the distance, a speck in the whiteness, huge icebergs towering like white ocean liners. O’Hara has been drawn to Antarctica since he pored over National Geographics as a child. Proudest of a row of black-and-white photographs, the shots inside Scott’s Hut reveal what he saw in the darkness, objects spotlit by a headlamp.
‘‘I don’t want to photograph what the camera sees, I want to show you what I see. Is it cold? Is it ominous? is it dark?’’
But to record so much footage, there were photographic challenges. Antarctica in October is vividly bright for 22 hours and O’Hara often ventured out into the midnight sun, snapping between midnight and 2am. It was so cold, often minus 20 degrees and below, that he covered his camera with tape to protect it – although the lens still froze at times. ’’It was so cold that it hurt,’’ he recalls.
‘‘There will be a bunch of outputs from photograph exhibitions, video and music and I’m getting more excited about what we can do together,’’ says O’Hara. ‘‘We don’t want to do what has been done before. We want to show what it feels like to be there. The work is emotively driven.’’
Asenior lecturer at the School of Design, O’Hara first revealed the realities of remote and fragile lands when he visited the Kermadec Islands with eight artists in 2011, a trip that resulted in an exhibition.
The Antarctica trip made the father-of-three even more aware of the gap between people and nature. ‘‘There is a perception that scientists and governments will fix climate change when in fact we have a collective responsibility.
‘‘In Antarctica, you never forget that nature is in charge. There is just a thin green line – a giant fridge door – between you and an environment that could kill you if you aren’t prepared.
‘‘Just outside the door of Scott Base, there’s nature, at full force. That barrier is so thin, and nature is so much more aggressive down there. You go out the door, you have to sign out, you have to take a radio, you put all these layers of clothing on.’’
Wearing a Nuclear Free New Zealand T-shirt, Maxwell has always been concerned about the climate, and the environment, but those worries have become even more acute.
‘‘While we were there, we had to stop and take five, we had to think and be careful. Everything slows down a bit.
‘‘It was so different to this busy Western lifestyle – ‘I’ve only got half-an-hour’, and everything is crammed in.
‘‘I love that down there, that everything is around Mother Nature. She’s in charge. It’s not all about us humans.’’
❚ Warren Maxwell will join the Marley All Stars for concerts at Kerikeri’s Kainui Road Vineyard (February 17) and the Hamilton Gardens (February 18), before being one of the headliners at the 2017 Coastella Festival on the Kapiti Coast on February 25. For information, see eventfinda.co.nz