Kerrison and the return of Opshop
Frontman Jason Kerrison talks to Dani McDonald about how his five-year hiatus exploring ancient geometry has helped him learn new ways to write songs.
Ask multi-platinum award winning artist Jason Kerrison what he’s been up to over the past five years, and he’ll tell you he’s been growing his hair long, getting his nails done and getting buff at the gym. He hasn’t been doing any of those.
Then he’ll offer some off-thecuff rant about slacking off and and twiddling his fingers and waiting for the next gig to come along.
But Kerrison’s music has gone platinum nine times, he’s won nine New Zealand Music Awards, an APRA Silver Scroll Award for Song of the Year and he was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for Services to Music in 2011.
So what’s he really been doing since his band, Opshop, went on a hiatus in 2013?
He’s (really) been on an ‘‘exploration’’ of music.
In the past Kerrison has confessed that he wasn’t a good musician. It was his voice that built his music career, with the aid of his bandmates Bobby Kennedy (drums), Matt Treacy (lead guitar), and Clint Harris (bass guitar).
‘‘One of the reasons was it just felt good to give it a rest and park it,’’ he said.
‘‘I just felt like we were going through the same process and doing the same thing over and over again.
‘‘I didn’t feel like I was contributing too much. I didn’t feel like we were moving forward and I just felt like I had to go away and work out my own sh.. for a while and try some new things.’’
Two EPs (and one Ted Talk in Christchurch) later and he can say he did just that.
A key figure behind the TV reality show New Zealand’s Got Talent, Kerrison was on an artistic voyage into philosophy and mathematics, and how to merge those into his music.
His first creation was #JKEP1, released in March 2015, a five-song EP exploring soft synth and producing a very pop music sound.
The second, #JKEP2, was written using sacred geometry, Kerrison explains.
The Golden Ratio is a number equalling about 1.618, written with the Greek letter Phi.
Greek mathematician Euclid, who was considered the ‘‘father of geometry’’, talked about the Golden Ratio in his book Elements, from 300BC.
Italian mathematician Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli, who worked with Leonardo Da Vinci, also referred to it in his works.
And last year, Kerrison’s second released EP also used this ‘‘sacred geometry’’.
The first song, he explains, is 30 seconds long. He then multiplies that by Phi, giving him a second track of 49 seconds duration and so on until the final song plays for about nine minutes.
‘‘Which is a real f ...... mission, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone,’’ Kerrison says.
And yet he is fascinated by the subject.
‘‘I had to do that to find out what the experience was like as a producer and listener,’’ he said.
‘‘I don’t know if I would do it again, but just in terms of exploring that notion, I had a really good time doing that.’’
As well as exploring rhythm and and lengths Kerrison also experimented with tuning of the guitar from 440hz to 432hz.
For those of us who aren’t musicians, A, is tuned to 440hz and all of the keys thereafter are tuned in relation to that first note.
Some argue, that the note A should be re-tuned to 432hz because, as Kerrison’s explains, ‘‘you get to hear all the harmonics the way they are supposed to be heard.
‘‘When I tuned my guitar from
440hz to 432hz and played a chord on it, I was like, f... me that is just like hearing my guitar for the first time or something,’’ he says.
‘‘You get a sense of this instrument opening up and being able to breathe for the first time.
He performed the #JKEP2 at Christchurch’s Ted Talk, for the theme talk: thinking differently.
‘‘I wanted to know how we could take a commercial framework and flip that on its head, not just the music itself but also the tuning of the instruments and how they might relate to sacred geometry. I’m really into that,’’ Kerrison said.
‘‘What would the experience be for the listener, let alone the person producing it to have a geometric sequence in terms of the listening experience?’’
His EPs are an on-going project, something he plans to ‘‘tinker away’’ on in the background.
‘‘Much like a visual artist might do sketches before they do the main preposition of a piece of art, it’s kind of like that for me – it’s a bit more explorative’’.
Remember when Kerrison built his ark, a Northland bolthole prepared for any potential apocalypse when the Mayan calendar ended in 2012?
He copped flak for it at the time, but now his ‘‘resilient home’’ is about to turn into a lifestyle business. So not only has he been exploring sacred geometry, he’s also been carving roads into his
141-hectare paradise in Kaitaia, and flying helicopters.
He hopes to leave his current home in Auckland to fully immerse himself into the lifestyle block by April.
The Great Northern Retreat will have Air BnB-styled rentals with the opportunity for visitors to meditate and practice Wing Chan, the martial art made famous by Bruce Lee. Kerrison has been training in the art since he was 14.
He envisions backpackers working the organic farm with the retreat up and running after this summer.
‘‘I don’t mind saying I f--- love it. I love the idea of it, it’s such a a beautiful space, it’s pristine New Zealand. I’m very lucky to have it,’’he says.
The time away from the bustle of Auckland might also give the Invercargill-born lad a chance to write some songs for the reformation of Opshop, a skill he feels he has never really mastered, despite having won a multitude of awards for it.
‘‘I’ve got no one particular method,’’ he says.
‘‘The way I see it, and the analogy I’ve used for years is, it’s like firing a flare into the darkness and it illuminates everything just long enough that it burns an impression into your retina and then everything goes black and then you’ve got to try to make sense of all the shapes and things you didn’t quite see.
‘‘It’s a bit illusory and you have to try to make something out of it.
‘‘You’re like, OK I’m going to pull some rabbits out of a hat. That’s how I feel, like literally make some magic.’’
He’s just released his latest track, A Wonderful Way, written about a girl who doesn’t carry any ‘‘grime around’’.
‘‘We could all do with that, so I just tried to put that into a song – I thought would be really nice.
The video was filmed on Wellington’s Oriental Parade. Kerrison said it’s probably one of his favourite videos.
Opshop will return at next year’s Homegrown Festival on Wellington’s waterfront after announcing their hiatus at that same place in 2013.
In those five years the rest of the band has gone on to have families and forge careers.
Kerrison said he went back to listen to a few of the old favourites, including No Ordinary Thing, All I Ask and a couple of live shows.
‘‘I was reminiscing actually, I was really excited about how good we were,’’ he said.
Despite passing some ‘‘good moments’’, as he calls it, he says he was never caught up in the success or the skill of Opshop and its songs.
‘‘You just turn up to work and do the job right,’’ he says.
‘‘Its nice to get some perspective and come back and go, s-- actually, bro, we were pretty f---- good back in the day.’’
How long the comeback lasts is undecided. ‘‘Nothing is ever permanent is it, in the scheme of things?
‘‘I think the fact that the boys are already talking about writing something new is an indicator that we’re hungry,and that excites me because we weren’t hungry when we left it, that was partially the reason we had to walk away.’’
"You get a sense of this instrument opening up and being able to breathe for the first time." Jason Kerrison