Skyscraper Stan is the man
Rmike.alexander@fairfaxmedia.co.nz AFTER a cameo in the touring tribute to David Bowie – Bowie: Waiting In The Sky, ’’Skyscraper’’ Stan Woodhouse returns to New Zealand next month to reacquaint Kiwis with his debut album Last Year’s Tune. WhySkyscraper? I was a really awkward, gangly youth with limbs all over the place working at the Wine Cellar when I started playing music. I had a few nicknames at the time; Oily, Woody, The VB Giant. Skyscraper was the one that stuck. Thankfully.
You are a natural born (no, not killer) songwriter. What do you attribute this to?
I have an appreciation for ‘‘the song’’ as an entity; each one should be a complete being with a beginning, a middle and an end. I’m a great believer in authorial intent, so I struggle with ‘‘stream of consciousness’’ style lyricism which may hamper my efforts to write songs every day, but I think does permit me to deliberate for a long time over what I’m trying to say and how to say it.
Why did you desert New Zealand. What’s wrong with paradise?
The longer I’m away, the more I ask myself that question. I left New Zealand for the same reason many young people do. I was looking for somewhere louder and dirtier and uglier. Which, it turns out, is most of the rest of the world.
Love Last Year’s Tune. Is there any significance behind the title?
The album is named after one of its tracks. I wrote the song Last Year’s Tune one New Year’s morning when I was feeling regret for the things I couldn’t remember doing the night before and having a crisis about my music being derivative. It’s a song about the past and the desire for movement, which are themes that pop up again and again through the album. Also, because it’s a first album, there are songs on there that go back a fair way. There’s even one tune I wrote before I’d moved to Australia. Hence, Last Year’s Tune.
Who are The Commission Flats and have they signed a tenancy agreement with you?
The Commission Flats chop and change a fair bit, but there are mainstays. My younger cousin, Oskar Herbig, pretty much cofronts the band, with me on lead guitar. My long-term base player Martin Schilov is also coming over from Australia for this tour and we’ll be met in Auckland by Corbin Kuhtze (drums), Alice Ryan Williams and Reb Fountain (backing vocals). No tenancy agreement has been signed. I don’t even charge them bond.
Where do you call home and how often do you get to cook a homemade dinner?
I’m itinerant most of the time. At the moment, I’m taking a couple of months off the road, so I’m bouncing between spare bedrooms and couches and kitchen floors – wherever is dry. During the warmer months, I’ve been spending a lot of time in New South Wales where I have my swag and a nice, shiny tarpaulin. As for home cooked dinners, that’s not a problem. Got a little spirit stove and some beans in the back of my Mazda.
Some of your songs are selfevident – Woody Guthrie, Elvis (maybe Bruce) and William Henry Hayes. What inspires you about these characters?
The song Woody Guthrie isn’t really about Woody Guthrie so much. It’s more about wanting to live that selfish rambling kind of life. I wrote it after reading Bound For Glory, which I highly recommend. I’m that irritating egotist at the party who gets on a storytelling rampage. Writing songs about people I’ve met (or read about) gives me a place to tell those stories without ruining Christmas. – Mike Alexander