The two volumes of New Zealand Musicians in Australia 1959 – 1976 give readers insights into the ways musicians (and bands), who came from New Zealand during the years 1959 – 1976 more than pulled their weight as they contributed to Australian pop and rock.
The musicians, recording engineers and the band featured in Volume One are those who have had long careers here. Some of them now in their 70s and 80s continue to perform in Australia. Volume Two covers New Zealand musicians and bands who had short careers in Australia and includes a section about background people (like Kiwi producers, Kiwi promoters) who also worked in the music industry here.
The two volumes are sold as a pair (and shrink wrapped together).
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Below are 4 snippets of text from the Max Merritt profile in Volume One.
At the interview for the Tommy Adderley biography Max talked about doing tours when Tommy was part of a tour, about how after doing the same show night after night it got quite boring. “So we used to play pranks on one another. I was singing a ballad one night and Tommy came out in a pair of overalls and started sweeping the stage around me while I was singing. It was very hard to keep a straight face and make out it wasn’t happening. The crowd was breaking up.”
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From 1965 Max and the band were based in Sydney. At one stage Max lost half his band to Billy Thorpe when Teddy Toi and Johnny Dick were persuaded to join the Aztecs. Though not often mentioned Max lost his girlfriend Jackie Holme to Billy too. Jackie had been Max’s girlfriend from their days back in Auckland. She was the model who ran the Casual Shop in that harbour city, the person who gave Dinah Lee her distinctive haircut and sold Dinah all the mod clothes she wore.
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In the era when bands were often contracted to be the house band on a cruise Max and the Meteors also did one. This was when the line-up was Max, Billy Kristian (b), Bruno Lawrence (d) and Pete Williams (g). Their cruise on the Orsova was ill-fated. Billy and Bruno had a fight on the ship which ended their time in the band. Pete had given notice too, but he was content to stay until Max had built up a new band. For the return trip from Auckland to Sydney Max played drums.
Once again Max needed to re-build the band. The next line-up was Max, Yuk Harrison (b), Bob Bertles (sax) and drummer Stewie Speers. Over the life of the Meteors, Max had a number of musicians with a jazz background in the Meteors, like Bruno and Stewie and sax-man Bob.
They re-located to Melbourne in 1967. In June that year on the way to a gig in Morwell they were involved in a head-on accident. The three in the front sustained significant injuries requiring time to recover. Max, who had been driving lost an eye.
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During 1970 featuring an altered line-up (with Dave Russell on bass in the spot where Yuk had been) the band moved to the UK. In London they appeared at venues like the Nashville Room near Earls Court and lots of Kiwis and Aussies helped make up their audiences.
The band returned to perform at the first Sunbury music festival in January 1972. While the festival was on Melbourne music guru Molly Meldrum interviewed Max and Billy Thorpe. Max, sporting lots of hair, raved about the festival’s atmosphere saying it had a really good feel to it. When they chatted about working overseas, Max said you had to be prepared to persevere for at least a year, needed to work at becoming known in a new location. By that stage he had moved base with the Meteors 4 times.
Things were tough. They were the wrong band in the UK at the wrong time. Not surprisingly work there dried up, as did the money, so in mid-1973 Max needed to wind the Meteors up short-term. At times during 1974 in the UK he was back in a manual job just like he had done all those years earlier when he worked for his father. He told Juke a few years later that in order to support himself, his wife and kids he worked in a timber yard for 6 months. However late that year, he formed another version of the band, which included Stewie (after he’d completed a tour with Alex Korner). This new line-up had keyboards, delivering a different sound from the Meteors.