“It’s the easiest thing I’ve done”: how a rock star daddy wrote his debut album at age 72 | Pop and rock



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NOTEpotism in the music industry is nothing new, but using your connections to secure a contract with your father is certainly a much rarer occurrence. However, that’s exactly what Connan Mockasin did for his new album It’s Just Wind. The New Zealand musician, whose solo work is best described by the title of his 2013 psych-pop album Caramel – gooey, sweet and chewy – had long planned to make an album with his father, Ade, but a bout of his father’s ill health concentrated him.

“He almost died from sudden cardiac arrest,” says Connan. “We got a call to come home for a funeral because he was down for a very long time.”

While Ade was recovering, Connan encountered a psychic at a music festival who gave him a reading. “She said that my father had had a serious health crisis and that there was a project I would like to do with him,” he recalls. “She suggested that I make it my priority or I would regret it. It gave me goosebumps. “

The result is an experimental, largely improvised and moving album on which the English Ade, 72, tells the story of a “young man who emigrated to New Zealand and who does not really belong”. Although he last performed in a band in the 1960s, Ade was transported from New Zealand to a studio in Marfa, Texas, and began writing lyrics during the flight. For Ade, the leader’s job is quite simple.

“When we got to the desert, I wrote the first song in five minutes,” says Ade. “It’s the easiest thing I’ve done in my life. These guys laughed like hell. This would be the opening of the album The Wolf, in part inspired by an old Playboy cartoon that, in Ade’s version, has Red Riding Hood asking the big bad wolf, “Isn’t nobody anymore?” fuck? “[Connan’s] mother hates it, ”Ade jokes, revealing that she is forbidden to play the hot number at home. “I think it’s quite eye-catching.”

Connan had no expectations when creating the album, which was mostly recorded after a night of margaritas. “Everyone was a bit jet-lagged, but we didn’t go to bed and ended up doing most of the record that night,” he says. “Ade started to sing and I remember seeing faces light up.”

Ade’s memory is not what it used to be and he remembers little of his time in Marfa. He listens to the album “almost every day” and has taken the stage with his son on several occasions.

He says he enjoys performing live the most and that he was introduced to James Blake at a concert (“Dude, that guy is tall”). Despite his return to music after a 50-year hiatus, Ade has no plans to continue, happy to let it speak for him.

“I’m just sailing,” he says, cementing his status as the most unlikely rock star of this year.

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