their own
Struan Douglas
Once, there was an old American street busker who used to play loose jazz grooves. Some kid asked him, “Hey, what’s this cool music you’re playing?”
“Juss music”, the old man replied in a rich American drawl.
“Oh, jazz music!” said the kid – and the name was born, for a style of music that will always defy definition.
New collaborative outfit Interzone are pretty schizophrenic – evolving and moulding themselves into any genre. They’re not reggae, funk, rock, Cuban-beats or break-beat. They’re all of them. A loose collective, unconfined and uninhibited, exploring and experimenting with influences and ideologies – constantly progressing. They’re juss music.
“We are an amalgamation of influences from a whole lot of different band members,” says bass player Rob Nel. “Our interest are vastly different. There are no restrictions – we just get together and make music.”
Drum groove giant Gaston Goliath plays the big beats, while Sean Fourie is subtle and understated on the keyboard. There’s Marc Buchanon with a punk-assed anarchy on guitar, trumpeter Marcus Wyatt who did the North Sea Jazz Festival with Jimmy Dludlu, and, on the first album The Man from Interzone, there’s British saxman Dave O’ Higgins, who’ll return for their December tour. It’s an eclectic bunch, with a diversity of interests and styles.
Yet despite the anarchic flare, the music is tight and cohesive – perhaps due to O’Higgins’s influence: “He’s a good player, he plays with Matt Bianco and Incognito,” says Fourie. “He brought the funky clothes and lots of girls around the band.”
“And he brought the discipline to this unruly bunch of hooligans,” Wyatt adds. “For some strange reason it’s a South African thing – the minute some guy arrives from overseas, we say ‘ja’ to whatever they say.”
Presently, O’Higgins has returned to London, allowing a bevy of women to retire home, and the rest of the band to take care of business: “Music is a full-time job for all of us, and we’re trying to establish ourselves,” says Fourie. “Instead of waking up as a musician on a Monday and saying ‘aargh, I don’t have a gig till Friday, I’m going to do nothing’, when you wake up you should get working.
“Whether it’s faxing, phoning for gigs, styling your hair or finding the right clothes for the gig – it’s all a job and you must see it that way.”
It was this sort of dedication that saw Interzone trade in an overdue debt with SABC for downtime at the recording studios. It took two weeks of mixing and a year of hustling, and now The Man from Interzone is on the shelves.
As a debut, the album illustrates the colourful and crazy collection of personalities, as well as their rather eclectic musical influences.
Proof of the eclecticism lies in the fact that Fourie has found temporary pleasure working as as air steward! “It’s something I always wanted to do,” he says. “It’s a transitional step – you got a lot of time to think, and what better way to see the world than to smile the whole way to London, and get paid for it.”
Meanwhile, Interzone are also flying high – transcending boundaries, and challenging stereotypes and conservative misperceptions.
The Interzone gigs in Cape Town at on October 1 and 2 will take place at Galaxy, Green Dolphin and The Jam