ARTIST OF THE WEEK: The Adults

When I caught up with Shihad singer Jon Toogood a few months ago, he was a man on a mission. The task at hand? To finish recording and mastering his first ever solo project, which goes under the moniker of The Adults.

The Melbourne-based vocalist, who is living temporarily with the Skeptics’ bass player and producer Nick Roughan in his sprawling Mount Albert, Auckland home, is beyond stoked with what has been achieved, and fair chomping at the bit to get his new baby heard. After 22 years at the helm of New Zealand’s most loved rock band, Toogood has built up a treasure trove of musical connections which, lucky for us, have now collided, resulting in one hell of a project.

A truly collaborative affair, the project began with a wishlist of artists that Jon “loved, admire and respected”, all of whom jumped at the chance to work with him to create an eclectic tracklisting. The roll call on the album reads like a who’s who of New Zealand music, including names as diverse as Shapeshifter’s Redford Grenell, Ladi6, Ruban and Kody Neilson, Anika Moa, Julia Deans, Dimmer’s Shayne Carter and Gary Sullivan, Little Bushman’s Warren Maxwell, Riki Gooch and co-producer and collaborator Tiki Taane.

Collectively, the group is known as The Adults, and Toogood says that, after 20 years in the business, it was definitely time that he, “learnt a whole new way of writing music from these people, who do it so well”. They too learnt a new musical vocabulary from the frontman, and appear on this album in ways that their fans have never heard them before.

Jon began with the idea of taking some already-penned songs to each artist and having them appear as guests on the track, but after beginning his journey that modus operandi soon changed. “I started out thinking, ‘I’ll take this person a song and see what I can get them to play on it’", he explains, “but then everything would go out the window once I got into the room. Each of the artists who worked with me weren’t afraid to challenge me straight away, and being confronted by a musician who had a totally different way of doing things to me to me was such a buzz”.

The Adults - Nothing To Lose

A magical partnership that has been percolating to differing degrees over the years is the one that Toogood has with co-producer and key collaborator Tiki Taane. “I just knew that had to happen”, Toogood explains. “I have toyed with different musical ideas for him for so long that it just wasn’t an option for him to say no when I asked him to work with me on this project”.

The two have known each other for almost 20 years, since the days when Taane helped Shihad with their sound at early gigs, and, having following his career trajectory over that time, Toogood says that Tiki was the only man for the job when the time came to, “collecting all of the disparate ideas that I’d assembled from many different locations and transforming them into a seamless and beautiful album”.

The Adults - One Million Ways

The feeling of anticipation that he felt upon delivering each new song to Taane’s Woodhill studio north of Auckland was huge, “as I just couldn’t wait to see what he would turn my - admittedly very raw - material into, and to watch it blossom at his hands”. Turning his music over to Taane and his other collaborators was a real high point for the singer, who is the first person to describe himself, with a laugh, as, “pretty self-absorbed when it comes to getting things right”. He says that the process, “was a real exercise for me in letting go of the reins and trusting other people’s ideas, and as a result, the songs on here are so much more than I could ever have imagined. I feel so good about finally letting my guard down and creating this beautiful beast”.

The Adults self titled debut album is out now.

By Helene Ravlich
 

Read the full feature on The Adults in the latest issue of Rip It Up in stores now. We've got 5 copies of The Adults stunning new self titled record to give away....enter here.