ARTIST OF THE WEEK: The Vietnam War

Representing a certain facet of the Grey Lynn and K Road state of mind, The Vietnam War's stirring country tunes have been kept low profile for far too long.

It’s a Saturday night in Auckland, and a small crowd of immaculately presented girls in 50s style clothing, with tasteful tattoos, and snappily dressed dudes, who clearly still read literature, gathered at a tiny Mexican bar down a back alley in Newmarket. Inside the crowded space, a five-piece with great haircuts and a dress code you could describe as 'All Black Everything' had the audience eating out of their hands.

Performing an engaging mixture of guitar heavy country songs with shades of psychedelia and soul, the band aptly supported lead singer Lubin's faded ruminations on the sadder, grimier side of life. With the air of rock stars been on tour for far too long, the conclusion of their set was greeted with call after call for encores. Welcome to the world of The Vietnam War, a band of Grey Lynn slackers and K Road regulars.

The next day, I head out to a delightfully cluttered cottage in Sandringham to meet up with Lubin and Saan, The Vietnam War's bassist. Tellingly, Lubin and Saan aren't the only people at the house when I arrive and, over the course of our rambling, tea-fuelled discussion, a stream of adults and children wander in and out of the property. Quickly, it becomes evident that this is a band about, and to a certain extent produced by, family and community. Linked with fellow bands Heart Attack Alley and the Drab Doo-Riffs, either by blood or some other association, they represent a genuine grassroots movement.

Thinking back five or so years, Lubin reflects on the origins of The Vietnam War in a hazy yet articulate manner. Whenever he gets lost, Saan will chime in to clarify or co-sign a statement, by and large leaving Lubin to illustrate the story. A lifelong music lover and musician, half decade ago Lubin was, in the only stint he has spent outside of central Auckland, living out in Devonport. "I was quite alone at the time," he recalls. "I had just split up with my first wife, my friends were out of town - and I was living in Devonport, overlooking the water."

Spending his days parenting his two young children, in the time he had during the day when his oldest was at primary school and his youngest was at playcentre, Lubin began writing songs with just a guitar. "I was just sitting at home and I had these songs, and everyone was quite supportive of me doing something with them." After a friend asked him to play a show with her, Lubin assembled a band from his extended musical community and his songs began slowly seeping out into the street level consciousness of Auckland.

Cycling through configurations, today - sitting in the shadow of their Karl Steven (the Drab Doo-Riffs, Supergroove) recorded debut album, which is out now through Round Trip Mars - aside from Lubin and Saan, The Vietnam War's line-up currently consists of Kristal on guitar, Kari on drums and Matt on guitar. A collection of musicians who, as Lubin explains, "have the same taste and are now moving in the same direction," the band has arrived at this juncture through countless beer addled jam sessions at friends’ homes, innumerable K Road bar performances, and the infamous variety show style Country Club events.

For Lubin though, his journey towards forming the original The Vietnam War songs began in his childhood years, through family influence. As he explains, "For me, the whole idea of songwriting, especially in terms of melodies and rhyming schemes, the closest thing it comes out of is European folk music. That was the main music I heard when I was young, so I think my idea of writing a song comes from a folk tradition rather than a recorded tradition. My father was a singer, so it was less about records and more about singing. It's the idea of a song existing for itself. So that is what I have focussed on, writing a new one of those songs for the world."

Raised around country as well, but really rediscovering it in his teens, he compares the experience to realising you have an extra arm. "It was different from everything else," he says. "So I really got into those old guys, because it was like a whole different road you can take." Citing names like Hank Williams, Hank Snow and Woody Guthrie, he adds, "country music is not a fad, do you know what I mean?". And while to the uninitiated these references may appear to be a nod to Americana, Lubin’s love of Snow and also Tex Morton suggests a view slightly out of step with the norm.

Lubin goes on to explain the origins of the band's name. "I wanted us to have a name that was not a country or Americana type name. Being Americana was something I wasn't very interested in. I wouldn't say it is a joke, because the Vietnam War is a pretty heavy thing to have a joke about, but it is also something I really care about. I would consider us to be on the side of the Viet Cong, a country band who support the Viet Cong. Also, I was quite grounded in sixties music and I read a lot of music biographies. So it was kind of a joke on music biographies, where the band is really influenced by the Vietnam War. I read that lots and lots and started to imagine that it was a band."

With the spectral strands of psychedlia and soul that filter through The Vietnam War's music, plus the round, yet full sonic fidelity which recalls, as Lubin puts it, "the peak of analogue hi-fi sound," in an alternative reality on a slightly truncated timeline, The Vietnam War could have indeed been that band. They aren't though. They're a tattooed, whisky soaked, rogue’s gallery of rebels - telling the well worn stories of the inner city country experience, one heartbreaking song after another.

By Martyn Pepperell