Andrew Fagan

Andrew Fagan

Andrew Fagan hopes the release of a compilation album by the 1980s rock band The Mockers will at least give him peace of mind.

Newly released Woke Up Today: The Definitive Collection, includes a large number of the band's songs from across their musical career.

Fagan, the band's slightly eccentric frontman, agrees it's long time to wait to do such a release but says he feels it was necessary.

"Yes, it was a total afterthought -- like 20-years after," he says.

"But when I came back from the UK in 2002 I was fairly uncomfortable to notice that Forever Tuesday Morning was the only song synonymous with The Mockers."

He says despite what people probably remember, there was a lot more to the band than that song.

"It's gratifying to have an audience, I mean it's better to have an audience than not, but as I said, the band became synonymous with just one song when we actually had quite a few singles."

Also, the band never released a compilation album and everything they did (one live and three studio albums) was only ever released on vinyl. Getting part of the catalogue on to compact disc was an added incentive, Fagan says.

About 13 different people played in The Mockers over the years according to Fagan's calculations. They came and went for various reasons.

"Everyone comes together with a mutual interest, but quite often when you move towns or something your whole focus changes."

Losing interest, money issues or tiring of being on the road may have contributed, he says.

The Mockers had a punk vibe about them but played sing-along music that won them plenty of younger fans around New Zealand.

Fagan says touring and living a rock and roll lifestyle was fun, but the band got around a lot and eventually started feeling a bit saturated in New Zealand.

"We were in a band and that (the fun) was one of the incentives of getting in a band really ... there was also a kind of cavalier attitude that goes with being in a touring band," he says.

"You roll into town play the gig and are off again in the hire van the next morning, it was like a bit of a boy's club."

Things changed though, and by about the mid-1980s the band started talking about putting their energy into a shift overseas.