THE STORY SO FAR: Robbie meets Marion, they form the Red Hot Peppers (and in case you are wondering - which I know you are - this was a good decade before the Red Hot "Chilli" Peppers were conceived), turn professional and start touring both sides of the Tasman .
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THE incarnation of Red Hot Peppers featuring Neil Reynolds, bass player Peter Kershaw (the tea-chest bass player in the Mad Dog Jug Jook and Washboard band), Mike Farrell, Marion Arts and Robbie Laven, started by playing a crazy mix of highly originated folk rock, jazz-rock and contemporary American material, featuring arrangements with lots of surprise sounds and dynamics.
When the manager of the Hillcrest Tavern asked Robbie to play golf with him (an invitation Robbie managed to wriggle out of), he knew they were on a winner, and when interest by recording companies was shown in the band, they had to come up with some original stuff quick-smart. Marion had written songs and music from the cradle but was not really confident to start writing for a band at that time, so Robbie had to step up to the plate, penning a heap of songs and tunes.
In Aussie, the Peppers played Marion's songs increasingly in spite of irresolvable tensions between the subtleties of her songwriting and the attitude, volume and egos of the DJs in the huge disco barns where they played.
The material was, in part, dictated by the strengths of the others in the band at any time. More folky with Hans, more country in Aussie and quite heavy and jammy with the Farrell/Reynolds line-up.
Four albums, quite a lot of TV, support for heaps of touring artists, tours all over Aussie, including Tasmania, resulted only in their being broke and at loggerheads with musicians they had been friends with for years because of manager and money games. They had became a touch disillusioned with the Australian rock industry.
After pushing the Red Hot Peppers about as hard and far as it could possibly go, Robbie and Marion eventually managed to escape the relentless workload, feeling disheartened by the lack of income, the cynical industry and ludicrous volume, by working as a self-sufficient duo.
As a duo, Robbie and Marion worked for five years in Europe returning to New Zealand in 1985 to start a family. They settled in Auckland and returned to Tauranga in 1995.
THE STORY SO FAR: Robbie meets Marion, they form the Red Hot Peppers (and in case you are wondering - which I know you are - this was a good decade before the Red Hot "Chilli" Peppers were conceived), turn professional and start touring both sides of the Tasman .
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