The pre-game butterflies and soaring highs of his schoolboy rugby matches are not too dissimilar to those he feels at his gigs today, the Six60 frontman tells Mitchell Hageman, as he reflects on a “seismic” year of fame and fatherhood.
Like the 2011 hit song that cemented their place in the Kiwi zeitgeist, it’s clear the members of Six60 do not forget their roots - even their rugby ones.
Even more so for ex-drummer Eli Paewai, who left the band in 2024. Frontman Matiu Walters reliably informs me Paewai is now coaching the Auckland’s Suburbs Rugby team.
“We were friends, rugby teammates and flatmates before any of this kind of took off, and we didn’t anticipate being here,” Walters says, admitting the departure came as a shock.
“I know it wouldn’t have been an easy decision for him. We’re still very close and in communication, and he’s always welcome to play with us any time. But he’s doing really well. I’m gunning for him to get the All Blacks coaching job dude, 100%. He’s got the temperament for it.”
Our interview at the New Zealand International Convention Centre is often interrupted by a clanging piece of metal or the beep of a scissor lift. In just a few weeks, Walters and the current iteration of Six60 will play their hits and new album Right Here Right Now, as the first concert here.
His eyes light up when visualising what the already sold-out gig at the shiny new 2850-seat theatre will entail - and how refreshing it will be after a summer of stadium and outdoor shows.
“I like that we’re inside, and it can be dark, and we can add some theatre back to it. I’m really excited about it.”
It’s another in a string of firsts for the band, who were the first Kiwi act to headline at Eden Park and will soon be the first act on stage at Christchurch’s Te Kaha Stadium, too.
Walters says performing in front of big crowds isn’t too dissimilar from taking to the pitch for a big game.
“[Like] when I used to play [rugby], you’re like in the changing room getting ready and you go out and perform, there’s pre-game butterflies. It’s a crazy high,” he says.
It’s hard to imagine Walters getting nervous. He comes across as very chilled out. There’s none of that typical frontman ego (although he does love being front and centre on stage), and he swings between topics ranging from his PlayStation gaming habits to how he balances fame and fatherhood.
“It’s actually really inhuman when you think about it. Like what we do and the adulation, and then just going home to your kids the next day, it’s pretty f****d up,” he says.
He knows exactly the kind of chokehold that Six60’s music has on millions of people.
Becoming an Aotearoa Music Awards Charts Icon and breaking countless domestic streaming records -their self-titled second album now holds the record for the most consecutive weeks in New Zealand’s Top 40 Albums Chart, overtaking Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, and they also have three number one singles - was never his motivation. Walter’s passion for music has always been deeply rooted in whānau.
“My grandfather is a really accomplished man. He’s a composer of kapa haka, songwriter, an artist, part of the Māori renaissance in the 60s, a Māori All Black, and a scratch golfer. Just the most overachiever and kind of the pin-up boy of the whānau,” he says.
“He would always say things like, ‘it doesn’t matter what you do so long as you live a creative life’. I didn’t know what that meant until recently, but I know he meant making stuff is really important, and that’s the only difference between humanity and anything else.”
His dad, John, a lawyer, also had some sage advice when Walters decided to take a leap of faith, leaving his childhood home in Mt Eden to study music at the University of Otago.
“I remember my dad saying: ‘If your aim is to play at the pub down the road, then you’re only ever going to play at the pub down the road’.”
If it wasn’t for that leap of faith, Walters wouldn’t have met some of his future bandmates at a Kora concert in Dunedin nearly 20 years ago. And they probably wouldn’t have gone on to form Six60 at the infamous 660 Castle St flat (Walters is a landlord of the property to this day).
Credit should also be given to his mum, Barb, for broadening his musical horizons at a young age. He says he remembers them going to Galatos, tucked behind Karangahape Rd, to watch Tony Joe White and even seeing soul icon James Brown at Auckland’s St James Theatre.
Walters’ journey into parenthood has been “seismic” in both a personal and a professional sense. .
“The job of an artist is to be aware and pay attention. And they definitely keep you on your toes,” he says of his children Boh, 4, and Kīngi, 2.
“I’ve realised I’m at such an amazing period of my life, there’s so much love and possibility right now, having two young kids and my parents are still here. It’s like I wanted to bottle that up in this album."
He jokes that if the kids do not grow up to be musical, it “will be my wife’s fault”. His approach is to fill the house with instruments they can play with or thrash about should they choose.
After years of playing together, fellow bandmate and bassist Chris Mac says the biggest, though gradual, change he’s seen in Walters (aka Mutt) as Six60’s frontman is his capacity.
“He has become able to give his all to the moment in front of him,” Mac says.
“That means the band gets his all as an extraordinary singer, guitarist and composer, his family gets his all as a fantastic father and husband, and his friends get his all as a solid workout partner, drinking buddy and overly competitive gaming opponent.
“As a band, we’ve always valued our ability to think big, act courageously and challenge ourselves to achieve great things; no one represents that characteristic more than Matiu Walters.”
He describes his mate as “a full palette of unique colours”, with tenacity and a drive that is “enviable and infuriating”.
“[He has] a steely determination to the work but can also on the same breath be goofy and funny,” Mac adds.
“Ruthlessly focused but also loving and kind. He’s a bloody good cook too. The only major difference that has come with fame is that I doubt he had to take so many selfies with strangers prior.”
A keen eye, Walters notices my Iggy Pop concert T-shirt. I ask him if he, like the shirtless wonder, thinks he’ll still be going that far down the track.
“Maybe not ‘til 78,” he says. “Like, at some point, I’m going to f*** off to an island and kick my feet up.”
Right now, though, it’s all about renewed energy. Walters can’t wait to share the band’s new album with the world, and then do it all again and again and again.
“I think artistically, you’re always arriving. There’s no real destination with this thing. Every time I write a song or make another album, I stop and look back, and I’m already a different person,” he says.
“But who knows where it all goes, dude. It could be all over tomorrow. But that’s why you live life to the full."
Six60’s fifth studio album Right Here Right Now will release on February 13.
Mitchell Hageman joined the Herald’s entertainment and lifestyle team in 2024. He previously worked as a multimedia journalist for Hawke’s Bay Today.