"I was never going to stay in insurance for a long time and that spurred me on. I got off the phone and bought a one-way ticket to London for $1100.
"I'd been unhappy selling insurance, and this was one way to get out of it."
Ho seems pretty casual about the decision, but it's a big move: he'll leave the country when things are just starting to heat up for the Auckland-based quartet.
For one, Sherpa are about to release their second record Blues & Oranges, a psychedelia-drenched blast of electrified power pop produced and engineered by Opossom's Kody Nielson.
Secondly, Ho flies to London on June 1 - the day after the band's final show on their upcoming five-date national tour.
How do the rest of Sherpa feel about Ho's drastic departure?
"We were pretty chilled," says Ben Jack, the band's guitarist, alongside bassist Daniel Barrett and drummer Vince McMillan. "We understand. You've gotta do what you've gotta do. The fact that his girlfriend's in Amsterdam meant we knew it was going to happen sooner or later."
Sherpa aren't breaking up. Ho says they will still perform and record together - albeit less frequently, and they'll have to do things over the internet.
"I'm going to go and push our material myself as a quasi-manager. I'm going to find an opportunity. My game plan is to eventually give [the rest of the band] a call and make them an offer [to move to London] that they can't refuse," Ho says.
"It's exciting, but it's sad that Sherpa won't be playing."
He's right, because you haven't really experienced Sherpa until you've seen them live. They're known for Ho's manic performances, which include exaggerated vocals and over-blown gestures. Ho admits he sometimes turns gigs into "a comedy show".
There's a reason the frontman is so theatrical: he's loved performing in front of a crowd ever since he was a kid. And, just like his insurance job, those over-the-top gestures of his help sell Sherpa's music.
"If you saw me at work, I'm the most introverted guy there," he says. "But I'm more comfortable on stage than in real life situations.
"I'm taking the piss [but] for me it's about selling the sounds. Sound can go past people without them noticing, but if you add a movement to it, it's like the details in a movie: you only get all of them on the second or third viewing."
Thanks to the electrified charge of Blues & Oranges, Sherpa now have the songs to back up the intensity of their live shows. Their second album cleans up the rawness of their 2012 debut Lesser Flamingo, and adds more synthy carnage and a 60s-tinged Beatles-eque influence.
If you like Tame Impala, The Klaxons and The Horrors, you'll love the flouncy falsettos of Love Film, the fuzzed-out thrills of Blind Buzz, the break beats and killer chorus of Quit Time and the synthy dance-stomp of Already Fire.
Ho says Blues & Oranges was recorded in their spare time at nights and weekends, meaning there were some tired faces showing up for the band's day jobs.
He admits it took a long time for them "to get everything in the right place".
"You want to move on from what you've done before. There's a sound in my head that I am trying to get down. Lesser Flamingo was the first attempt, and this is an extension."
There's also a fair amount of "psychedelia" on the album. Sherpa love it - and they found a kindred spirit in Nielson.
"We all love psychedelia a lot," says Ho. "We're interested in exploring the deepest parts of our psyche. You could make a lot of psychedelic noise but it's just noise without feeling. We're adding feeling to it. You've got to tell a story that's psychedelic as well."
Ho sees Blues & Oranges as a stepping stone to making the most "psychedelic but meaningful" album he can - and he knows that goal will be even harder to achieve with his move to London.
But there's no going back now that Ho's quit his job: he did something on his last day that means he can't go back.
"No one in the insurance industry is happy. Everyone's real jaded, pretending to be happy about it. At the last meeting, someone said, 'It's sad to see you go'. I said, 'It's sad to see you guys stay,' and it just cut like a knife because it's so true. Everyone's heads dropped and I was like, umm ...
"But someone told me afterwards it was funny, so I wasn't sad at all."
Who: Auckland quartet Sherpa
What: New album, Blues & Oranges, out May 16
Further listening: Lesser Flamingo (2012)
On tour: May 16, Cassette Nine, Auckland; May 23, The Royal, Palmerston North; May 24, Meow, Wellington; May 30, Re:Fuel, Dunedin; and May 31, Darkroom, Christchurch.
Listen to Blues & Oranges, the new album from Sherpa, streaming all week on nzherald.co.nz.
Listen to Sherpa's interview with Hugh Sundae (57:39) on Kiwi FM's Beck's Voices From The Wilderness.
- TimeOut
