Music with meaning

GOING WILD: They formerly worked in different musical genre but former Minuit “machine man” Ryan Beehre (left) and singer-songwriter Bryce Wastney have found common ground in their mutual love for the music of Cat Stevens. Picture supplied

SITTING in his dad’s Cortina outside Farmers — the only store to have an escalator in the whole of Nelson town — Bryce Wastney remembers the sound of the cassette tape whirring, then a magical voice coming over the tinny speakers.

It was circa 1983. The voice belonged to British singer-songwriter Cat Stevens (now known as Yusuf Islam). The song was Old School Yard. And Wastney has never forgotten it.

“This was before I had even picked up a guitar — I was well on my way to training to be a classical pianist — but something just captured me,” he says. “All that warmth and honesty, it was like turning a light on. I didn’t really understand what he was saying but I just loved how it sounded, how happy it made me feel.”

Stevens was such a huge star from the late 1960s that everybody of a certain age has a Cat Stevens story, and Wastney has heard a lot of them.

Together with fellow Nelsonian, former Minuit artist Ryan Beehre, he has been touring the Wild World show in which the pair cover some of Stevens’ most beloved hits, interspersed with chat about the man himself.

“After gigs people often come up and tell stories of their own memories of Cat Stevens, what his music meant to them,” Wastney says.

“It’s a real generation thing where that period before the craziness of the 1980s was a really peaceful time for many people.”

At the centre of Wild World (named after Stevens’ 1970 hit song) is, of course, the music.

“As a songwriter I draw a lot from his songwriting, the way he applies melody and the way he uses a guitar to spell out a hook line,” Wastney says.

But it’s more than that.

“To me, playing music with a message like Cat Stevens did, and still does as Yusaf Islam, is really important and I love that he’s always been uncompromising in putting his causes to the forefront. There’s always so much meaning in his songs. You can play them over and over again and get something new every time.”

On the surface of things Wastney and Beehre seem like an odd couple – the former’s work firmly rooted in acoustic traditions, while the latter became known in the electronica scene.

Having both returned from the international touring circuit, they met up in their hometown of Nelson and, though working in different genre, found a musical connection to the point where Beehre is producing Wastney’s new album.

“We’d never even met before, though I remember seeing Ryan play a Minuit show in New Plymouth where the venue was leaking and we were all dancing in pools of water,” Wastney says.

“No one died – though they could have – but I remember the energy of it all. That’s what I find working with Ryan. We go on stage, play the first note and, bam, the chemistry is there.”