Jason Kerrison says his performance at Smash Palace will be a tribute to the live music legacy of the late Darryl Monteith.
Jason Kerrison says his performance at Smash Palace will be a tribute to the live music legacy of the late Darryl Monteith.
Kiwi musician Jason Kerrison is making a long-awaited return to Gisborne to play at Smash Palace on Saturday.
“I haven’t been to Gisborne in a very long time, over 10 years,” said Kerrison, who many will remember as the lead singer for award-winning band Opshop (2002-2013).
“The lasttime I played there wasn’t at Smash Palace, but I have played at Smash before ... before Kerry (Kerry Donovan) and Darryl (the late Darryl Monteith) took over a while back.
“They had the DC3 (plane) or whatever it is ... it’s a rite of passage for all musos to be playing under that plane.”
He is looking forward to catching up with his friend Donovan, who he went to broadcasting school with “decades ago”, and paying tribute to her late partner Monteith, who died in August 2024.
“I think that there’s a real legacy there that Darryl - bless his soul and may he long rest in peace - and Kerry created ... it is very, very special, a real taonga to the region and to all of us as musicians.
“We’re very grateful for all the energy and time that he and Kerry put into that place, and I’ll be making sure that I honour that legacy.”
Invercargill-born Kerrison will perform a range of songs from Opshop and his career in a solo setting, including the hit One Day, which won Song of the Year at the 2008 APRA Silver Scroll Awards and many will be familiar with through an NZ Post advertising campaign.
“I’m probably going to lean into an acoustic performance. It’ll just be me, my acoustic [guitar] and my loop pedal ... the bones of songs that people have known for over 20 years now ... kind of with new arrangements, with some new adornments on them and dressed up for the evening.”
Kerrison uses a loop pedal in the same vein as Ed Sheeran and fellow Kiwi Tiki Taane, who is performing at Smash next month. A loop pedal records a musician playing and continuously repeats it, enabling the musician to layer new parts over one another.
“It gives you a lot more depth and breadth ... and it’s a lot of fun, you know, it feels good to be able to create sometimes, a bit of a cacophony, and you’ve just got to strip it back again.”
Kiwi musician Jason Kerrison is rumbling into town for a one-night-only gig at Smash Palace.
Kerrison’s music can be found on Spotify although he is strongly considering joining the many musicians, such as Tiki Taane, leaving the platform due to its founder and executive chairman Daniel Ek’s large-scale investments in the weapons industry.
“Like most musicians, I want to get my music out into the world, but the more I learn about Spotify and its previous CEO ... like Tiki I’m reluctant to line the pockets of someone who is propagating modern warfare into the world by leveraging the music of the world to do that.
“You can find a whole bunch of new music from me on Spotify at the moment, but it’s teetering on the edge of me taking the whole lot off. But I don’t know - it’s up for discussion at the moment.”
Outside of Opshop, Kerrison was with the band The Babysitters Circus, has collaborated with other artists and continued to pursue his solo career.
He has also made television appearances as a judge on New Zealand’s Got Talent and as the inaugural winner of The Masked Singer NZ.
He was recently part of the band Sonar Flare, featuring several members of Kiwi group The Feelers, and reunited with Opshop band members for a festival performance.
“We hadn’t played in five years up to that, so just getting the boys out and playing again was real special, real cool,” he said.
