A quick word with Tyson Kennedy from Steriogram

Tyson Kennedy from Steriogram

Steriogram have been jet-setting round the world, made heaps of money and got even more mileage out of Walkie Talkie Man being the iPod song, did the three-date Beach Day Out tour and on January 21 they play Big Day Out.

What have you been up to?

I've been camping at Cape Reinga. It's the first time I've been camping in ages, with no power or nothing. It was wicked, man.

Lots of mosquitoes up there?

Yeah, man. We got cleaned up, but it was worth it.

When did you get back from overseas?

We got back at the start of December so this has been the biggest break we've had at home for two years. It's going to work out as basically two months at home, which is incredible. We got back from London, which was cool because it was our first time there and it was an amazing trip because it was really successful, really fast and that was something we'd never really experienced before.

What do you mean by 'fast'?

Just in terms of turning up to a place and not really having done any work but things still happening quickly. Like, in other places we've slogged our guts out, in all the countries we've been to we've toured two or three times. And it was the same with New Zealand by doing the schools tour.

But to turn up in a big market like Britain and have a massive radio hit [Walkie Talkie Man] playing on every radio station - you know, every time we turned the radio on we'd hear it - and everyone knows who we are and then get a top 20, all in the space of a week on your first time there, it was kinda weird really. We didn't feel like we deserved it.

How was the reaction different in Britain compared with the US?

In terms of fans it's a different sort of culture from America, they're not so kind of crazy. In terms of the industry and media and stuff, coming in on the back of a corporate commercial, well, they're always going to have issues with that. But I think we got away with that pretty good.

How much was the iPod contract worth to Steriogram both in financial terms and exposure?

It's a hard thing to work out. The exposure has been incredible, obviously. It gave us access to places like Britain, and all through Europe. We weren't even going to get released in those places, but because of the iPod ad we got our album released there.

For countries that were already doing well, like Japan, it gave us an extra boost in sales. And we really dig what Apple is doing with iTunes and being at the forefront of paid downloading and all that. And we've been huge in every top 10 [downloading chart]. It's really cool to be in that top downloading percentage in the world. But it's almost impossible to work out [in money terms].

What was it like being on the road, back in New Zealand, with the Beach Day Out bands?

It was so cool. All the guys were so nice, it was like the nice guy tour. Just to get to hang out with everyone was real cool because there's not many massive New Zealand tours that happen like that, you know, eight fairly large acts. We had a big bus touring around, and we charted a plane for one of the trips, so we felt like rock stars.

What was the best gig?

For me it was Mt Maunganui. It rained. Actually it poured down pretty much and we were on last, and it's such a long day and to be on last you think, "Is anyone going to stay around?" But everyone hung around and went crazy. It's one of those ones where the smallest one ends up being the most fun.

What's your favourite memory of the Big Day Out?

We've played four now, but it would have to be the first time we played. We were such a small band and the first time we played it wasn't because we deserved to be there, well, in terms of not being a big band, but we got to play because we won the Little Day In. We'd never really had a song on the radio, so to us, and a lot of bands, the Big Day Out is the epitome of where you wanna be.