The father and son guitar-gunslingers of New Zealand rock

By GRAHAM REID

The Billy TKs - senior and junior - are laughing in the sun outside the Harlequin Bar in Victoria Park Market.

Young Billy - now 28 and with the self-styled sobriquet "the Jonah Lomu of New Zealand blues" - is recalling how as a kid just out of school he'd tour with Dad, who would "let me play rhythm guitar, not even in the mix, standing behind everyone, and at the lowest volume."

Billy Snr, aged 53, recalls a gig in Raglan when "we were playing this deep and meaningful thing and then suddenly this noise screams over the top of it."

"I saw my chance and had a go," hoots his son.

"Yeah, but when we turned to find out what it was he looked away and made out it wasn't him!"

The Billy TKs have individually, and now together on a national tour, carved large slices of the New Zealand live music scene for themselves.

Billy Snr was the legendary guitar player in Human Instinct on the cusp of the 60s/70s, whose playing drew justifiably favourable comparisons with Hendrix, Clapton and others in the pantheon of psychedelic rock.

His Powerhouse band, which lasted from the mid-70s and intermittently into the 80s, brought kiss-the-sky rock to the provinces, and the ambitious Wharemana project in the late 80s was that rare conjunction of rock, te reo and Maoritanga. ("If Womad had been there at the time we would have fitted perfectly.")

He was also invited to join Carlos Santana at the Supertop in April 96.

"I'd met him a few times previously but talked backstage in Wellington and there was this incredible energy and recognition that went beyond words. Then he said, 'We should jam,' and the next night I was flown to Auckland and did a walk-on for Bob Marley's Exodus. I wanted to play on a Santana song!"

Legend is a word that rests easily when talking about Billy TK Snr.

He's never stopped playing, most recently he's been in Wellington with former Rockinghorse/Street Talk/Pink Flamingos drummer Jim Lawrie and using programmes to take his original music around the country. But now he's out with Jnr and "playing music which is more rock and blues than ever."

Blues is the forte of Billy Jnr, whose popular, hard-edged style made him a fixture on the touring circuit in the mid-90s. He was white hot, ambitious and pushed himself hard both here and in Texas for six years.

But, burned out after 98 gigs in six months, he quit two years ago. A dodgy management contract in Texas nobbled him for a while, and his marriage collapsed. So he sold his gear, got a haircut and a job in sales: "I liked it and was good at it, but in the back of my mind I was plagued with the fact I'd see friends progress with their careers."

"I expected he'd stop for a while," says Snr. "But I could see if he did it would be for his own growth. Time out is a good thing. I didn't think it would be forever because I'd seen the talent there that needed to be expressed. The time would come, if it was true to depths of his soul, he'd feel something missing in his life."

Six months ago Billy Jnr relaunched himself, a wiser man for his experiences, and hooked in his father. They are now on their first tour together, although have often guested on each other's bills.

"When I was going hard, I'd pull Dad out of his own stuff and we'd both be on form. We don't pull punches, we push each other. We play hard and are trading and trying to outwit each other. But in Whangamata recently Dad played this monstrous solo I just walked away from. There was nothing I could add. I'm honest enough to know when it's all been said instead of letting the ego force you to do it."

Billy Jnr says what he learned in Texas was "there were a lot of guitar players over there who all sounded the same, and if I really wanted to make a mark internationally then I couldn't do it by sounding like Stevie Ray Vaughan.

"If it was going to work it was going to have to be me, Billy TK Jnr, with a guitar pedigree and heritage influenced by New Zealand things, and going from there and doing something different."

His direction now, while still blues-based, assimilates contemporary influences he felt he previously had no opportunity to explore.

"I said seven years ago, before I'd heard Ronny Jordan, the blues needed to be updated and hip-hop and contemporary dance rhythms were the vehicles to do that.

"What reinforced that was about six months before [legendary bluesman] Brownie McGee died I went to his home in California and spent the day with him. He showed me his old photos, took the time and was really trying to give me something. He said, 'What do you think of rap?' I said I was coming to terms with it.

"The thing he liked about it was that it's the truth. When he was young he felt anger and repressed and oppressed, and the way he got it out was singing the blues, but had to camouflage his feelings. Today rappers have the freedom to say it the way it is, and that's why he loved rap.

"So the stuff I'm writing now with Richie Campbell [from Ardijah] is more about me and acknowledging contemporary sounds. It's quite commercial, but it's not me putting on a sock that doesn't fit. Instead of a 36-bar guitar solo it's only 30 seconds, it makes me play a lot sharper."

He also learned that from Dad: "Yeah, to concentrate on the heart of it. If you are doing a solo, don't be worried about whether it's got enough in it, or if it's flashy. Just let it be as honest, deep and meaningful as you can - and have high impact. There are aspects of Dad's playing that move me as greatly as when I listen to Stevie and Jimi, so I draw from that to give me a different bent so I don't sound like another guitar player."

The current tour favours blues rock, he says, and "a lot of original stuff. But I love doing some covers, so why be afraid? And the audience likes them too."

"It's also got all the crossover of Hendrix and Stevie Ray and funk," says Billy Snr, "and we are working up some of my original songs using some Latin crossover Polynesian rhythms with a rock and bluesy edge. Can you picture that? But the melodies are the sweetest I can find in my heart to take the audience into another state. Bliss hopefully."

And Billy Jnr, as enthusiastically ambitious as four years ago, notes they sometimes sneak his forthcoming single The Way U Wonit at the front and again at the end of the show.

"It's cunning, and by the second time people are singing the chorus. That tells me it has potential. I'm putting a lot of effort into my singing, there's no point of aiming to step on the international market and having one facet of your package not stacking up."

* Billy TK Snr and Jnr play the Harlequin Bar, Victoria Park Market, tonight.