The working man of rock

The impressively muscled Graham Brazier is busy and well, and writing songs in Grey Lynn. Picture / Kenny Rodger

Note to that silly man from NZ Idol. Graham Brazier is busy and well and writing songs in Grey Lynn. He is also pretty tough.

I know this because he asks me to feel his biceps - and what would you have done? So, watch yourself, Iain Stables. Because if Brazier and I happen to see you out on the town, we'll ... Well, I'm not quite sure what I'd do. But having been won over completely by Brazier's dotty charm, I'd poke my tongue out, at the very least.

If Brazier had seen him just after the "sat around in Raglan for 12 years, done bugger-all" comments, it might have got a bit more exciting. "Hey, two weeks ago, if I'd met him in a bar, he would have had the kiss from Liverpool planted fairly on the bridge of his nose."

I don't think this is true, although it may have been true many years ago. Or perhaps not. The truth is that, despite those very impressive muscles - "feel that, my dear" - Brazier is a bit of a softie. Although not, I hasten to add, in the bicep department. I knew he looked pretty good for 54 but I hadn't expected that he'd have arms that are what body-building types call cut. He lifts weights at home; has always been fit even when he was treating his body not so much as a temple but "more like a playground".

He doesn't believe in gyms. He has some oddly puritanical views on unlikely things. "I don't believe in institutionalised exercise. If you have to go to the gym to exercise it doesn't mean anything. If you get [past] the inertia and have the discipline to do it by yourself, then it's real."

He likes good, honest labour, which is what he does - "I'm a working musician" - and once, a long time ago, he was a dustman. "It was rubbish tins then, that's when it was real work."

The only mark on his arms, despite what everyone surely expects, is in the crook of the right one where he was gashed by a broken bottle in a bin. Spurt, spurt, it went, he says, and he ran into a chemist's shop, asked for a needle and thread and sewed it up himself. Oh, you did not. "I did. I did. I would have bled to death otherwise." So that's his only visible scar, other than a few lines on the forehead and a bit of hurt around the eyes. It's not a very rock and roll scar.

But still, it is a tough-guy tale. He is no pushover, which is what he reckons that silly man thought. He says he's over it now, but I think he still sounds a bit hurt. And he was. "Yeah, he hurt my feelings. He called me things that weren't true. I'm not a has-been. I might have been a never-was-er, but I'm not a has-been."

No, he isn't. I won't hear a word against him. He could charm the birds from the trees. It's raining hard when we leave and he comes out on to the street and puts his suede waistcoat over my head.

Just like Sir Walter Raleigh, I say and he says, yes, but he'll draw the line at putting his coat over a puddle for me. This is what Raleigh is supposed to have done for Queen Elizabeth I. Not too many rockers would have got that reference; I was pretty sure he would. He is very well read and has lots of mostly old books - and not much furniture. He left school young but he did grow up above his mother's second-hand bookshop on Dominion Rd. He loved and liked his father too, although he died when Brazier was about 21, just as they were getting to know each other. His parents were bohemians and because he liked them so much, he didn't have anything to rebel against. "No. I think I rebelled against myself, really."

He talks about his mother constantly, with great affection. But surely she must have worried terribly about him when he was taking all those drugs? "My mother has been totally supportive right through my life. My mum used to say, 'Graham, you're just like an orchid. Orchids take a long time to come into bloom, but when they do they're very beautiful."'

She never growled at him? "No, not really. Just guided me. Things like: 'We have taken our fun where we found it but now we must pay for our fun. The sins we commit two by two, we must pay for one by one. Which is fairly good advice." Was that her way of saying: Stop taking those stupid drugs? "Yeah, well. Well, take them, but ... "

I say, "She started it anyway." This is a joke which relates to a story he told earlier. "I'm saving it for my autobiography but ... I'll let you lend that one and every word of it's true."

It is about how, when he was 14, a champion runner and about to run an important race, "my mum said: 'Oh, you're nervous, dear,' and so she gave me a Librium". He was "the original drug cheat. 'Here, love, have this: it'll relax you.' Well, you don't really need to be relaxed when you're running 100 yards, do you?"

He was a nervy boy and he still gets nervous, especially before he plays. He thinks he is a bit shy too. "It might sound funny, but I suffer from low self-esteem. Why I don't know." He says, from time to time, "my psychiatrist says" - which is marvellous because I've never known anyone own up to having a psychiatrist. So now I can ask: "Well, what does your psychiatrist think?"

"He can't really put a finger on it. He said there's no reason that I should [have low self-esteem]. I guess it might just be coming from a working-class family." But he is terribly proud of his working-class roots. "Yeah, I am. Just a lack of confidence, I guess."

He is happy now; he wasn't for a long time. "I made some decisions with partners over the years." He has had a few. "Yeah, and all good people, but some just not quite right for me." He has one child from an early marriage: Billy, 17, who, he says, indignant at any suggestion otherwise, "was born in wedlock. He's not a bastard!"

He finally felt grown up about 10 years ago "when I started to feel responsible for things. And that I could leave something behind that was worthwhile. That was probably the main thing. Realising that if I put the work in, I could leave some good songs behind. The orchid syndrome again."

He took a lot of drugs for a long time. He says he doesn't take any now. "My psychiatrist said, 'One day you'll grow out of them', and he was right. He said, 'You'll just wake up one morning and the novelty will have worn off.' And it did." Besides, he doesn't like the "new drugs".

He talks for a bit about what an awful "scourge" P is and the terrible things people do on P. "Well, they'd have to be a bit mad to start with, wouldn't they?" All of which makes him sound very grown-up indeed on one level. But just as complicated a character as he's always been on another. Goodness, Brazier railing against drugs.

There is something puppyish about him, in his desire to be well thought of. He runs off to get all the albums he's made because, to come back to Stables, "having done nothing! I've done six albums! I can show them to you. Here's my doing nothing."

Before we went to see him people said, "Oh, he'll be drunk if you're going in the afternoon." He wasn't there when we arrived, early - he'd hung a little note on the door saying "back soon". He is back soon; he's been shopping for pain au chocolat for our afternoon tea. He has a beer, one slow beer, and would I like cranberry juice? "It's real juice. Not cordial." Would we like a cherry sweetie? "These are English. The English make great sweets. Look, they're beautifully packaged. "

He asks if we mind if he smokes, in his own kitchen. He asks, very politely, if he could have a wee plug for the new album, Hello Sailor: When Your Lights Are Out.

"Because nobody paid much attention to the last one."

I say, " Of course you can. Go on, then."

"That would be nice," he says, and, "Hey, it's a great album."

Of course it is. And he's a great bloke, a real gentleman - with really big muscles. So take note of that, Mr Stables.