Turns out it’s a bad day – and a good day – to talk with Bill Direen.
He and wife Sandra arrived in New Zealand a few days earlier but there was no power at their Dunedin house, a problem with his phone and the new modem is at the Post Office. But it’s Saturday so it’s closed.
Fortunately, there’s a wood-burner in the house “on probably the steepest street in the world, not that one on the other side of town which gets all the tourists.
“And buses don’t come anywhere near. We’re cut off a little bit.”
So a bad day after a difficult journey from Paris where they live: “We had three possible trajectories lined up because the French political situation is so volatile at the moment with strikes.
“But we were determined to come back, of course.”
That’s because it’s also a good day: after almost five decades of creativity across diverse disciplines – theatre, music, poetry, novels, essays and more – Direen, 68, is one of this year’s recipients of The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate Award, which recognises “artists whose practice has an impact on New Zealand”.
Direen’s work – “niche” might be the polite way of describing it – has been acclaimed by creative communities but not widely embraced, aside from his almost-hit in 1985 with the quirky Alligator Song (“do the alligator”). The hypnotic and menacing video became a staple on Radio With Pictures.
So the acknowledgement of a lifetime of creative work – and not the least the $50,000 that comes with the Joanna Hickman, Waiwetu Trust Award – is much appreciated. “I’m very grateful. We’ve never had a very luxurious lifestyle, we’ve always lived close to the ground,” he says of a life between France and the South Island with music tours through Europe and the United States.
Direen, the subject of Simon Ogston’s 2017 documentary A Memory of Others, has spent so much time living outside the country, mostly teaching in Paris, that his pension has been reduced considerably.
“So this has come as a very nice message from a guardian angel, something out there likes me,” he laughs.
The award also gives pause for reflection. He says he listens back to his music more than returning to his vast body of written work “because I’m not sure how good it is. Some of the music passes muster, thanks to the musicians I worked with, so I’m very happy to receive the award for the impulses towards the songs.
“And it’ll help provide the time and materials for something else.”
It’s a measure of how hard Direen has been to pigeonhole that he has recorded – as Bill Direen, The Builders, Bilders and under other names – on a dozen different record labels here and abroad.
Released in 1983, his excellent Beatin Hearts was one of the first full-length albums from the fledgling Flying Nun. His 2020 album as Ferocious with Cloudboy’s Johannes Contag (drums) and guitarist Mark Williamson appeared on the Auckland-based arthouse label Rattle.
Last year’s Bilders’ album Dustbin of Empathy on tiny independent labels arrived as a 15-song album (digitally and limited-edition vinyl) and a 21-song cassette with material drawn from his 2023 poetry collection about films, 100 Years of Darkness.
His writing has been equally disparate, from editing, poems and short stories to novellas and novels: the 2011 Devonport: A Diary contained meditations on place and moods written in the Michael King Writers Centre on the slopes of Auckland’s Takarunga Mt Victoria when on a CreativeNZ Fellowship; Seasons in 2022 was a poetry collection written in a small town outside Dunedin and his new publication Apropos is a 128-page collection of photographs and writing about musicians he has met and “the prose is quite creative in parts”.
Alongside locals Chris Knox, Peter and Graeme Jefferies, Sandra Bell and other fellow travellers there’s his encounter with the late Shane McGowan of the Pogues.
“It was about three in the morning in a bar in New York. He’d finished recording and we sat there, just me, Shane and his manager who was waiting to go home. We were just looking straight ahead and not saying a word to each other.
“We sat there with change in front of us, he’d signal for another drink and the barman would scoop something out of this huge pool of change,” he laughs. “But I had this feeling for him.”
Literature was always his calling and Direen has been outspoken about “the mass book disposals being carried out by the National Library of New Zealand/Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa”. In 2021 he edited The Ultimate Reader of Love, an anthology of writings by those similarly concerned.
He admits the sheer diversity of his output has counted against a higher profile but lately has been “working hard perfecting and constructing songs in a different way, very like what led to Beatin Hearts”.
He’s also now concentrating on poetry, or at least “words that can be turned with music or, in the case of Apropos, not. They are really poems presented in a prose format”.
“When I decided to do this with my life I wasn’t trying to be an outlier or maverick, I was just trying to draw the strands together to embroider something, to make it meaningful for me and hopefully others. I know the music is more accessible, but the writing?
“Well, I do want people to read it,” he laughs, “but it’s an acquired taste. I’ll keep doing what I do and this [award] takes some of the pain out of life and gives me fuel to keep going.”
The career-overview soundtrack and trailer to the 2017 Simon Ogston documentary Bill Direen: A Memory of Others
In good company
As well as Bill Direen, these New Zealand artists were also named as 2025 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureates:
Cheryl Lucas
Ceramics
2025 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate receiving the Female Arts Practitioner Award Gifted by Liz Aitken, Foggy Valley Aotearoa.
What the selection panel said: “Cheryl has pushed ceramics beyond category – transforming the vessel into sculpture, social commentary, and even earthquake recovery.”
Kate Newby
Sculpture
2025 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate receiving the Gow Family Foundation Sculpture Award.
What the selection panel said: “Kate’s quiet revolution asks us to notice the overlooked, creating art that is radical and gentle, ephemeral and enduring.”
Pene Pati
Opera 2025 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate receiving the Burr/Tatham Trust Award.
What the selection panel said: “One of today’s leading tenors, Pene bridges opera and popular performance, inspiring new audiences and embodying cultural pride on the world stage.”
Reuben Paterson
Visual Arts 2025 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate receiving the Toi Kō Iriiri Queer Arts Award Gifted by Hall Cannon.
What the selection panel said: “Reuben dazzles with glitter and light, reimagining kōwhaiwhai, floral motif, and queer identity in bold new conversations for contemporary art.”
Roseanne Liang
Film 2025 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate receiving the Dame Gaylene Preston Filmmaker Award.
What the selection panel said: “Roseanne’s fearless storytelling has placed kick-ass women at the centre of cinema, while championing equity and Asian voices on screen.”
Séraphine Pick
Visual Arts 2025 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate receiving the My ART Visual Arts Award Gifted by Sonja and Glenn Hawkins.
What the selection panel said: “Séraphine’s atmospheric, imaginative paintings explore female experience and inner worlds, inspiring generations and anchoring our public collections.”
Shona Rapira Davies
Sculpture, Visual Arts 2025 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate receiving the Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa Award Gifted by Jillian Friedlander.
What the selection panel said: “Shona’s uncompromising vision confronts colonisation and uplifts Māori womanhood, creating powerful works that are both political and poetic.”
The selection panel was made up of Briar Grace-Smith, Felicity Milburn, Kim Paton, Nigel Borell, Peter Robinson, Shayne Carter and Simon O’Neill.