He was a brat,” says Francisca Griffin half an hour into Life in One Chord, the new documentary about her friend Shayne Carter. Indeed, “brat” was pretty much Carter’s personal brand in early 80s Dunedin. He was bright, funny and sometimes, after a few drinks, just a bit much.
Margaret Gordon’s film is the story of how Carter went from being a snotty kid from a rough neighbourhood to, as he currently is, a composer for the Royal New Zealand Ballet and an award-winning memoirist.
It is also, in part, the film of Carter’s book, Dead People I Have Known. Life in One Chord opens in Aramoana, near Dunedin, and interviews him while he is still writing it, in 2018.
“I heard Shayne reading a passage he’d written and I just thought it was awesome and would be great to sort of bring to life,” says Gordon. “Shayne’s book is really lively, but it’s full of stuff that I wanted to see or hear.”
The director’s intuition paid off – in particular, seeing Carter’s mother, Erica Miller, and his father, Jimi Carter (a Māori kid cut off from his whakapapa when he was adopted by a Pākehā family, and also a musician) on video deepens the picture of their son.
Carter’s book still provides the narrative backbone of the film, albeit by a surprising means. His words are read for the soundtrack by Carol Hirschfeld. As shown in the film, drafting in Hirschfeld began as a joke when Carter was struggling to record his own words at a studio session.
It works remarkably well, but it’s also symptomatic of Carter’s discomfort with continuing to talk about the past. Gordon confirms he was at times a reluctant subject.
“I did talk him down off a cliff every now and then. When we started filming, he was real keen, he was up for it and we had heaps of fun. And then once the book came out, I think he felt quite exposed.”
Carter is not doing press for the film, but made an exception for the Listener, for old times’ sake. He emphasises he felt “well treated” by Gordon and says he agreed to the project because her previous film, Into the Void, about an eponymous group of art school mates playing for decades in a heavy metal band, was “smart, more than a rock bio and more about friendship”.
This film, too, is about friendship: the friends Carter went to Kaikorai Valley High School with, played in bands with, dreamed about being famous with.
“I said to him, ‘Look, in the end, I know this is a film about you, but it’s also not only your story – it’s everybody’s story, too,’” says Gordon.
A particular figure from Carter’s past – his former bandmate and fellow writer in Straitjacket Fits, Andrew Brough – makes an unexpected appearance. Brough had been isolated for many years after giving up music and Gordon says he did not have a landline or use the internet, “so he had no idea of people liking or enjoying his material. He said, ‘People tell me Flying Nun’s a really big deal overseas, but I don’t believe them.’”
Her first attempt at an interview ended with Brough walking away from the camera, but she returned the next day to find “a different person” and, to her surprise, got an articulate interview.
“I think he wanted to be able to tell his side of the story to make sure that this is what got out there,” she says. “And, of course, it ended up being his last interview (Brough died in February 2020). So, this is his last word on everything.”
Apart from Gordon, the person with the biggest hand in what gets to screen in the film is its researcher, William Daymond. Daymond was working on a masters in museum and heritage practice at Victoria University of Wellington when the Flying Nun master tapes were bequeathed to the Alexander Turnbull Library in 2018. He based one of his final papers on the detective work of listening through and identifying the 162 poorly labelled cassette tapes that came with the bequest.
“William has been the longest and most consistent collaborator on the project,” says Gordon. “He got so much stuff out of the archives for us. It’s also really handy to be able to just message William and say, ‘Hey, do you know the date of that DoubleHappys gig that was recorded?’ And he’ll say, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s April 15th, 1982, at the Oriental Tavern.’”
Daymond found plenty in the archives, which created its own problem. Gordon, with the help of Carter’s sister Natasha Griffiths (a “powerhouse” in the film’s production, Gordon says), had to stage a crowdfunding campaign to cover $50,000 in licensing costs. The project got finishing funding from the NZ Film Commission, but has largely been made out of Gordon’s own pocket, with a team of friends.
Gordon also had to make it while doing a day job in another country. Her first job was as programme director at student station RDU in Christchurch, but these days she works as a video producer for Melbourne’s The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Some of Carter’s later work, notably his inspired reinvention of Dimmer’s I Believe You Are a Star with a live band in 2022, isn’t captured: “We just couldn’t film any more.”
Gordon is 49 and both of her feature films have been about men a decade or more older than her.
“One reason is that I’m a fan – I loved the music when I was young. And I also just think these stories need to be told.”
Since she began making the film, she observes, the musical community it depicts has lost Hamish Kilgour, Martin Phillipps, Doug Hood and Brough.
“If we don’t do this, then all of this knowledge and these experiences will be lost forever.”
Carter himself wrote so evocatively of the past in Dead People I Have Known that what he had to say about living as an artist in the present was somewhat overlooked. Yet, as the Royal New Zealand Ballet concludes its tour of Home, Land and Sea, his name leads the composer credits, above those of Tchaikovsky and Philip Glass.
In the time the film has taken to finish, Carter’s hair has gone from brunette to snowy white. He now lives in Wellington and he’s happy.
“As I get older, I recognise more and more the value of music,” he says. “I’m still completely besotted by it, but I really don’t need to be in the spotlight any more. I jam with my improv band every Sunday to no one and that’s just as deep and satisfying as any gig.
“It’s a minor miracle, though, that I’ve survived as an artist in this country without ever being that commercial. And a bit of a triumph, I reckon. I’ve kept exploring and, despite the inevitable dips, I’ve stayed inspired. I’m committed to what I do and I always have been, because I believe in it. I try to write music I believe in. I tried a proper job when I was 17 and that put me off working for anyone else ever again. My agenda ever since was to rock. And I have. So there.”
Life in One Chord debuts at the New Zealand International Film Festival in Dunedin on Saturday, August 16 before screenings in Christchurch, Nelson, Auckland, Wellington and Hamilton.
