Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - MINI: THAT 90'S SHOW - Karl Steven

Episode Date: June 24, 2021

In this MINI edition of Jono & Ben, Karl Steven joins us for our special edition THAT 90S SHOW!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jono and Ben, new to your mornings. Friends of Skinny, New Zealand's most recommended telco. Happy, happy, happy, oh, oh. We're taking it back to when the hits first started the early 90s. We bought a fax machine yesterday and we put out the number 093007130. Didn't know if anyone else had a fax machine because we didn't until yesterday. We just got two faxes. Two faxes in a row.

One international fax. Thank you to our dear friend, our US correspondent, Johnny Lovegrove in Portland, Oregon. So they came through and it was an actual fact on the fax. It was. So extra points for faxing through a fact there, John. Sort of the Scottish inventor, Alexander Bain, actually painted the fax in 1843.

But then the first fax was invented by Alexander Bell in 1876. There you go. So that we're now calling it a fax of the day. Fax of the day, day, day. It's our new segment based around facts, not facts. And there's no copyright issues there because it's a different spelling. It's F-A-X. Fax of the day, day, day.

And a completely different vehicle to get the fax. Totally, yeah. Michael Perkins, too, from Mount Maunganui, who sent us from Watson Hughes a fax, too. Oh, this is amazing. Keep firing through the fax. Totally, yeah. Michael Perkins too from Mount Maunganui who sent us from Watson Hughes a fax too. Oh, this is amazing. Keep firing through the faxes, guys.

It's a huge waste of paper but hey. We'll recycle those and do some stuff at some stage but we just played Supergroove, such an iconic Kiwi group

from the early 90s and right now I think we've got Carl Stephen from Supergroove on the phone, is it? It is. Thank you.

Lovely to have you on, mate. How have you been? Oh, pretty good. It's a bit hard to sum up how you've been for the last decade or so, but pretty good is a good summary, Carl. Yeah, you know, it evens out, you know, the times and the great times, and then pretty good. Well, I just saw a reading before you were playing,

Supergroove are playing with Lorde in Christchurch next year, which is pretty exciting. I know, freaky. Now, if you don't mind me asking, Carl, what are you doing nowadays? I make music for a lot of film and television, so yeah, that's the main thing. Oh, gee whiz, you're like

the Hans Zimmer of New Zealand. That's right, but I don't have the velvet jacket. Now, we're doing a 90s show, and we're reflecting on the 90s, and Supergroove was such a big part of New Zealand during the 90s. What memories does it bring back when you think of Supergroove during that 90s for you? Well, it was a bit of a whirlwind, you know, the first part of the 90s,

but I definitely remember all that touring of New Zealand that we did. You know, you mentioned the Lorde show next year. It's just such a contrast when I think of touring back in those days. Most towns literally didn't have a venue where bands could play. We used to take all the staging with us, the PA, the lights, and just basically

build a rock venue and a nightclub. Attraction was my first album, my first CD I ever bought and I went to United Video, which also doubled up as a CD store. They were diversifying.

Oh, did they sell CDs? Yeah, the one near me did. Yeah, and I spent the money on that. Then I followed up with Tractor too. Oh, yeah. Oh, wow.

Yeah, I was a huge fan. Yeah, me too, yeah. Your success came when you were sort of 17, 18 years old, the whole band. Yeah, we were pretty young fan. Yeah, me too, yeah. But your success came when you were sort of 17, 18 years old, the whole band. Yeah, we were pretty young. I mean, if you don't finish high school, you get that edge, you know, you have that extra advantage.

You've been out in the world that much longer. I don't know what message you're passing on to the kids nowadays. Is it dropout? No. Become successful? Well, you know, just if you know what you're interested in, I think that's a great thing. Because obviously yourself and Shea were up front with the band, weren't you?

Yeah, yeah, we were sort of on the microphones. Yeah, no, it was very cool. And you even played with New Kids on the Block, I was just reading before. You're open for New Kids on the Block. How's that for a 90s throwback? Yeah, that's right. That was good. It was a very exciting show for us. I mean, usually we play with

bands like Pumpkinhead and way more alternative bands, which we also really like. Yeah, and it's funny, you meet a lot of middle-aged women these days and they say quietly, first time I saw you was at New Kids on the Block.

So yeah, we've made a few new friends of the music. What was your favourite Super Groove song? I guess, sitting inside my head I'm pretty pleased with. It's got the emotions and Shea sings it so beautifully

and yeah, I feel like we it's funny, recently I listened to old demos of that song that we recorded before the album. And that song like had a swing, big band bridge and it was like almost like a reggae groove and it didn't change chords. And we just kind of completely rewrote the song

going into the album sessions. And I think we did a bit of a good job knocking it together from a real piece of crap into something like this, you know? It was an amazing song. Yeah, it's a beautiful song. Yeah, it is. The other one I want to talk to you about was, of course, Can't Get Enough was another huge song, and your rapping in there was so quick through some of that part.

You know, I was young, you know, you'd just eat a packet of Skittles and away you go. Yeah. Munchos, Munchos, wasn't that your, back in the day? Oh, that's right. In fact, I talked about touring. We did that Munchos commercial, and that was like what opened the door for us to a lot of those nightclubs that we transformed into venues for the night,

you know, because they were like, what? A band touring from Auckland? We don't want to know about that. And then the manager, Stu, would say, oh, they're the ones from the Munchos commercial. Munchos commercial. Oh, hey, we'll have them. They're the ones from the Munchos commercial. That'll

book the gigs. Well, listen, congratulations on all the success the band has had and continues to have. Do you still have the lung capacity to pull off that quick wrapping at Electric Avenue next year, Carl? That is the real question. I think it's best to think of it more like a sports match, you know,

like what's going to happen, who's going to win, who's going to get a bad injury. Yeah, that's how I'm thinking of it. Are there actual lyrics? Because I remember, I think it was in the album sleeve, they had the lyrics all just written on top of each other, basically. His for his, better and worse. That's right, yes, that was me writing.

I wrote out all that junk for the album artwork. So that kind of gave you a get-out-of-jail-free pass if you kind of screw it up in concert. You're like, oh, well, there's no actual lyrics. Exactly. I'll just use that as my lyric sheet on stage as a memory cue. Lovely speaking with you this morning, mate. You keep well and it sounds like you're nailing life.

So keep on trucking. Thank you. You too. Nice to talk to you. Want more Jono and Ben? You can wake up with the boys' weekdays from 6 on The Hits and via the iHeartRadio app. Jono and Ben on The Hits Breakfast.

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