Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - Stan Walker Need Your Help Finding His Taonga
Episode Date: October 10, 2024"We sit down with singer, actor, and television personality Stan Walker to discuss: The meaning behind his brand new song KI TAKU AWA His growth since auditioning for Australian Idol Ben takes a Stan... "Walker" down memory lane See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Stan Walker, great to see you again.
Merry Christmas.
Almost.
Is this our Christmas chat too?
Happy New Year, happy birthday.
Well, it's great to see you.
Now, you've had a bit of a hectic week,
just got back from Australia, playing over there,
and it seems like someone took a bag of yours.
I don't know if it was taken.
I don't know what's happened, but yeah, my bag of, like,
I had heaps of stuff in there, all my clothes,
but I had my taona all of them
because I take them everywhere with me
I wear them on stage
but I just take them everywhere
and yeah
so it's just gone missing
so if anybody sees it
or anybody has it
or wherever it is
man give it back
I'm willing to pay money for it
and the priceless items
because they mean so much to you
and your family
it's got my whole family stuff in there.
Like my wife, mine, my kids, and some of the stuff is like hundreds of years old.
Oh, no.
Sorry to start the interview.
If someone took that, it's like.
I hope they get it.
Well, hopefully they will and then come and they can just give it, hand it back.
Well, hopefully it's just stuff somewhere.
Yeah.
And it just got put somewhere.
Like, you know, that's what I'm hoping.
I don't ever want to assume or blame anybody or anything,
but I started to get like, I'm like, it's been a week.
Yeah.
I need it.
Hey, now this side of song, it's like the conclusion of what?
It's almost like a seven year project for you, right?
I don't know.
It's been many years.
But because I had like three songs
I Am, Māori Ki Te Ao and Back to the River
Or Ki Taku Awa
They're like a trilogy
I wrote them last year
And it was the first writing camp that I've ever done for myself
And I just got my boys to come along
My mates, my whānau
And literally because we did it in Tauranga
First time ever recording there
And going back home
I had just like a pool of like all the singers
bringing up my cousins, hey, what are you up to?
I need you to come and sing on this.
Oh, yeah, sweet, cuz, I'll be there.
So all those songs were written then, but they were just,
they kind of explained three different chapters
within like a long season of my life.
That's very cool, because your your journey when you look back at your
career you've done so many amazing things but you know starting off in australia and there
i was reading an article last night where you were kind of told that to not sound in some ways
in your words too brown you know like you know and to do this now must be quite fulfilling to
be who you are you know it's beautiful like i've just been talking about it lately with a lot of
my mates i was like man i can't imagine um Stan like seven years ago or 10 years ago talking to Stan now.
Like just the difference of like a Māori song.
I didn't think I'd be ever able to do that.
To me now, I don't think twice about if I'm going to write a song or do a song in Māori or English.
Like it's just normal for me.
If I decide to write a song in Māori or English. Like it's just normal for me. If I decide to write a song in Māori,
I just decide.
I'm not like trying to force it
or trying to be about it.
It's just, that's how far I've come.
What do you think changed you?
Do you think it's just age?
As you get older, you're like,
no, this is me.
I'm going to celebrate who I am.
Or do you think there was a turning point for you?
I think there was many turning points.
I think I was turning around constantly.
Oh, just, yeah, just. I'm getting to know myself more and getting older and becoming myself more and more authentic and unapologetic about everything of who I am, where I come from, what I'm about. I don't mince my words. I don't second guess myself um maybe what i look like but like and it's taken years um to become that version of me and i'm still becoming the better version of me hopefully
i love that about age that's a really good message for like younger people because they spend some
so much time trying to find yourself and worrying about things that don't matter so much when you
get older yeah yeah just worry about the bills.
Worry about the bills.
Well, it's so great to see you again.
This new chapter for you is awesome. And even last year, you were being talked about as an Oscar.
Well, at the start of the year, one of your songs, Up for an Oscar,
they were talking about you like that.
That would be pretty cool in America being talked about.
It's weird yeah i'm i'm very grateful for like um the
opportunity that um ava duvernay gave me um with the song um it was such a trip going there doing
promo um on that scale and like having to be at everything like i haven't done a red carpet or
done photos and stuff for like ages up i get like nervous. I don't like going around heaps of people.
So I just kind of stay home and do that thing.
And I was like, oh, I haven't done this for a long time.
They're like, well, you're going to be doing it every day.
And you get that photo.
But no, it was cool.
It was cool.
It was buzzy.
Just before you go, I wanted to take a walker,
Stan Walker down memory lane for you.
And you tell us, I'll play a little bit of audio
and you tell us where this was in your career.
Okay.
First up.
You got it?
Yuck.
Okay.
You've got that already.
You're cringing.
Why are you cringing?
This is what launched you.
It's not the video.
I think we've played you in the video before.
We won't do that again.
That video needs to die.
You sound amazing.
You do.
This is you on?
On Idol.
Yeah, Australian Idol.
This is what launched you.
Yeah, the audition.
I'm very, don't get me wrong, I am so grateful.
That was one of the best experiences of my life.
But just looking back and hearing back, I'm like.
You must be so nervous as a young kid though.
I was.
I was like fully shaking.
Every performance at Idol, I like was shaking at the back.
And so like, I can't look at anything
because I'm just like.
Here's another bit of audio as well.
This is more recent.
This is pretty incredible.
How did she find Stan Walker?
Somebody in her company, Paul Garner,
bought a video of him.
So Ava goes to Instagram to see
if they have any mutual Instagram friends, her and Stan Walker
she finds that they have a couple
of mutual
friends, reaches out to them through
DMs, next thing she knows
24 hours later she's on the phone
with Stan Walker
so this is a CBS
morning show over this, this is Gayle King
talking about you and the story of
how you were found just from social media from the director for the movie.
She's amazing.
Honestly, she loved the song.
I met her.
I met her and Oprah together.
Did she?
And I was like, oh, my gosh, thank you so much.
She's like, Stan, oh, my gosh, we love the song.
We love the blah, blah, blah.
And they were doing the witty.
They're like, what does this mean?
Oh, wow.
And I was like, oh, you're kind of walking around the office going, hello.
And I was like, you're kind of doing it.
Oh, that's a great one.
And the final bit here from Walker Downs, Stan Walker's career.
Can I do another song?
I actually, I didn't even want to do that song.
We'll give him a good Kiwi song.
I'm going to sing that.
Show them what you can really do.
You got it now.
Yeah.
This is when we dressed you up in disguise
and it was like a Tuesday night.
Was it Papa Toy?
Yeah, somewhere like that.
Papa Toy Toy?
Yeah.
And put them in a karaoke competition,
put them in disguise,
and you started singing bad.
And they were brutal.
They started booing you.
And then all of a sudden you're like,
oh, maybe I'll do another song
and then as soon as you started singing still in disguise they know they knew exactly by your voice
who it was you know you've got a standing ovation at the end they went from booing you
to standing a motion oh man i was honestly even then i was nervous Well, so nice to see you. I think we've got a little bit of the song now.
A beautiful song.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
So nice to have you here as well.
It's good to be here.