Mark Vanilau's 'Giant of the Sea' a musical voyage for his father

Monday, 29 July 2019

Mark Vanilau smooths a paintbrush across the wall of a tiny room in suburban Christchurch and thinks of the sea. 

Pulling the hood of his jersey off his head, revealing a mohawk haircut, Vanilau waves the hand not holding a paintbrush at the room around him.

It's a former shop on Rowley St, beside MP Megan Woods' Christchurch electorate office, and he has huge hopes for what it could become.

'I'm turning it into a space for creatives,' he says. 'The idea is anyone who is bored at home and wants to come down and do something, make some music, do some art or whatever, they can come here.'

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Vanilau is an award-winning musician who has performed and recorded with everyone from Hollie Smith to Breaks Co-Op, Fly My Pretties and Dave Dobbyn. He's been in bands with Ladi6, Scribe, Warren Maxwell and Louis Baker. 

'I have been in Dave Dobbyn's band for 13 years,' he says, grinning. 'Although I nearly wasn't.'

Vanilau is a 'soul man' and when his manager, Lorraine Barry, who is also Dobbyn's manager, asked if he wanted to join a 'rock band', he said 'no'.

'I turned it down,' says Vanilau. 'Then I found out I'd turned down Dave Dobbyn so I rang Lorraine back and said 'yes please'.'

As he is refurbishing the creative space, multi-instrumentalist and singer Vanilau has been pondering his own music.

On Tuesday, as part of the Christchurch Arts Festival, his own music is to the fore when he performs Giant of the Sea at The Piano.

It marks his first Christchurch performance since September 2010.

The show title is based on Vanilau's song of the same name.

In 2014 Vanilau won the British Council Aspiring International Artist for 2014 award and the Apra Best Pacific Song award for Giant of the Sea.

'Giant of the Sea was written about my father,' explains Vanilau. 'The arts festival show is about my life, the moments from my life … tragedy, death, divorces. Everything is a journey to now.'

He puts down his paintbrush carefully and strides across the room to have a cup of coffee in a polystyrene cup.

'No milk,' he sighs, peering into an empty vessel. 

His father was a pastor. Vanilau grew up trying to live up to him.

'When you're a pastor's kid everyone in the church has their eyes on you,' he says. 'It is a lot to live up to sometimes.'

At 17 the church funded what became a four-year trip for Vanilau who went to sea with a 'group of missionaries'.

'We went everywhere … from Bristol to Africa … everywhere,' he says. 'I nearly died once, dangling off the side of the ship on a rope painting it out at sea. The sea was rough that day … there was no health and safety regulations back then.'

Vanilau grew up in Linwood, only knowing 'church music'.

'When I was away I was exposed to all this new music and new people. It changed me and that's what really got me into music. I loved being at sea, I loved everything about it, from pulling the ropes to the feel of the ocean.'

He is, he says, the kind of person who stands outside in a lightning storm to 'feel the world on his face'.

When he filmed the video for Giant of the Sea, Vanilau says he 'never thought' to ask his dad if he wanted to play himself in it.

'I never thought he might want to do it … I found out later that he did. Mum said he was upset. It is what it is now, but I wish I had asked him.'

He feels remorse for some of his past choices.

'My dad was a giant in the community. My parents are those people who drop everything and help everyone,' he says. 'Always feeding other people, giving them food, looking after them, even if they didn't have much left for themselves. I remember my dad rang me up once and asked me for $30. I thought 'I could buy a box of beer with that' so I said 'no'. I was dependent on alcohol at the time … because he's gone now, those are the things that hurt a lot.'

When the February 22, 2011 earthquake struck, Vanilau was working in the kitchen at an inner city hotel and was 'trapped in a fridge'. The earthquakes changed him.

His parents home in the east of Christchurch had 'terrible earthquake damage'.

Vanilau put his own music to one side and focussed on working with others. He became a house painter.

He's a bit nervous about performing in Christchurch again. Out loud he runs through his ideas and song choices.

'I want it to be like a lounge setting, comfortable and relaxed, the smell of bacon frying, the sound of the ocean,' he says. 'For one song, me, mum and my children are singing together.'

Scuffing his gumboot on the floor of the creative space he is renovating, he looks down at the ground.

'Dad is gone but he is still looking after us,' he says. 'My parents had big insurance battles over their house. It was really hard on them.'

He strides across the room to a recently donated organ. He runs his hands over the keys and plays a sweet old-fashioned tune. 

'My dad died in a broken house in a mouldy room,' he says quietly.

'After he died everything with the house was finally sorted it out … I think he is still looking after us. That's who he was, always a giant.'

• Giant of the Sea at The Piano, as part of the Christchurch Arts Festival. Tuesday, July 30. See https://artsfestival.co.nz/