Alien Weaponry: Taking te reo to places it’s never been
Henry and Lewis de Jong: A metal road paved by their parents. (Photo / Supplied)
Most rock documentaries from these shores arrive as career obituaries. Alien Weaponry: Kua Tupu Te Ara – about the young band that has incorporated te reo Māori into the very Pākehā genre of heavy metal – is different.
It’s about Alien Weaponry’s first steps from the paddocks of Waipū to the fields of European metal festivals and arrives a month ahead of the band’s third album. So, it’s no eulogy.
But surprisingly and refreshingly, it’s not as serious as the band’s music – a sound that reminds of the adage that heavy metal exists for young men with no wars to fight.
The spirit of this film, one that even the metal-allergic might find enjoyable, is lighter. It’s more like a proud parent’s 21st birthday speech: it’s rambling, funny, touching, a bit awkward and it possibly goes into too much embarrassing detail. And behind it all is that sense of perennial parental amazement: they grow up so fast.
It’s also fitting because the film, an impressive, six-year, fly-on-the-wall feat of endurance by director Kent Belcher, does have an actual proud dad’s 21st speech. That’s from Neil de Jong, father, metalhead, fluent te reo speaker and music coach to drummer Henry and singer-guitarist Lewis.
Judging by the early family video archive this taps, he and wife Jette have supported their kura kaupapa-educated sons’ musical ambitions to an extreme degree.
That was possibly helped by living somewhere rural where the neighbours weren’t too close. But just as some Kiwi parents have steered offspring to sporting greatness, it seems the de Jongs have pushed their sons into the metal international league.
They managed them on their first forays overseas, and there’s plenty here that’s amusing about a Kiwi mum, dad and two teenagers making a campervan tour out of metal festivals in places such as Slovenia and Germany, especially when Lewis sulks after he’s not allowed to get a souvenir tattoo at one event because he’s not 18 yet, but Henry is – and really rubs it in.
There’s more angst from Lewis a few years later when, restricted to playing at home during the pandemic years, the band is preparing to play with the NZSO, only for him to break his thumb while riding a hire scooter on the day of the show and forcing its cancellation.