Documentary shows chaos King Loser brought to NZ music in its heyday
King Loser, from left, Chris Heazlewood, Sean O’Reilly, Lance Strickland, Celia Mancini. Photo / Supplied
It seems like just yesterday and a long time ago that King Loser got back together. The band had existed for only a turbulent five years in the 1990s, signing to Flying Nun Records – where their affection for twangy surf rock and various forms of exotica made them outsiders – before shattering in 1997. But people still talked about them. And here they were in 2016, promising – or threatening – a good time all over again.
They asked their friend Andrew Moore, creator of the definitive New Zealand skate culture film No More Heroes, to come with them and document their reunion tour. He’d been wanting to make a music film, so he jumped at the chance.
“It was going to be a documentary and it was just going to be about the tour,” he recalls. “I went into it with the intention of making a classic fly-on-the-wall, DA Pennebaker-style film.”
What actually happened was something else altogether. The road to the film King Loser, which premieres at this year’s Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival, turned out to be seven years long. In that time, an exhausted Moore believed more than once that he’d lost his way. But he found friends, carried on and emerged with a story about love and loss, friendship, drugs and rock’n’roll.
Derek Gehring is shouting into his phone. In keeping with the content of King Loser, it was decided some time ago that its festival screenings would also be gigs featuring Cash Guitar, the fluid ensemble of former King Loser guitarist Chris Heazlewood. But Gehring has just discovered that Heazlewood had not, in fact, mentioned the Wellington show to the musicians he claimed to have lined up, who are now double-booked – along with the backline gear they were supposed to bring. Gehring is frantically pulling favours – and shouting at the errant guitarist. The film might have wrapped, but the spirit of King Loser is unending.
Gehring, long known as a cool-headed fixer for his friends in the music and arts communities, stepped in as producer a couple of years ago. Moore’s cut of his film had failed to land with either the film-festival bookers or the friends he’d showed it to, and he was ready to shelve the whole thing. Gehring encouraged him to keep going and suggested he hand what he had to their mutual friend, Cushla Dillon, an experienced film and TV editor who was already busy crafting two of last year’s best documentaries, No Māori Allowed and Brave New Zealand World.
“There was a shitload of footage,” Moore says. “It was all labelled weirdly, and I didn’t even explain how it was laid out on the hard drives. I honestly didn’t think anyone could just come in with no instructions.”
Six months later, Dillon got in touch to say she had something. In some ways, it was more like the film Moore had wanted to make than the procedural one he’d ended up with. Out went a cluster of interviews with music industry people.
“What did those interviews add?” says Moore. “Not a lot. So Cushla took most of them out and just let the band speak because they spoke so well about it. You know, it’s about them, so just let them tell the story.”
Dillon says, “I love documentary and I love bringing audiences into a place where they can’t be: backstage, in the car with a band, in the hotel room. That stuff was amazing. It was great to centre on that footage that Andy had shot.”