...Fresh off a national tour with The Feelers, the band started mixing Mix in July 1999 at Airforce Studios in Eden Terrace and, with a release date set for August, things started coming down to the wire. At the eleventh hour, the proposed cover design using holographic foil was scrapped over cost concerns. A new photocentric cover was arranged in haste but a suitable photo of the band was lacking. The solution was to extricate Boh from the mixing sessions for a separate shoot and her picture was then added to the cover (hence the resulting Hockney-esque “cut-up” arrangement). The band’s logo, ‘Bastard’ and ‘Part Of Me’ single covers were designed by Wayne Conway but the Mix album, ‘Violent’, ‘Undone’ and ‘Every Girl’ single covers are designed by myself (I had been freelancing as Conway’s assistant). It was Conway’s idea to include the asterisk on the end of the name; the addition purely for aesthetics.
Speaking of aesthetics, the band, who were previously known for their long hair and general grunge look (see the back cover of 'Happy Gun'), reappeared for Mix with stylish clothes and sharp haircuts – in particular, Runga’s blindingly bright red mop. “We didn't have a clue about styling or fashion,” says Boh, “but I definitely wanted something to stand out. I went into Stephen Marr in Ponsonby and asked Lucy Vincent if she could match the colour from a red ‘fragile’ label. She was, "Sure thing, fun! " And hours later I had a red do that truck drivers always tooted at.”..
...The album was given an official, industry-only launch at private Auckland venue Hopetoun Alpha on July 26, 1999 with support from Tom Bailey’s International Observer. A public launch at Auckland’s Town Hall was staged later on Friday September 17, which also kicked off a six-date national tour supported by label mates Breathe as well as DJ Slave. In synch with the album release, new single ‘Violent’ charted on August 1 at No.14, spending 13 weeks in the charts and peaking at No.11. Mix was released on CD and cassette a week later on August 8, 1999 (8/8/99) – eight being a lucky numeral in Chinese.
NZ Herald critic Russell Baillie awarded the album five stars and proclaimed it to be, “not only a startling debut but also a great pop record.” The public agreed, Mix shipping 19,000 units in the first week, and was certified platinum on debut, helped in no small part by the band playing over 200 shows between the recording and releasing process. It entered the charts the following week (August 15 1999) in the No.2 position (held off by Shania Twain) but eventually hit the top spot seven weeks later on September 26 1999.
Following the release, the band supported Alanis Morrisette and Garbage in Auckland and Wellington, before heading over to Australia to fill the same role for seven shows there.
November 21 saw the fourth single from Mix, ‘Undone’ debut on the charts at No.47 (the official charts were Top 50 at the time). It climbed to a high of 13 eventually spending three months in the charts (to 20 Feb 2000). Four weeks elapsde before the fifth and final single, ‘Every Girl’, debuted at No.44 on March 19, 2000. The single became the band’s most successful, peaking at No.3 (held off the top spot by, ahem, The Vengaboys and N’Sync) and spent 18 weeks on the charts (to July 16, 2000).
At the start of 2000, and still riding a wave of popularity, a photoshoot was organised for a special edition version of Mix which featured an extra disc of the music videos to date (the new package design and special content was produced by myself). Pre-DVD technology, the extra disc was in the form of a CD-ROM that could only be watched on a desktop computer. This special edition version was released in February 2000 and the combined editions of the album spent a total of 42 weeks in the charts, eventually going on to sell over 75,000 units (five-times platinum) making it one of the most successful albums in NZ music history.
The ensuing NZ Music Awards at the Civic Theatre & Sheraton Hotel (Saturday March 4, 2000) saw the band cleaning up, winning every category they were nominated in bar one (Jonathan King’s video for ‘Violent’ lost to Reuben Sutherland’s video for ‘My Mind’s Sedate’ by Shihad). The next day, CEO of Sony Australia and NZ, Denis Handlin couriered each band member a magnum of champagne with handwritten notes professing his enthusiasm for the band. The total tally was seven Tuis – Album of the Year, Best Engineer, Best Producer, Best Songwriter, Single of the Year (‘Violent’), Top Group and Top Female Vocalist. Just for a bit of extra Runga domination, little sister Bic won International Achievement as well. In a feast-to-famine scenario, the band would only garner one further Tui in their career – 2002’s Best Producer gong for Stellar and Bailey jointly.
After this success, Stellar returned to the Lucky Country for a three-month campaign (June to August 2000) playing two shows a week in Sydney and Melbourne, driving the 800km Hume Highway between the cities twice a week. Flying people between the cities is relatively cheap but not so the band’s gear, which had to be transported on the ground. The band took turns flying but cabin fever set in nonetheless and band tensions escalated. Maclaren had a friend at an energy drinks company so the band were up to 4 or 5am most mornings hopped up on Red Bull, which did nothing to alleviate the cabin fever.
Adding to the tension, Stellar were successfully building an audience through live shows and TV appearances but were left in limbo when the band’s champions inside the Australian record company were made redundant. This resulted in plenty of touring, plenty of spending Sony’s money but no one in the record company actively working them or even aware of what the band were up to day-to-day. To cap things off, on departing back to New Zealand a Sony rep admitted that they were working the wrong single at radio (‘Every Girl’ instead of ‘Violent’).
Barry Blackler, who had been instrumental in the band’s touring management, departed in the wake of the Australian tour and fallouts with Campbell Smith and Maclaren, and Smith took over as full time manager from this point.
Despite the grind, residual animosity and disappointments of the Australian period, the band headed back into the studio in 2001 to begin work on their next album, Magic Line. For this album the band had purchased their own ProTools rig and installed it into the apartment above Smith’s management offices in Grey Lynn. Subsequent mixing took place in Los Angeles at Ocean Way Studios with renowned American producer Joseph Jack Puig. This also began a joint Sony/ Smith quest to break the band in America, which Maclaren says he felt was the wrong direction, but went with it at the time. In hindsight, he suggests Europe would have been a better idea as the music tastes and audiences were better suited to Stellar. There was a cursory attempt at Europe with a sold out show at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, in June 2002 and an appearance at one of the industry’s biggest trade markets, the Popkomm Festival in Cologne, Germany in August 2002. Maclaren’s suspicions were borne out and the American sojourn resulted in very little interest, although it was not entirely dissimilar to Shihad’s experience, Stellar was been hawked in the US only a month after 9/11: the sound of chequebooks slamming shut could be heard all the way back to New Zealand.
Magic Line repeated the feat of its predecessor by going to No.1, and it also sold platinum. The first two singles – the up-tempo rocker ‘All It Takes’ (2001) and the slow-burner ‘Taken’ (2002) achieved Top 10 placings, but the steam eventually ran out. The third single, the punchy ‘Star’ managed to scrape in at No.40, whilst the similarly hook-laden ‘One More Day’ (2003) curiously failed to chart at all. However, during this period, radio play counted for anything between 25-50% of chart positions and, combined with a reformatting of commercial radio playlists, Stellar bore the brunt of the vagueries of programmers’ tastes. As many a band around the globe has experienced – the wind changed and the band’s sound was no longer flavour of the month. Perhaps signalling a metaphorical white towel, the combination of various tensions, diminishing returns and fatigue resulted in an overdue band hiatus.
Despite all this, Runga and Maclaren continued to work on material and started writing in a non-Stellar capacity. This eventually transpired into a regrouping instigated by Maclaren to put a full stop on the band properly. The resulting album, Something Like Strangers, appeared in 2006. Whilst it couldn’t replicate the success of its predecessors, it still charted in the Top 10. However, as Shanks and van de Geer posit, it has some satisfying artistic moments, which, as a band, they can be proud of and came as direct result of being made – perhaps for the first time – unencumbered by expectation.
“I think that we wrote some of our most interesting songs on that album,” says Boh. “It's unfortunate that Mix is the one people remember, and of course that is the case because we were new and very much in the public eye then. We had these anthemic hits but there are songs that, as a songwriter, I think are special on Something Like Strangers and that could have only been created from our lives at that point. We are proud of that album.”
The band completed a victory lap in 2010, releasing an 18-track Best Of compilation and playing a handful of shows in celebration of both the collection, and – yes – their stellar career.
trax:
01 Beautiful 02 Whiplash 03 Miracles 04 For A While 05 What Your Heart Didn't Know 06 Take A Girl 07 High 08 Everybody 09 Life 10 7 Miles High 11 Sparkle
…served by Gaius…
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