FREDDY Moore looked nothing like the confident vocalist of Fiji’s first reggae band Exodus when I ran into him earlier this year at Pacific Harbour.
Decades of struggle and unpleasant experiences has deepened the lines and added to the wrinkles on his wizened face.
The pain of betrayal by music industry players has also inflicted deeply embedded feelings of disenfranchisement and suspicion in his heart.
“You just can’t trust anyone, when it comes to the dollar, its brother against brother,” the 58-year-old singer, composer, guitarist and drummer shared.
For those who don’t know Moore, they would never guess he once fronted a band that was once the darling of the nation — or that he was the voice heard in almost every household, singing for the marginalised in Fiji and across the Pacific region.
To say he is a shadow of his former self would be an understatement.
Moore once strutted the streets of Suva with a determination and belief that the music he and the members of Exodus were creating would not only send a powerful message of love and hope, but also provide them with some sense of financial security.
The success of the group’s 1984 album, Music is the Food of Love, which spawned the mega-hit Fantasy, catapulted the group of young men from the streets of Suva to stardom. The group had high hopes, that with the huge following and increasing fan base, earnings would increase and bonds strengthened.
Unfortunately, the popularity of the hugely successful musical work did not translate into a financial windfall.
If anything, Moore claims, it drove the group apart.
And to add fuel to the fire, suspicions about dealings with their record label and ownership of the music also led to the band’s demise.
“One minute we were just a group of family members who played music together and the next minute our songs were being played on the radio,” he said.
“And then people who didn’t want to know us before because we were from the streets began calling us and asking us to play at parties and big events.
“We went from no money in our pockets to having some paisa and we just didn’t know what to do with it, so everybody just went crazy.
“Nothing can prepare you for that kind of popularity and when you have nobody around to tell you what to expect, or how to deal with all the attention, everybody just did their own thing and somewhere along the way the music just died.
“And that’s the thing with being popular, when you’re a nobody, nobody wants to know you but as soon as your music becomes the talk of the town, everybody wants to know your business and make business out of your creativity and passion.
“That’s the way the Babylon system operates.
“When I look back now, I just wish we were better prepared to handle the fame and the money side of things.
“Because if we had done that, the band would still be together and we all would have at least had our own little homes and been able to look after our families better.”
Music was always going to be an important part of Moore’s life.
He made the decision to follow his passion after his family could not afford to send him to secondary school in 1972.
“I was only educated up to Class 8 level and everything I learnt about life, I picked up from the streets,” Moore said.
“By listening to the radio, I learnt about what was going on around the world and that gave me enough information to compose songs of hope and love.
“Because everything you hear in the news is about fighting, death, war and misery.
“Exodus’ music stood for everything that the world was against — equal rights, peace, love and justice.”
The band took its name from the book in the Holy Bible that chronicled the journey of the Israelites from the clutches of the Egyptians to the Promised Land, under the stewardship of Moses.
The biblical account of the journey tells of trials and tribulations as God’s chosen people began to doubt the promise He had made and fell into sin.
Moore said the biblical story drew a lot of parallels with the reggae band’s historic rise and fall.
“The Israelites had Moses to guide them, unfortunately, we had no one but we now have experience and all the things that we went through to look back on.
“If Exodus ever got together again, we would certainly do things differently.”
The band’s first line-up with Moore as the lead singer included Michael Heatley on rhythm guitar and vocals, Leo Heatley on bass guitar and vocals, Henry Moore on lead guitar and backing vocals, Manoa ‘Scatter’ Keith on drums and his brother Eddie on keyboards.
After a short stint with the group, the Keith brothers left the band, Henry Moore moved to keyboards and Exodus recruited Tall John to sit behind the drums.
When the band recorded their debut album in 1984, Victor ‘Carlos’ Kamoe joined them as the lead guitarist.
“The song Music Is The Food of Love was written by me and Michael Heatley but all the boys in the band contributed to the music and lyrics and the title says it all, any song that is written about unity and love will always find a way to people’s hearts no matter what.
“Another song that was very popular with the public was Monkey Man and that one was about Younas Mohammed, a friend who used to follow us around when the band first got together.
“His nickname was Monkey.
“When he died in the early 1980s, everyone was sitting around telling stories about him and the stuff he used to get up to and Michael began playing around with some chords on the guitar and I wrote some lyrics around those chords and we called the song Monkey Man in memory of Younas.
“That was kind of our thing, while we enjoyed doing our versions of reggae classics from Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Third World, we were also very much into writing our own songs about the people and things that were happening around us.
“It’s really sad that we don’t see that same vibe in the young musicians today.
“Everybody is busy trying to be somebody else instead of just telling their story through music.”
Exodus had a long run from the group’s official inception in 1981 right through to when they disbanded in 2011.
“I just walked away in 2011 after our last tour to New Caledonia,” Moore said.
“It just didn’t make any sense trying to keep the band together anymore because there was so much history between us and even after all that we had been through we still were not getting anywhere.
“People were downloading our music and we saw albums being sold in the countries we toured under different labels.
“It’s so hard to stay passionate and committed to music when everywhere you look, people are ripping you off left, right and centre.
“Sometimes I think about getting the boys back in the studio and recording again, but when I think about the piracy and the struggles I’m going through while others are making profit from my sweat, I just lose hope.”
Moore’s story is, sadly, true of many musicians in Fiji.
The amount of hours spent creating music and the money spent recording and releasing albums is not worth the returns.
Some of our biggest music stars are, in actual fact, living in abject poverty because at the push of a button or click of a mouse, all their hard work can be downloaded, stored, reproduced on a CD and sold or shared online or through memory sticks without a single cent going to the artiste.
As a musician, I can say that piracy only serves to kill the creativity in artistes.
So the next time you think about uploading, downloading or sharing a song, take a minute to think about the person or people who will be affected by your actions.
Think of how your actions will have an impact on their lives in terms of the quality of food, shelter and clothing they are being denied, and do the right thing.
Buy a genuine CD or download from a site where the artiste can and will receive what he, she or they rightfully deserve.
By doing this, mind-sets can change and people can start paying respect to the work of our local artistes and give them and their families a better quality of life.
