AN album recorded by the cream of Fiji’s musical crop in the ’70s and re-issued last year, sold out the day it was released.
And in the process, the members of Mantis wrote themselves into Fiji and New Zealand’s music history books as the producers of the fastest selling album in the Pacific.
John Baker, a New Zealander who was instrumental in the re-release of the rock/funk-fusion record through Universal Music, said only 300 LPs were pressed as a limited edition re-release in December 2015.
“The album was sold out the day it was released,” he shared.
Baker is renowned in the music industry in the Land of the Long White Cloud as a respected historian, entrepreneur and music guru.
Turn onto Music was initially recorded by Mantis in New Zealand in 1973 and released the same year.
Mantis was made up of guitar wizard Waisea Vatuwaqa, Ronnie Paspatu Samuel on keyboard, legendary drummer Paul Steven, flamboyant guitarist Rupeni “Rupsanji” Davui and bassist Joe Heritage.
Youngsters immersed in the local music scene at present should take a leaf out of Mantis’ book.
They did not let the fact that they were un-schooled in music theory or from a tiny dot in the Pacific Ocean get in the way of expressing themselves so well that they caught the attention of music appreciators from abroad.
The quintet was the house band at the Golden Dragon nightclub on Victoria Parade in Suva when they were given the opportunity to travel to New Zealand by a film crew that visited the country in the early ’70s.
The band changed its name from the Dragon Swingers to Mantis and in the four months they spent in Wellington from July to November 1973, the five boys from Fiji caused more than a stir on the New Zealand music scene.
“People really did not believe we were from Fiji,” shared one of three surviving members of the band, bass guitarist and vocalist Joe Heritage.
The other two are Rupeni Davui who resides in Byron Bay, Australia and Ronnie Samuel who lives in the United States.
“We got the same comments everywhere we went — from our live gigs to the studio we recorded in.
“People were saying ‘you can’t be from Fiji because you guys play real good music’ and we used to joke about it all the time.
“Because for us, we were just happy to have made it overseas and we were just doing what we loved to do and I suppose that enthusiasm and our island style of getting into the music we were performing got transferred on to tape and made the world sit up and listen.”
Mantis’ only album — Turn Onto Music — featured six cover tunes and four original instrumentals.
And while music pundits raved about the funky psychedelic overtures of the instrumentals — Island Suite, Firewalker, Back at the Village and Hurricane Bebe — it was Mantis’ rendition of the cover songs that really caught the attention of music lovers everywhere.
The remakes including Mantis’s version of US band The Whackers 1972 release titled Day And Night, Booker T and the MGs’ Time Is Tight, Wilson Pickett’s 1965 smash hit In The Midnight Hour, Mississippi Queen released in 1970 by US band Mountain, Jo Jo Gunne’s Shake That Fat and You Don’t Love Me.
Heritage recalled how the cover tunes were recorded.
“I guess playing at the Golden Dragon during a time when there were no deejays to fill in the gaps and allow bands to take a break had something to do with it,” he said.
“It made us become very creative with the arrangements of those cover songs.
“And along the way, without even realising it, we had developed a unique sound and approach to every cover song we performed. “I remember when we went into EMI studio with Eddie O’Strange — we didn’t realise at the time that he was one of New Zealand’s top producers — it was a very new and exciting experience for us.
“The engineer Mike Grafton-Green got us into separate booths — like all the bands normally recorded — and started recording.
“He immediately knew something was wrong because the energy and vibe that O’Strange had heard when we performed live was missing and he also knew we were very uncomfortable with the whole setup.”
O’Strange had literally taken Mantis under his wing when they arrived in Wellington and employed them on a regular basis at his nightclub, Ziggy’s.
“So he got us out of the booths and into one room with Paul on the drums in an isolated booth and as soon as he pressed the record button, the magic was there.
“We were in our element, just jamming the songs like we had been doing at the Golden Dragon and during our live shows around Wellington.”
New Zealand music critics have hailed Turn Onto Music as one of the Pacific’s most iconic pieces of recorded music.
From the way the songs were recorded right through to the first release of 300 LPs in ’73 and re-release last year, O’Strange and Mantis may have created history.
“I remember him saying that he had never recorded a band the way that the Mantis album was done.
“It was a first for him and whether he used those methods with other groups and achieved the same level of success, I don’t know.”
Turn Onto Music was originally released under the Vertigo label until Universal Music acquired the rights for the album a number of years ago.
The enthusiasm shown by discerning buyers in snapping up the re-release last year is a lesson for all local musicians.
There are opportunities for local artistes to stamp their mark on the international scene.
In fact, one could argue that there are more opportunities available nowadays via the worldwide web.
The internet has literally opened up the global market to composers and artists from any corner of the world.
Mantis success could be put down to the fact that every member of the band was a virtuoso on his instrument, the result of years of practice and commitment to finetuning their skills in the art of creating music.
Another factor is the band had played week-in week-out at the Golden Dragon in the early ’70s and forged a sound that was unique to the quartet.
They remained united and reaped the rewards.
It is a sad fact that apart from youngsters such as Inside Out, The Gang, The Relativ and Nem and Talei, a lot of groups on the local scene are made up of floaters or musicians who play in almost every group that’s out there.
For many it is a bread and butter issue, they are forced to remain freelancers in a bid to eke out a living and to provide for their families.
For some, it has become a habit and they often use their level of skill to leverage wages by playing one groups need for their particular expertise against another.
Perhaps there is a need for musicians to have a serious think about making a commitment to creating music that could capture interest locally and abroad.
And, like Mantis, they could also etch their names in Fiji’s music history.
