Paul Hester

The other day (26th March) marked the twentieth anniversary of the world losing Paul Hester. Now, he might not mean much to everyone, but to fans of Crowded House, he was a huge star - a rough diamond, a gigantic presence on stage, an enigma, and not a bad drummer either. His loss sent ripples of sadness through our worlds.

So, as is my way, I am honouring this by featuring Paul as the kick off point for another edition of Six Degrees Of Kevin Shields - where we find some musical connections that link Hester to the King of Shoegaze, Kevin Shields...

Before we get going though, I just want to mention a wonderful new tribute that has been put together for Hester. If you are a fan of Crowded House or Split Enz, I think you will enjoy this hour on YouTube, lovingly created by long time friends Peter Green and Mark Goulding, and including contributions from people like Mark Hart, Noel Crombie and Eddie Rayner.

Watch Hessie - here.

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Paul Hester was born in 1959, and spent pretty much all of his living in and around Melbourne. He was encouraged to pick up the drumsticks by his jazz drumming mother from an early age. He was in bands as a teenager, but it started to get serious when he formed Cheks in 1979, and when they decided to try out Sydney, they changed their name to Deckchairs Overboard.

Deckchairs Overboard: That's The Way (Official music video)

In 1983, Split Enz were looking for a new drummer; Mal Green had departed in 1981 and Noel Crombie had filled in for a while, but he wanted to get back to percussion. Hester was recommended by Rob Hirst of Midnight Oil and after a bit of a trial, he was in. He joined in time for the Conflicting Emotions tour, before playing on the last album, See Ya Round, with the band calling it quits later in 1984 (although they would reform and play Antipodean shows every now and again).

Crowded House: This Is Massive (Live on ABC, 1986 - old Split Enz song written by Hester)

Neil Finn took Hester with him into his next venture, initially called The Mullanes (Finn's middle name), with bass player Nick Seymour and guitarist Craig Hooper. Hooper left, the band moved to L.A. recorded their debut album, now as Crowded House, and the rest is history. But by 1994, the pressures of life on the road, coupled with the impending birth of his first child, caused Hester to leave. He headed home, midway through the Together Alone tour in the US, hastily replaced by Peter Jones.

Now back in the comfortable surroundings of Melbourne, he would do things on his terms, rarely leaving the city. He contributed to various musical projects, had a brief stint on Australian children's TV show, The Wiggles, then formed a new band. The Largest Living Things were Hester, Kevin Garant and Barry Stockley - they played as a house band for Colin Molloy's short-lived show and were then the backdrop for Hester's next foray into television, Hessie's Shed (which would later include Finn and Seymour amongst the guests).

Largest Living Things / Crowded House / Paul Kelly: Leaps And Bounds (Live on Hessie's Shed)

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Kevin Garant is a guitarist who originally hailed from Boston and then New York, working with a diverse range of artists from Sting and Hall & Oates, to Afrika Bambaataa and Weird Al Yankovic. But in 1994 he found his way to Melbourne, joining up with Paul Hester in The Largest Living Things. He would also work with other big names from the Australian music scene, like Paul Kelly and Colin Hay, and indigenous artists like Kutcha Edwards. He has also written scores for film and television.

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Colin Hay was another transplant to Australia, having been born in Ayrshire, Scotland and moving to Melbourne aged 14, where his parents ran a small music shop. The band he is famous for, Men At Work, sprang from an acoustic duo he formed with Ron Strykert in 1978. With an expanded line-up and that new name, Men At Work ran through to 1986, with their global hits Down Under and Who Can It Be Now? He went solo from 1987 to 1993, when the band reformed - and he has done a mix of solo and band stuff ever since, releasing fifteen solo records along the way.

Colin Hay and guitar in a scene from Scrubs

The music also led him to get the odd TV and film acting role. There were small roles in Australian police TV drama Blue Heelers, the film Cosi with Toni Collette and the crime movie Heaven's Bounty with Russell Crowe. Perhaps most memorably he popped up now and again in the US hospital comedy show Scrubs, generally passing through scenes with his acoustic guitar singing Men At Work tunes like Overkill and Down Under.

Colin Hay: Overkill (As it appears in Scrubs)

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Scrubs is the hospital based comedy, written by Bill Lawrence, that ran for nine seasons and 182 episodes across the 2000's, starring Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke, Donald Faison and John C. McGinley. It was a hotbed for pop and indie songs in its soundtrack. Title track Superman was provided by alt-rock band Lazlo Bane, and songs cropped up from a variety of sources across the episodes - including The Shins, Butthole Surfers, John Cale (with a cover of Hallelujah), The Coral and one of my favourites, Guided By Voices (Hold On Hope).

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Another tune that appeared in the show was Fresh Feeling by American rock band Eels. From Los Angeles, they were formed by Mark Oliver Everett, generally known as E, and became one of the first bands signed to DreamWorks Records, a subsidiary of the DreamWorks film company (who also signed Elliott Smith). The band achieved a fairly decent level of international success with debut LP Beautiful Freak in 1996, which included the hit Novocaine For The Soul.

Fresh Feeling cropped up on fourth record Souljacker, in 2001, with E's writing being less autobiographical than before. The strings on the song were actually sampled from one of their earlier tunes, Selective Memory. The track was also used in the TV spy drama Chuck, with Zachary Levi, and the rom-com Failure To Launch with Matthew McConaughey, Sarah Jessica Parker and Zooey Deschanel.

Eels: Fresh Feeling (Audio only)

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The soundtrack for Failure To Launch also included an eclectic range of songs by the likes of jazz musician Madeleine Peyroux, Snoop Dogg & Dr. Dre and The Nips.

The Nips actually started out life as the more interestingly named Nipple Erectors, a punk band formed in 1976 that was one Shane McGowan's first musical vehicle (he was amusingly known as Shane O' Hooligan at the time). The band started with McGowan, Shanne Bradley (who would later form folk-punk band, The Men They Couldn't Hang), Roger Towndrow and Adrian Fox.

They changed to The Nips in 1978, and All The Time In The World (the one in the aforementioned soundtrack) was their first single with the new name. Around this time, the band also had some demos produced by the Modfather himself, Paul Weller.

The band quit after a gig at the Rock Garden in London, in March 1980. But they were back together later that year, with the new line-up not lasting long, being done after a December show with The Jam. This brief line-up had included one Jon Moss, who reappear very soon as a core member of Culture Club with Boy George. One final line-up limped through 1981, before another break up. There was some more brief reunions in 2008 and 2009.

The Nips: All The Time In The World (Audio only)

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Paul Weller went from The Jam to the Style Council to solo work. In 2010, he put out his tenth studio solo record, Wake Up The Nation. The LP was dedicated to 'absent friends', including John Weller (his father), Pat Foxton (wife of former Jam bassist Bruce) and Robert Kirby (a string arranger who had worked on earlier album Heliocentric).

The illness and death of Bruce Foxton's wife Pat, had brought the two men back together having not spent much time together since the end of The Jam in the early 80's. Weller said, "There was no big plan, it was easy, a laugh, and nice to see him and work together again. We just slipped back into it."

Foxton appeared on two tracks on the album. ELO drummer Bev Bevan also featured on a couple of songs. The songs She Speaks and 7 & 3 Is The Strikers Name (the latter being described by Pitchfork as a "wobbly psych-rock confection") also included a guest guitarist. This guest came from the musical genre commonly known as shoegaze, so the collaboration was unusual, since it wasn't long since Weller had referred to that genre as being "bollocks!" That guest player was none other than KEVIN SHIELDS.

If you look carefully to the right of stage in the below performance, you will see our very own Kevin Shields playing as Paul Weller's guest in this appearance at the 2010 NME Awards.