Chants R&B: The Return Engagement

It’s often been said that had the Chants R&B resided in the UK or USA, they probably could have been one of the biggest bands of the 1960s. As it happened, the band were based in Christchurch – and for a couple of years in the mid 60s, their action centered around their spiritual home of one club: the legendary Stage Door.

CHRISTCHURCH Al’s Bar, Friday 16th November 2007

AUCKLAND Monte Cristo Room Saturday 17th November 2007


“When I first walked into that dank, dark room in Hereford Lane that became the Stage Door, I fell in love with it,” says guitarist and vocalist Mike Rudd of the basement location which would become the Chants’ home base and New Zealand’s hippest locale for 60s teen wildlife. “Over the couple of years that the Chants played there, it developed a reputation as being the centre of the Mod universe – in Christchurch anyway.”


It was a changing climate into which the Chants burst into in 1964, as drummer Trevor Courtney recalls: “Musically, NZ was coming out of an era of Elvis, Gene Pitney, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, surf music; and into the new “group” sound emerging out of England.”

Seizing the opportunity, The Chants R&B hit the ground running, and didn’t let up. By 1966, when even the edgier New Zealand youth were still in thrall to the beat group boom, the Chants were already way ahead, influenced by the heavier sounds from the UK of the Rolling Stones, the Pretty Things, Them, and the Downliners Sect; along with the soul sounds of Stax and Motown, and the Blues from the South of the USA. In a time when musicians didn’t usually cross lines, the Chants refused to even acknowledge that any boundaries existed, and tackled whatever tunes fired their imaginations in their singular, maxed out style: in the process, turning on a generation, and – with a rushing howl of feedback-- .introducing modernity into a city still mired in post-war stoicism and reserve.

“The Chants R&B provided Christchurch youth with an antidote for conservatism,” says bass player Martin Forrer. “They were different. They were wild. They introduced a type of music to the city that hadn’t been heard before. They introduced an attitude to the city that hadn’t been seen before”.



“We enthusiastically experimented with each new overseas R&B sound we discovered”, says guitarist Jim Tomlin. “We were completely immersed in the thrill of the moment…wearing tailor-made outlandish mod clothing and producing ever-extravagant stage performances from which I stood arrogantly aloof.”
Their performances rapidly became the talk of the town – from the dimly-lit Stage Door came tales of rafter-swinging; headlocks, unconsciousness and triumphant recovery; with the most authentic, powerfully LOUD, rhythm and blues on offer anywhere in the city – or perhaps, the country.



Though their recorded legacy is scant, even today, the Chants R&B version of the John Mayall-penned ‘I’m Your Witchdoctor’ is considered perhaps the definitive cut of the song. Collected on Rhino Records’ Nuggets II box set, it was pointed out that the Chants “didn’t so cover it, but inhabit it…sending it into a dancing ecstasy of guttural shouts and wild paroxysms”. The single reached No. 12 in the NZ charts – despite adult concerns that the band were “too wild and too decadent”. This level of high-octane teenage abandon wouldn’t be seen again until the advent of punk over a decade later.


It was all about thrills and musical kicks – and it will be again. Matt Croke, the guitarist formerly known as Max Kelly, is not interested in reuniting for any cosy nostalgia. “I’m only interested if it sounds like 1966 again,” he says. And of course, he means the turbulent, furious, unrestrained 1966 represented by the Chants R&B, rather than any sanitized, family-friendly pop version sanctioned by history. If you weren’t an underground participant in the subterranean enclave of the Stage Door back in the day – or even if you were -- you now have a rare chance to experience the powerhouse rhythm and blues unit which soundtracked those halcyon nights, when Christchurch might well have been the eye of the musical storm.



CHANTS R&B

CHRISTCHURCH Al’s Bar,

Friday 16th November 2007

One Night Only
AUCKLAND Monte Cristo Room, Nelson Street

Saturday 17th November