Interview taken ( & edited ) from HermAphrodite #8.

me - “D’you want a catchphrase ?”

Zane - “Do I want one ? By myself ? No. They stick with you. I’d hate to be forty-five years old and still have somebody going ‘Who’s The Man ?’ at me, my kids asking what he’s on about. All fairness to Richard, it’s increased his popularity, but... I think stand-up comedians are the people who should have catchphrases. ‘That New Zealand bloke’ seems to be my catchphrase.”

And he doesn’t get peculiar fan-mail. Just teddies and stuff. Which I think is also a testimony of the quality of his show.

But then, he does get some people coming up to him in the street to harangue for what has been said on the programme..

Zane - “Sometimes you do. But then you just give them the standard ‘well that’s just my opinion’ line. Which is the other thing - you HAVE to have an opinion. Otherwise I’d just be like: ( smarmy grin ) ‘That was that, wasn’t it grrrreat!’ There are ways of getting around it without being obnoxious, you just be subtle. And English as a humour is very subtle and very dry and full of sarcasm, and that’s my sense of humour, so it seems to flow quite well together. If I was doing what I do in America a lot of them wouldn’t get the sense of humour, thinking ‘what? does he like it or doesn’t he?’ Some stuff I don’t like, but I have to play. And I’m not going to go out there and try to ruin careers - I couldn’t do that even if I tried...”

I don’t know about that. It only takes one to start sowing the seeds of dissension.

I ask whether he sees himself in a position of responsibility with brand:new - he can influence people’s music purchases ( and thus their tastes ) by that which is played, particularly at a time where there isn’t much of a televisual outlet / forum for good new music. I don’t think Zane sees his job in terms of viewing figures, his responsibility lies more in more to himself to be truthful about the record, which can then shine out and we can make up our own minds...

Zane - “Have an opinion about it. But don’t shove your opinion down people’s throat. Just throw it out there. And if people think you’re a dickhead that’s full of shit they’ll watch the video and ignore you, make their own decision. ‘I don’t particularly enjoy the music made by... Matchbox 20, but some people do, and here it is if that’s your bag’.”

me - “Are you asking for the people that you want to talk to, or are you just told - ‘you’ve got Travis’?”

Zane - “They always come to us and say ‘Do you want to talk to this band? Yes or no.’ And more often than not we’ll say yes, because we’re doing it for the people who are into the band. I don’t really like Everlast, but they’re cool to talk to, he’s a nice guy.”

me - “Do you find yourself warming to the band’s music after you find out that they’re quite nice people?”

Zane - “Yeah. That’s the way it is. Like I didn’t really like Reef, to be honest with you, when I first heard them, but now I’ve talked to them a few times...”

me - “Doesn’t that worry you that you’re losing your...”

Zane - “Objectivity? Naah, not really. It just means I’ll give them the time of day... I can separate the two. Say ‘well this person’s nice but the music’s not...’ It’s important on a music show not to become a snob.”

me - “How strict is the playlist? How much freedom do you have to include things you want?”

Zane - “A lot of freedom. Because we do it all together. Me and my producer have earnt the trust of the playlist.”

And they’ve also learned how best to play them.

Zane - “It’s a bartering process. We go in there with a couple of videos we want to play and we know they’re going to be virtually impossible to get playlisted. If we get them on - bonus. And if we don’t... Like I really wanted to play Super-Collider. But the video was Chris Cunningham, really dark, and... heavy for day-time. So I went in there and said ‘I really want to play it’, they said ‘No’, so I said ‘Well can I play GangStar’, and they said ‘Oh, okay’... But we have a lot of freedom, we’re very lucky. I’m always really proud of what we’re playing - we’ve always got the big names like the Suedes, The Stereophonics, the Reefs, a bit of Catatonia or Travis, something like that. But then we’ll always have Space Raiders on Skint or something, represent the indie labels a bit, encourage them to keep making videos... We play good videos for different reasons; some of them are beautiful, some of them are funny. And if they merge nicely with the song it’s a bonus.”

me - “Do you play more of them on the strength of the song than on the actual visuals?”

He thinks about it.

Zane - “That’s a good question actually.”

He thinks about it some more.

Zane - “It depends. ( pause ) I will answer that question.”

Just not any time soon. I try to help him out...

me - “So if you’re looking down your list and you see that Mercury Rev have a new single out would you play it no matter what...?”

Zane - “Yeah that’s a great example. The Mercury Rev video I didn’t think was that good, for ‘Goddess on a Highway’. It’s cheap and a bit of a twisted concept.”

me - “I wanna try it though...”

Zane - “With all the statues and stuff ? It’s cool, but I didn’t think it was a really fantastic video. But the song is stunning. Or Underworld’s ‘King of Snake’ - cheap as hell but a great song... More often than not I say that if it’s a great track, we have to play it.”

Talk turns to videos of supreme quality. And thus The Aphex Twin.

me - “The Aphex Twin’s good for freaking out my flat-mates.”

Zane - “The Aphex Twin’s just good. Full stop. ( pause ) Chris Cunningham and MTV don’t get along. Everyone loves Chris Cunningham’s work, but the Independent Television Commission just have us by the... I would have loved to play ‘Window-Licker’ on brand:new, but because it goes out at 11:00 in the morning, we’re screwed.”

me - “Do the videos make you want to start directing ?”

Zane - “Sometimes. Yeah. I’ve given that more thought since I’ve been working over here... I think music videos are one of those things that are easy to do but hard to do well. Truly original videos are very rare. I’d love to do that though because it’s a great way of getting into film-making - there’s a soundtrack already in place, they’re generally only three or four minutes long, and you’ve got the personality of the band that you can to and work out something from. I’ve been in music videos for our band, I know how they’re done, and my favourite one was one we did for ourselves...”

The appeal is there.

me - “But it would be out of interest, not just ‘ohmigod I can’t believe they keep giving us this crap’...”

Zane - “Both. Believe me. The factory-line shit we get is an inspiration in itself. My favourite videos are the spoof videos, the rip-off ones. Like Weezer’s ‘Buddy Holly’ where they turned on ‘Happy Days’... In terms of humour, and beauty & seriousness, my favourite video director’s Spike Jonze. He’s got a genius mind. And John Glazer. And Chris Cunningham. Those are the three video directors of our time.”

me - “So there is a lot more in there ( I point towards his head ) that you want to get out here?”

Zane - “Yeah. Though I don’t think you can polish a turd, you need an idea before you can do anything else.”

me - “Though that would a good idea in itself.”

Zane - “Polishing a turd would be a great idea for a video.”

Heh-heh. And then on no particular train of thought at all, my mind opos off to ‘Up For It’...

me - “Do you miss doing the Eddy Tempole-Morriss thing ?”

Zane - “Yeah, I miss that programme sometimes. Not in the sense that I’m crying over it, because you’ve got to move on. But I miss having a spontaneous laugh. And the regularity of being able to take the piss out of yourself. There was no ego there.”

That was all beaten out of them fairly swiftly...

Zane - “When you’re asked to do something like stand on The Orgasmatron and fake an orgasm, you do ask yourself at some point ‘what the fuck am I doing?’ But once you’ve put your ego in the drawer and locked it away for six months, then it was a fucking good laugh. It was like being on ‘Saturday Night Live’ for a year, with sketches and live bands. It was a really good laugh. And I miss that. And it was good experience.”

me - “I’ve been looking out for mullets at festivals in your honour. And I only saw one at V99, over the entire thing.”

He looks really quite chuffed at that.

Zane - “I think we actually...”

me - “...did people a service?”

Zane - “Put that trend to an end. I think we really had a serious hand in bringing mullets down. The funny thing is that once we realised that we were having that effect, all of us one by one started to appreciate the mullet.”

Well if he does get lonely for the past, there’s always The Jerry Springer Show...

And from talk of hair crimes ( Zane had his short ‘n’ frosted at an early age ), talk turns to facial fuzz...

me - “Would you ever want any more of the little strokey devil goatee thing ?”

Which he has going on right about now...

Zane - “I have grown it a bit longer at times, but it’s generally looked quite ugly. And uh, if you’re with somebody on an intimate level it generally drives them nuts. You have to be careful about that. Facial hair’s always something that I’m drawn to. Then I shave it off, and realise how much of a muppet I look. So I grew it back.”

And he doesn’t hold himself back from stylistic reasons because of fears of looking a tit in front of the viewing nation...

Zane - “The whole watching world laughs at me anyway, I have no preconceptions. So naah. If I’m going to do something, I do it... It’s just hair. It’s just clothes. It’s all superficial shit.”

And then we’re nearly leaving. To conduct a photo-shoot in a doorway in the rain. Just time for one last question...

me - “Does the future look bright/spangly/rosy for brand:new ?”

Zane - “So far. We’re here until the middle of next year. Unless I do something horribly wrong. But I’m happy with it. I couldn’t ask for anything better in a day-job. I get to do what I love doing, I have more hand in production than I did when I was presenting so I don’t feel like I’m ligging it, I’ve got equal creative control over the shows with Paul, it’s very much a team effort, and both of us are 100 percent behind the show. We love what it brings us in terms of respect from people we respect - people in bands, a lot of them watch the show when they can and always comment. I love the fact that it’s bringing people like yourself something inspirational and new and honest, and I’m really proud of that, of how it looks, of the bands we play. And I love doing it. It’s long fucking hours, and sometimes I wish I was doing other things I want to do, but that’s a price worth paying. I’m getting old man, I’m twenty-six...”

Which isn’t, um, THAT old…

Zane - “I’ve crossed the watershed. And [ long-term ] either I’m going to get bored and leave or MTV’s going to get bored and move me off onto something else.”

But he is very very happy where he is and with what he has. As you can, um, probably tell.

Zane - “I love it man, it’s fucking superb...”

Absolutely...

Last revised: 26/07/01