METAPHORICALLY speaking, Riki Gooch wants to splatter your mind across a wall. His weapon of choice? The funk.
You may know Riki Gooch from Trinity Roots, or perhaps you’re familiar with his more recent stuff. Reincarnated as the visionary behind live project Eru Dangerspiel, he takes on yet another role. Riki the drummer-slash-beatmaker now becomes composer, bandleader and “navigator”. He’s writing the songs (with help from his friends), structuring them for rehearsal, recruiting the musicians and ensuring that it all comes together for the live show. Quite a hefty role when you consider that as many as 55 people will share the stage for the gig.
Musicians include members of Opensouls, Electric Wire Hustle, The Black Seeds, Dimmer and Fat Freddys Drop, plus a choir and Riki’s Uncle Pat – a wedding musician who was also the first man to be asked to join the lineup. It reads like a band of band-leaders, and to some degree it is, but it works because all the musicians chosen are “gun players” – which Riki translates to mean “awesome, experienced musicians with instincts,” – people who know their role within the band structure and act accordingly.
So how do you get over 50 musicians from all different generations and genre sharing a stage and not come out with a big, loose mess? The secret is to keep it simple and let the skills and tones of the musicians and their instruments provide the drama.
“Getting ten people all doing simple parts, if it’s done well, is quite a mammoth effect really,” he says.
There’s effect to be found in the themes too. While there’s certainly a glittery, dressed-up aesthetic to the event – the content of the songs themselves can be heavy and at times quite dark. That’s because Eru Dangerspiel began its life as a tribute to a friend whose life was lost too early.
“I guess if I was a painter I’d paint a series,” says Riki. “This is my way of expressing it. When you’ve gone through a full-on experience, you’ve gotta find a way to shake it out of your system.”
And shaking it, literally, will be hard to avoid at the gig itself.
“I don’t want the funk to be too polite. I wanna keep it dirty, keep it swampy.” Expect to get down. Way down.
Eru Dangerspiel, Wellington Town Hall, October 9