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Blue Bell and Dead Flowers Bloom Again - Page 2

© Anne-Marie de Bruin

Rayner has gone on record with his praise of Bell's songs - ranking him with the likes of top New Zealand talents such as Neil Finn, Jordan Luck (Exponents) and Dave Dobbyn.

And like his fellow countrymen strong pop melodies are something that comes naturally for Bell. So, was it deliberate when he came up with a catchy song like I Wanna Know for the album? "Yeah. For this album I analysed why I like music and it's strong, hooky melodic songs that turn me on and that's what I set out to do."

It would seem only natural that Bell would want to take his songs to an overseas audience, having such a wealth of talent. And he got to do just that on a recent tour of London with Greg Johnson, the Exponents and Australians, Mental As Anything.

While the audience was comprised mostly of an expat Antipodean crowd, such details don't matter when you're playing to packed houses and its your first trip to London. "It was a blast! I'd never been there before, so we just got away and checked the place out and we were over there for ten days."

Nevertheless, it was not all plain sailing for the band in the UK, with guitarist Damon Newton deported as quickly as he had arrived. "We had to train up the Exponents' guitar player. We were playing with this strange guitarist, but everything was fine."

This trip is not the first time the band have toured with the Exponents, having clocked up several miles with them round New Zealand last summer. Bell has only praise for the Kiwi music veterans, (whose latest album was also produced by Eddie Rayner.) "They're wicked, they know how to tour as they've been doing it for ages. When we tour with them we stay in really fancy hotels and all the alcohol's free!"

For a band such as Dead Flowers, radio play is as equally important to as live shows and when they were first starting out, they found it difficult to achieve airplay and exposure. "On our first two albums we had a hard time. But now because a lot of money has been spent on the album, I think the songs have been produced to a high standard and they are being thrashed on radio."

If Bell feel things are going well for the Dead Flowers, it is clear he does not feel the same about the rest of the Kiwi music industry, with recent music channel closures a concern. "You had MAX TV which was a huge champion of local music and which I thought was a great station- you got that going down and now there's MTV going down. They don't play local music anywhere as much as MAX did, but its still something you know."

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