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Barry Saunders Moves To The Magnetic South - Page 2

© Anne-Marie de Bruin

"What's now known as country music used to be pop music in those days. Like Hank Williams and Hank Snow and people like that, a lot of it was radio stuff. Now its gotten the label country music, but its just songs really."

For Magnetic South, however, Saunders does draw on another side of his musical history which is perhaps not so immediately obvious.

"Probably with this album there's a bit of blues in there. The first bands I started playing with in Christchurch were blues bands, so there's quite a bit of blues in this in this album in its own strange way."

Most of the songs on the album were written over the past nine months, and it is clear that Saunders views them as pictures of his own life. But he is still surprised that fans react to his songs in a personal way.

"It is surprising but people feel the same things generally and you're sort of voicing things that a lot of other people think."

The songs on Magnetic South reflect Saunders' life and love of New Zealand, but sometimes even he is unsure of what they mean.

"I don't know, I'll tell you in five years time maybe. You don't really know what you're doing at the time, its only hindsight that makes things clear."

For more information on Barry Saunders, e-mail pagan.records@clear.net.nz.

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