20 years of Fat Freddy's Drop celebrated in new Wellington exhibition
In 2005, the now-iconic New Zealand band released their first studio album, Based On A True Story. The tale behind it is now being told in a new museum show.
In 2005, Wellington Museum senior curator Ian Wards bought the Fat Freddy's Drop album 'Based On A True Story' on CD. Now, two decades later, he's put together an exhibition based around the band's foundations, and the making and production of the album.
"I'm a curator, but I'm also a fan," he says.
In 2005, Fat Freddy's Drop were already well on their way to becoming household names in New Zealand. Having earned a reputation as one of Aotearoa's favourite live acts they released their first album, a live recording of a gig played at the Matterhorn bar in Wellington's Cuba St, in 2001.
The band's profile continued to grow following the release of the single Midnight Marauders gaining them international attention and they soon found themselves playing across Europe.
Based On A True Story debuted at number one in the New Zealand music charts, and went gold the same day. The album would spend 10 weeks at number one (a first by a New Zealand artist). It remained in the top 40 for 111 weeks, making it the longest-charting album by a local artist in New Zealand history.
"Fat Freddy's Drop didn't begin with Based On A True Story of course, there was a long lead-in to them making the album," Wards explains.
"DJ Mu [Chris Faiumu] had been a DJ in Wellington for at least 10 -12 or so years before this album came out.
"In the 90s in Wellington there was a really strong rave culture… the DJ was king. Mu initially started out bringing a few musicians into his DJ sets, but a roots reggae track only goes for about three and a half minutes, so by the time the musicians are up and running the track ends. So that's when he moved on to the MPC, the mini production centre, and that’s when Fat Freddy's Drop started to crystallise."
DJ Mu, aka Chris Faiumu.
Bruce Mackay/The Post
Mu's famed Akai MPC is the centrepiece of the exhibition, which also features Warren Maxwell’s saxophone, Toby Laing’s trumpet and Iain Gordon’s keyboard among lots of other memorabilia, artwork, photographs and video.
"The MPC was the heart of the Freddy’s experience it just meant they could do long jams, and run for about 20 minutes or so, even if the band collapsed a bit on stage, the MPC would keep chugging along. It was a really reliable bit of technology."
Wards says the band's journey has been "incredibly well-documented".
"Everyone knew that this was something special they were making," he says.
This Saturday RNZ's Music 101 show will broadcast live from Wellington Museum. Members of the band, plus other Wellington musicians, will be part of the live show.
Based On A True Story: The 20th Anniversary Exhibition opens on Saturday 22 November and runs until 8 March.
