Ponsonby reggae. It's the description guitarist and songwriter Dave McArtney gives to many of the songs of Hello Sailor.
Certainly, the band's best-known track, Gutter Black, has more than a touch of calypso pulse, while Lyin' in the Sand, which also shared space on Hello Sailor's 1977 self-titled debut album, offers a languid South Seas feel, even if it is something of a parody.
These days, however, the Auckland inner-city suburb that was once the stomping ground of McArtney, singer Graham Brazier, guitarist Harry Lyon and others has seen much of its Polynesian culture of the 1970s replaced by restaurants, fashion boutiques and trendy bars.
Yet that Ponsonby reggae is still present.
It comes by way of Hello Sailor's latest album, Surrey Crescent Moon, the band's first studio release since 1994's The Album.
Given nearly 18 years have passed between albums (not counting retrospective, best-of releases), you'd think the key songwriters in the group, namely founding members McArtney, Brazier and Lyon, would have had plenty of material from which to choose.
And you wouldn't be wrong.
In fact, the 10 tracks that did make the grade were selected from a list of 50, some of which were recent, others that dated back to the band's formative years (Hello Sailor's first gig was in 1975).
"We went back to the 1970s to pick up some songs that fitted into the format of what we were wanting to present this album as," McArtney explains on the phone earlier this week from Palmerston North, where the band supported Dragon on the opening night of its 40th anniversary national tour.
"The album is part nostalgic, part how life is now for us.
"Basically, we choose everything by committee," McArtney says. "We make sure we've got the whole picture when we go into record. We did demo a few songs in 2008 then added the rest.
"We set up at [Neil Finn's studio] Roundhead and played everything live. There are minimum overdubs. There are a few keyboards down in the mix, but it was a really organic approach. We kept it as minimal as possible. The focus is on Graham's voice."
To put it another way, the focus is on lyricism and bringing to life a range of characters, from the Karangahape prostitutes and drug dealers of Holly and Billy to the suburban couple facing financial ruin in Bungalow Ave to an ode to Brazier's late hound on De Dog.
"We wouldn't feel comfortable if the songs didn't have some sense of authenticity about them. They are good lyrically," McArtney says with more than a touch of pride.
"I know it is sacrilege among academics to call rock lyrics poetry, but to me a rock song's lyric should resonate with all kinds of poetry and rhythm ...
that's the craft of songwriting.
That's the wow factor. All those devices, such as satire, are important to us. That's where we get our fun."
His work with Hello Sailor aside, McArtney has had success as a solo artist as well as with the Pink Flamingos, which he set up following the disbanding (well, for six years anyway) of Hello Sailor in 1980. The move proved successful, McArtney and the Pink Flamingos winning five awards at the New Zealand Music Awards in 1981.
Brazier, too, has kept himself busy with other projects, including the Legionnaires, which also became a vehicle for his solo work, including 1982 single Billy Bold (now part of Hello Sailor's setlist).
All of which begs the question: how do the songwriters choose what best serves Hello Sailor?
McArtney: "Personally, I know what are, for me, confessional songs. By comparison, the Sailor songs are more rocky, edgier and are often about characters. We've also done what we call Ponsonby reggae as well as rock, in which two guitars weave together".
Brazier joins the conversation: "There's one song on the album, Black Patch and Pegleg, which I wrote when I was 19. Songs are like children. You create them and at some point they go out into the world.
"A few of the songs I've written come out like a creative purge; others I can labour over and not finish. You can always save the best parts of a song that isn't working and somewhere down the track there might be another part of a song that magically fits.
"I think most of the songs on the new album were written in the latter stages of our careers.
They are more poignant and 'of the time' for us."
He points to album opener Bric A Brac Shop as an example.
"I inherited my dear mother's second-hand shop. Dave wrote it as an overview of my life. There are 40,000 books in the shop and another 150,000 upstairs and each one tells a story but, metaphorically, the song tells a story of the lives of ourselves as well as our friends."
Brazier agrees a tour with Dragon offers more than a few memories. A friend of late singer Mark Hunter (whose bass-playing brother Todd is the only surviving founding member of Dragon), he shared a flat with members of the band "back in 1972 or '73".
"Hearing those songs that we grew up with ..." Brazier is referring to Dragon's success with songs such as April Sun In Cuba, Are You Old Enough? and Rain, all of which charted in New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Germany.
As for his own band's songs, be they old or newer, Brazier is enjoying the "cathartic experience" of performing, something made more special when sharing a stage with friends, all of whom are in their early 60s.
"I think it's probably like a sports team. It is very much about camaraderie. But I think in two and a-half weeks I'm going to be glad to get home to my girlfriend."
McArtney returns to the phone: "This band has a habit of playing songs a little differently every night. Sometimes it's not sharp, but most of the time these days we are trying to be on the money."
Hear it, see it
Hello Sailor's Surrey Crescent Moon is out now.
The band (Graham Brazier, Dave McArtney, Harry Lyon, Ricky Ball and Paul Woolright) performs the following dates as part of Dragon's 40th anniversary tour: - Civic Theatre, Invercargill, Wednesday, October 24
- Sammy's, Dunedin, Thursday, October 25
