The Auckland-based musician, who has amassed multi-platinum sales and has won more awards for songwriting than any other New Zealander, was on a whistle-stop book launch tour of Central Otago that also included performances in Queenstown last night and at Northburn Station, Cromwell, on Wednesday.
In between performing hit singles Loyal, Slice of Heaven and Welcome Home at Paper Plus Alexandra, Dobbyn shared a few laughs with an audience of about 80 people and detailed the inspiration behind both his music and his debut book, which has taken a year to produce.
"They - Craig Potton Publishing - had noticed I could write, which was a nice compliment. I was excited about the idea of getting involved in publishing," Dobbyn said yesterday.
"I had to write a few words on every song and I loved the simplicity of it, of not over-painting every song.
"You've got to leave that to an audience because people have their own version of what the song is, what it means to them, and I didn't want to mess with that."
