While the band includes the NZ maverick TV & filmmakers Chris Stapp & Matt Heath, there’s no truth to the rumour that Deja Voodoo formed to provide short “musical” interludes for Back Of The Y Television. Alongside Stapp (bass/vocals) & Heath (rhythm guitar) are a couple of kick arse musicians, Gerry Stewart (lead guitar) & Dutch Graham (drums), helping Deja Voodoo refocus their sights on grunge. There is a long history behind Deja Voodoo, disproving the theory of them being merely a “joke band”…

 

Stapp & Heath met in Dunedin in the early ‘90s & soon began playing music together, influenced by Tad, Mudhoney & Poison Idea, who were creating the hard rock/punk hybrid which would become “grunge”. Something about what was happening in Seattle & Portland seemed to Stapp & Heath a youth call-to-arms applicable to anyone, no matter what backwater sh*thole they had the misfortune of living in.

 

As the ‘90s wore on Deja Voodoo moved to Auckland & recorded what was supposed to be their debut album, Grunge Rock Pioneers – which was rejected by every record company in NZ for being “base” & “tasteless”.

 

So, Deja Voodoo detoured into playing a more measured kind of Oz Rock, even recording their debut proper, Brown Sabbath, with the drummer from The Angels. That album & it’s follow up Back In Brown, despite their Ozzy-ness, resonated with the NZ public exactly as the band had hoped: an audience of people totally removed from any hipster posturing, musical pretence or music industry bullsh*t.  Deja Voodoo established themselves as the biggest live act to emerge from Southland for a long while & without so much as a whisper of any Dunedin-(Velvet Under)-Sound.

 

Now, in’09, they return to their raw roots, with the fiercely exciting The Shape Of Grunge To Come.