David Kilgour and Sam Hunt team up

Arch Hill is super excited to be releasing a collaborative project by David Kilgour and one of New Zealand's best known/loved poets - Sam Hunt.

The album is called "Falling Debris". David Kilgour & his band The Heavy Eights sing and perform the songs, while Sam Hunt provided the words. Together Sam and David oversaw the creative process and saw the album come to fruition...and we think it is something pretty special.

David Kilgour has made a video to the fist single "River Plateau Song". The album is available at the Arch Hill store, and all good retailers

David writes about meeting Sam and Recording the album
Back in October 2007 I was flying from Dunedin to Los Angeles to meet up with my backing band The Heavy 8s to begin a tour of the USA promoting The Far Now LP. Genevieve took me to Dunedin Airport and there’s Sam Hunt being cornered by an elderly lady in the bookstore. Mmmmm, I thought to myself, maybe today’s the day I get to meet Sam again.

Flashback to 1972 I’m 10 years old and have only been in Dunedin a few months, if that. My father managed the Captain Cook Hotel and we lived upstairs. By chance, one day I meet Sam while he was visiting the Hotel. I knew he’d been spotted at the Hotel and about town. He is dressed in white denim, head to foot. I’m impressed, he looks so bloody cool and even at this stage I know who he is. He asks me “how are you going”, I tell him “good”. Meeting over. As an other aside, in the mid 80’s my brother Hamish had spent a day with Sam at Sam’s boatshed, sent by Hamish’s advertising bosses to see if Sam would sell tyres for Firestone Tyres. Also once on the tour with the Clean in the early 90’s we had visited Sam’s boatshed but he wasn’t home.

So there he is in 2007, in the bookstore, Dunedin Airport. Genevieve brings coffee over to the table we are sitting at, I look down and notice I’ve dropped my boarding pass. I pick it up and see that its Sam Hunt’s boarding pass, the pass he has used to get to Dunedin. I get seated on the plane and then I’m moved to another seat due to some mix up. And then once I’m seated they move Sam next to me, due to some mix up. Sam leans over and asks me if I’m David. Before we know it the flights over and on parting I mention to him that back in the late 80’s (while making Here Come The Cars) engineer Nick Roughan and I talked about making an LP with Sam. Sam immediately suggested that we should still give it a go.

A few months after getting back from the USA we talk on the phone about making some kind of music/spoken word LP. At this early stage I had no intention of singing any of his poems/lyrics. I was into the idea of trying to make a GOOD spoken word LP with music. Possibly a hard call, but I like a challenge. I now think the way to make a good spoken word LP is to perhaps record it live, whatever form it may take. So we agree in principal to give it go.

About a month later, one rainy Sunday afternoon, purely out of boredom, I had a go at singing some of Sam’s poems. In the next two days I wrote about seven songs. Three of these made the final cut. So after being so encouraged, whenever the fancy took me I started chipping away at more songs. At this stage I’m thinking maybe a spoken word and song LP. Over the next 4 months I write about 20 songs to some old Sam poems and some brand new poems, which he start’s regularly sending down the wire.

The usual approach was to flick through one of Sam’s books and if a poem caught my eye Id have a stab at singing it. If it wasn’t working within ten minutes or so, I’d move on to another. Whenever I wrote and demo’d a new song I’d send it to Sam and get his feedback etc. Later we spend three days together on the edge of the Arapaoa River, Kaipara Harbour, mid winter, getting to know each other and doing some recording. Early spring 08 Sam comes to Dunedin as part of the Otago Arts Festival. We do some more recording. By this stage we are starting to think the LP should be songs only.

Most of the lp was recorded by Thomas Bell at my house over three days in September, with the Heavy 8’s in tow. We kept overdubs to a minimum, all the vocals, bar one, are live. The basic set up for most of the songs was two acoustics, drums, bass and vocal. I think Thomas has given the LP a particular sound, I’m very happy with it. Of course the band, as usual, contributed a lot to the arrangements and feel of the LP.

The making of the LP really has been an organic process. As opposed to a pre planned idea. I also think of the word serendipity: finding pleasing or valuable things in unexpected places. It’s been a great pleasure making this record. Sam has brought us a lot of joy.

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