Why Jon Toogood Is Like A Kid In A Candy Store

Shihad's effervescent vocalist/guitarist Jon Toogood doesn't glance in the proverbial rear-view mirror too often regarding the New Zealand rockers' back catalogue. Given he's currently working on music recorded in Sudan, is pondering The Adults project's next record and has a nine-month-old son, one can understand.

"The only time I even listen to our old records is when it's like, 'Hey, do you realise it's been 20 years since you released that record?' I go, 'Bullshit,' check the date and go, 'Oh shit, they're right,'" he laughs. "Usually when we make a record I'm like a little kid in a candy store. I just listen to it over and over again, like a kid eating lollies, [until] I can't physically fit it anymore in my brain. Then I never listen to it again."

As a self-confessed vinyl nerd though, he's audibly enamoured with the remastering/reissuing package afforded 1996's self-titled record for its 20th anniversary. The album, widely known as 'The Fish Album', was released in the same year as their manager and friend Gerald Dwyer died of a drug overdose prior to their Big Day Out set.

"Our audience used to be like 90% boys. Suddenly after the Fish Album, it was 50% girls and boys."

"After doing two records, which were basically just finding a collection of riffs, 'cause we came from metal world, then slowly seeped into listening to shoegazey music like My Bloody Valentine... It was like heavy metal, but without the word 'metal', and that was where our heads were at with those first two records," Toogood recalls. "We weren't thinking about writing songs, we were looking for ammunition to use through big PAs.

"Then we toured America and Europe, and saw things like Oasis at Roskilde. The guitars were turned up louder than when we played with AC/DC. I just thought, 'Fuck, that band is amazing.' I thought they were just some Britpop band... I went, 'I want to fucking start writing songs, rather than writing riffs.' So that record's just an exercise in, 'Can we even write a song?' For all its failings — and it's got lots of little bits where now I go, 'That's pretty silly' — also out of those experiments comes a song like Home Again, which is now considered the standard Shihad song.

"I think the biggest impact [Dwyer's death] had was that we didn't have anyone to say to us while we were making that record, 'Do you remember how heavy you are live?'" he chuckles. "'Cause we weren't even thinking about that. We were thinking, 'I want to write a song.'"

Shihad's newfound knack for songcraft subverted many fans' expectations. Although Toogood says the Kiwi outfit's drawing power initially waned, its accessibility eventually paid dividends. Even if it was "fucking panned" out of the gate. "People were expecting another metal record, and it was, 'What the fuck is going on?' Our live audiences halved in size, but at the same time, something else was happening, which was our audience used to be like 90% boys. Suddenly after the Fish Album, it was 50% girls and boys. All of a sudden people weren't fighting at the shows, they were dancing and smiling. It was like, 'Hmmm, there's something good about this. I really like the vibe here.' That record slowly started taking off, but it took a long time for people to get their head around."