Alan Jansson - Give It A Whirl Interview

Interview – 2022

Musician and producer Alan Jansson has created hits with some key names in Aotearoa's music scene, including OMC ('How Bizarre') and Sisters Underground ('In the Neighbourhood').

In this interview for 2003 television series Give It A Whirl, Jansson covers many topics, including:

Learning the distinctive Pacific strum (2 minutes in)
His early band The Body Electric (10 minutes)
Establishing a recording studio in Auckland (11 minutes)
Producing, being a producer, and other producers (12 minutes)
Māori and Pasifika influences, and the first sessions at Uptown Studios (15 minutes)
Chopping a verse from 'In the Neighbourhood' — and the musical idea that gave him goosebumps (16 minutes)
The Kiwi accent being an obstacle to overseas sales (20 minutes)
The creation and success of international hit 'How Bizarre' (23 minutes)

This interview was recorded for the 2003 season of TV series Give it a Whirl. All audiovisual content is copyright to Visionary Film & TV, and may not be reproduced.

I always had a goal to get a number one in America … at that stage, there’s about 860 number ones in the history of the Billboard charts, and I always wanted to be one of those. So that was the goal, to get a number one there. And we just kept working and working until we felt something was going to click. Yeah I always believed I had a chance, just like anybody else ... I think at the end of the day, as I say, a badly recorded hit song is still a hit song. A badly recorded hit record’s still a hit record. It’s when you make a badly recorded album record, that’s when you’re in trouble. And I think that we made a really well recorded album, and we made a great recording of that single.
– Alan Jansson on having hit songs, and working with OMC (39 minutes into this interview)