Making a connection

An interview with the very complicated, very funny and very messy Marlon Williams walks you to some very peculiar places.

- BY MICHELE HEWITSON

On the poster for the tour supporting his new album, Te Whare Tiwekaweka, Marlon Williams is standing in tussock grasses. He is wearing a rumpled shirt from Hallensteins, primly buttoned at the collar, a pounamu earring and a pake made by a friend. A pake is a traditional cloak made from leaf strips. It is a protective cape, designed to shield the wearer from the rain.

Not too many people could carry off wearing a pake with panache. The singer, songwriter and occasional actor does so effortlessly. He looks pretty cool. He usually does.

Is he cool? “Ha, ha. I don’t know about that. I heard yesterday that the word cool is out of fashion. But I'm with you. I think I'd make a play for coolness.” He doesn't have to try to be cool. He just is. Again, effortlessly.

What does that portrait say about him? “It’s a juxtaposition of the worlds, really, isn't it? It sort of sums up or reflects the journey I'm on, I guess.”

The pake is a protective cloak in another way. It protects its wearer from the world. It is also, I think, a metaphor for his relation-ship - a complicated one, as it is with many creative people - with the public gaze.

“Well, I think that's because I've lived my life, not always as a famous person, but as a performer.” He doesn't see the distinction between “being just a person in the world and being a performer in the world. But it's a dialling up of intensity at certain times.”

His album, his first in te reo (he's not yet fluent but is working on it), is beautiful, whether or not you're fluent in te reo. He must be happy with it.

Let's not get carried away. “It's a loaded question. I'm happy within my means. I guess I'd say I’m used to not being fully happy with putting out music. But, yeah, it’s been no more painful than the other ones.”