Peter Dawkins - Give It A Whirl Interview

Interview – 2022

Producer Peter Dawkins demonstrated his studio magic on a run of classic Kiwi songs, from 'Nature' in the 1960s to later work with Dragon and Mi-Sex.

Dawkins died in July 2014. In this interview for 2003 TV series Give It A Whirl he covered many topics, including:

• Persuading The Fourmyula's Wayne Mason that 'Nature' had the makings of a hit (3 minutes in)

• Recording bands quickly in the early days, "like lightening"; with some albums completed in only two days (8 minutes)

• Dragon towering over him, as he ordered the band to do another take — and how he almost got in trouble after adding jungle sounds and marimbas to their breakthrough hit 'April Sun in Cuba' (11 minutes)

• Crafting the distinctive sound of Mi-Sex hit 'Computer Games' — and trying to get the sequencer to work (20 minutes)

• Witnessing Dragon singer Marc Hunter riling up crowds during a concert in Texas (20 minutes)

• How Kiwi bands generally had more grounding and hunger than their Australian equivalents (32 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.

They played me this song 'Nature' out of about half a dozen — I said "that's the one" ... I sat up all night trying to think what to do to make the thing better, remembering we only had four tracks to play with ... I fought them up until the day of release. When it went to number one they sort of agreed it was okay.
– Peter Dawkins on trying to persuade The Fourmyula that their song 'Nature' had the makings of a hit, early in this interview