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The Wellington Sea Shanty Society playing Breaker Bay hall in 2020 (Image via Facebook)
The Wellington Sea Shanty Society playing Breaker Bay hall in 2020 (Image via Facebook)

Pop CultureJanuary 8, 2022

Ahoy! A sea shanty veteran on why the genre is blowing up on social media

The Wellington Sea Shanty Society playing Breaker Bay hall in 2020 (Image via Facebook)
The Wellington Sea Shanty Society playing Breaker Bay hall in 2020 (Image via Facebook)

Summer read: There was a surge in interest in sea shanties on social media last summer. We asked a veteran of the style why. 

First published January 14, 2021

In case you missed it, soon may the Wellerman come, to bring us sugar and tea and rum. 

If that sentence is even remotely comprehensible to you, you’re either a colonial era whaler, or you’ve stumbled across a recent social media craze for sea shanties, an old genre of folk music that describes both the adventures and more mundane facts of life for sailors. Many of the songs date back to the 1700s, and have been passed down through the generations since. 

The recent surge in popularity comes largely from TikTok, a video sharing social media platform with a strong musical bent. Trends get set on the platform – notably for New Zealand audiences it was where artist Benee first came to international prominence. 

But this isn’t the first time modern interest in sea shanties has spiked. In fact, the music has enjoyed an underground popularity for years. 

One such group to have been doing it for a while is the Wellington Sea Shanty Society. They released a critically acclaimed album in 2013, Now That’s What I Call Sea Shanties Vol.1, and have been putting out records and performing live ever since. 

We asked guitarist and vocalist Lake Davineer what he made of the social media craze, and why the music had endured for so long. 

The Spinoff: How does someone like yourself even get into sea shanties in the first place?

Davineer: When I went to France, I was couch surfing with someone, and they had a friend who was in a sea shanty choir – chant marin. And I went and hung out with them, and that was just like singing sea shanties in bars. Then they turned it more into a band, and I brought that band back to New Zealand. I guess the thing I liked about the sea shanties straight away was getting everyone singing together – simple songs in a pub – which doesn’t really happen that much. 

So there’s generally audience participation with a sea shanty gig?

There was originally in France, and that was what I tried to bring back to New Zealand. And now that’s what we do here. And I think that’s kind of what’s happening with TikTok – people like songs they can sing along to. 

Here we hand out song sheets, and it’s really popular at the moment, especially in Wellington. Now people are just singing without the song sheets. We had a gig in December, and there was a whole pub, everyone singing along – just something people don’t really get that often. 

Is it about the singing for people? Is it dance music as well? What’s the kind of vibe people go into these gigs with?

There’s a lot of foot-stomping, or people dancing a jig. It gets really quite rowdy these days. 

Which is probably how a lot of these songs were sung in the 1700s? 

Well, probably in more trying conditions than, you know, drinking craft beer. 

One of the songs that has gone really big on TikTok – Soon May The Wellerman Come. You did a version of it on your first album. Can you explain to me who the Wellerman is?

When I came back, and was thinking sea shanties would be a cool genre to explore, I researched all the New Zealand shanties, mainly through the folksong.org.nz website. I think one of the first ones I found was the Wellerman. There was a whaling company off the shores of Dunedin, and there’s still some remnants you can check out, but the Wellerman was the company that supplied them with sugar and rum and tea, so they could keep whaling. That’s what I understand it as, anyway. 

Apart from the Drunken Sailor, that’s pretty much our big hit when we play live, it gets everyone going, so there’s obviously something in it. Except the versions on TikTok are different – we do more of a party version. The Longest Johns do more of a traditional version, which is five guys standing in a row without any instrumentation. We’ve kind of gone down the route of having instruments, and making it more like dance music. 

The version you mentioned there – the Longest Johns – are they kind of the blue whales of the sea shanty world? 

Well they’re new, we did our version in 2013, and they did their version in maybe 2019. But their version has about 6 million views on YouTube, and ours is more like 300,000. 

That’s still quite a few…

Yeah, we got something like 30,000 plays on Spotify just yesterday. It was going up – we had a few hundred followers, and now we’re getting over a hundred new followers a day. 

That’s absolutely wild.

Yeah, but the Longest Johns, they’re next level. I guess it’s partly in their name, but for us it’s more of a side project. [The Longest Johns are from the UK.]

A lot of New Zealand bands would be pretty happy with the sort of numbers you were getting even before this surge. Has there been a bit of an underground culture around this for a while?

This is the biggest it has been, but I think about a year ago there was another big blip. I’m not quite sure why, it seemed to be related to certain video games, I’m not sure. And Reddit, and various pages – I’m not sure what happens, I just see it spiking up. 

The songs on Volume One seem to be traditional standards, or about people who lived hundreds of years ago. Is it possible to write new shanties, or with more modern themes? Or would that cut against the point of the music? 

A joint English-French album we did [Ahoy] had a song by [bandmate] Vorn which is quite a good one, called Eye on the Weather. That’s been quite popular as well. But it’s sort of in a traditional style, with quite timeless lyrics. 

Then we also did on our last album before that – Now That’s What I Call Sea Shanties Volume Two – that was about half originals. We used the shanty sort of formula, and applied it to New Zealand history, looking at historical figures like Sam Parnell, who helped secure the 40-hour working week. Or people who had links to the sea, which was pretty much everyone in the early years of New Zealand history, or first contact between Pākehā and Māori people and putting it into songs. That’s what makes it interesting for us, being able to add to the canon. Our friends in France, their originals are more set in the modern day world, but the shanty style. 

There seems to be an underlying theme with shanties that, you know, life is hard, luck determines your fate, things can go wrong at any moment but you have to keep singing. Is that something which is there, and perhaps somewhat relatable to the modern world? 

I guess we say we sing sea songs more than shanties. If you want to be really pedantic about it, shanties have a particular form – like What Should We Do With A Drunken Sailor – that are really formulaic, and to be sung in a certain time to pull ropes while you’re working. The Wellerman song kind of fits in with that. 

What I find cool about some of the French songs, they’re more “up middle finger to the captain”. My take on them is that they’re a bit more subversive – we’re working down here, let’s push the captain overboard. There’s an English one like that as well – Come All You Tonguers – which has that sort of same thing. Those are my favourite ones, about organising as workers to oust the ship owners. 

By the way, have you ever actually lived at sea? Does that matter to it either way? 

No, I’ve never lived at sea, and have no real aspirations to. We view the whole thing a bit metaphorically – one of my friends summed it up as liking the adventure element of sea shanties, and living a life of adventure. And also as I said before, organising as workers and saying F you to the captain. In terms of actually living on the sea, we’re a bit like the Beach Boys in that they don’t really surf.

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David Correos
Taskmaster NZ stand out contestant David Correos spent an hour locked inside a caravan. Photo: TVNZ

Pop CultureJanuary 6, 2022

Meet David Correos, the Taskmaster contestant who snapped

David Correos
Taskmaster NZ stand out contestant David Correos spent an hour locked inside a caravan. Photo: TVNZ

Summer read: An incendiary freestyle rap battle on Taskmaster NZ helped thrust David Correos towards the mainstream, a place the comedian never thought he’d be.

First published August 21, 2021.

It was nearing the end of a long day. Nine hours had been jammed full of mischief and mayhem, the hi-jinks of five contestants being filmed in a Riverhead house for the popular TVNZ 2 comedy show Taskmaster NZ. David Correos, a Christchurch-born, Auckland-based comic known for his surrealism and extremism, was ready to switch off.

“I was so tired,” says the 28-year-old. “I’d finally hit the peak of the day.” He was looking forward to going home and relaxing: Correos had a prolapsed disc in his back, and he was taking seven different types of pills to dull the pain. His injury was so bad that when the show finished filming, he booked in for surgery.

Then he spotted the day’s final task buried in a giant bowl of spaghetti. It read: “Create a diss track about the members of the other team.” His brain flipped into overdrive. Something snapped. “I knew if I was to do it half-arsed, I’d regret it,” says Correos, who was teamed with fellow contestants Laura Daniel and Guy Montgomery in a hip-hop battle against Urzila Carlson and Matt Heath.

Two years of stoner rap skills, honed every Friday night for laughs over a few joints with his flatmate, came to fruition. “All of a sudden this energy came out of nowhere,” he says. “I thought, ‘Come on bro, you have one chance to do this. You might as well have fun with it and go as hard as possible.'”

David Correos
David Correos loses himself in the music, the moment. Screengrab: TVNZ

The results will surely be among the year’s finest local TV moments. Across a dozen instrumental drum tracks, Correos delivers rhymes off the top of his dome, freestyles which land with increasing intensity and velocity. He drew on years of experience performing live comedy shows so random even he couldn’t predict the outcome.

“I feel like there’s a lot of comedy in the unknown,” he says. “You’re not searching for the gag. You’re just putting yourself in a compromising position where you’re going to embarrass yourself.” For this task, Correos thought: “If I go hard with the violence, and I go hard with the intensity behind it, something dumb will happen.”

It worked. Correos rapped about running over a cat, hanging Heath from a beam, and danced while yelling: “Fuck Urz! (Urzila)” Via email, Montgomery remembers Correos looking for cheese to grate on top of a bowl of spaghetti in a nearby kitchen when he heard an instrumental he liked. He sprinted back into the room and spat out lyrics about breaking someone’s nose.

“It was honestly close to the funniest I’ve seen a person be,” says Montgomery. Alongside Daniel and co-host Paul Williams, he watched Correos with a look of awe and fear spread across his face. “We couldn’t really handle it. You can’t do anything in that situation other than keep trying to encourage that person and give them the space to keep being funny.”

In the clip, Correos reaches his crescendo while balancing a bowl of hot spaghetti in his hands. Over an otherwise perky drum loop, his raps are nasty and vile. He looks like he means it. “Imma drown you / In your own blood,” he spits, “Face down in your own blood now.” Watching the insanity escalate is immeasurably hilarious.

Correos
Guy Montgomery and Laura Daniel watch the chaos unfold. Screengrab: TVNZ

That moment is among many of the highlights that has turned Taskmaster NZ’s second season into unmissable television. Every contestants commits, but none more so than Correos. “He was so keen to entertain everyone that he would be pumped up and out of breath before he even read the tasks,” says Sam Smith, a writer who honed the challenges and frequently visited the set.

He once found Correos googling, ‘How to be a good Taskmaster contestant’ in his dressing room. “I think David’s line of how far he’ll go is a leap further than everyone else’s.”

Fans seem to agree. Twitter is awash with Correos stans saying things like, “David Correos is a one-man meme army,” and “He loses his shit every week and I am 100 per cent there for it.” Others want more from him, like this message from a suitor: “Where is David Correos and does he want a wife?” When the country went into lockdown on Wednesday, Wellington writer and comedian Eamonn Marra requested TVNZ screen, as a special treat, “unedited bloopers of David Correos for the next four weeks”.

On Thursday, things escalated. A Reddit post suggested Correos “might be in contention for the best Taskmaster contestant” ever – including from the version of the show in the UK, where it originated, is up to its 11th season and regularly turns participants into stars. “I can still feel the pain in my sides that laughing at him … caused,” says the thread’s author. It was upvoted by 97% of readers.

Correos, though, isn’t as proud of his antics. Lately, he’s been trying to smooth his rougher edges. After spitting out all those despicable rhymes, Correos had a change of heart. “I have this thing I call ‘delayed regret’,” he tells The Spinoff on a Zoom call from the hallway of his Royal Oak flat where he’s spending the latest lockdown. “In the moment, I’m really enjoying it, it’s really fun. It’s usually 12 hours later or when I finally get time to myself, (I think), ‘Oh no – what did I do?!’ I started spiraling.”

So he called producers and pleaded with them to edit out the worst parts of the dozen freestyles he’d performed. When it came time to film the live segment of the show, Correos bought meat packs to gift Carlson and Heath. “I wanted to get them some kind of apology hamper,” he says. “Meat pack is where we ended up.”

Correos’ sudden burst of popularity is a complete surprise to him. Last year, he’d given up trying to break into TV. Instead, he focused on refining his performances and improving his writing. Streaming provided him with an alternative outlet. He wanted to prove he could connect with audiences without being outrageous.

“I realised I wasn’t doing it because I was enjoying it. It was, ‘How do I top myself?'” he says. “I like to be one step ahead of what the expectation is. If you expect me to be extreme, I’m not going to give it to you. I’m going to give you something else.” His style had become too much – even for him.

David Correos
David Correos is an unlikely TVNZ star. Photo: TVNZ

Stories about his past performances have become legendary. When he won the Billy T James comedy award in 2016, Correos stripped to his underwear just for fun. “That was the gag that got me the most laughs,” he says. “I was the guy who didn’t mind taking his clothes off.”

At one show at defunct Auckland bar Golden Dawn, he ended up on the top of the bar dressed as a cat, pretending to expel a fur ball. During research for this story, I heard about another show that, within moments of starting, found Correos naked, covered in slime while holding a knife. He can’t remember it, but admits: “There were crazy gigs.”

His big TV break came out of nowhere. When Taskmaster NZ’s first season aired last year with a different cast, Correos was invited to be an understudy. His task was practising the show’s live elements before they were unveiled to contestants. During one challenge involving popcorn, he stunned producers by screaming at ear-piercing volumes. Afterwards, they asked if he’d be interested in appearing in the second season. He replied: “Taskmaster isn’t what I planned but cool. I’d be down for this.”

His popularity has grown steadily over the course of the season. Fans spend time debating their favourite Correos moments. There are many. In one task, he opened 141 tins of tomatoes and tasted them all, the acidity burning the roof of his mouth as he searched for the single one containing baked beans. In another, he slurped up sunscreen and spat it as far as he could.

During Wednesday night’s episode, he served Williams tea while dangling upside down from a ceiling beam. He was also locked inside a caravan for more than an hour, the sides nearly bursting out with his energy. Correos has been consistently hilarious. Yet he says the show’s other contestants intimidate him. “I see people who are very good at what they do,” he says. “You hear all those laughs that they’re getting. (I think), ‘Oh no, I can’t keep up. I’m no good.'”

He also worried he was returning to his old tricks. When a light blacked out during a challenge that asked contestants to ‘transform the room,’ Correos took mere seconds to remove all his clothes and pose seductively on a table top. When the lights came on, he got the reception he wanted, but kept asking himself: “‘What are you doing? You’re going back to your old tricks, mate. Who are you, David Correos from three years ago?'”

Lately, though, he’s realised he can accept all parts of his personality. He can be funny, clever and extreme, depending on the situation. Last weekend, before the country went into lockdown, Correos performed his first live show since Taskmaster NZ started airing. He’d been recovering from back surgery, and had spent months laying low. He’d barely left the house.

When he got to his Devonport gig, someone recognised him on the street. “It was the first time I’d had someone feel like they really know me,” he says. “They started slapping me and hitting me.” He’s not complaining. The gig went well. Afterwards, he pondered what it might mean. “I think they were trying to match my energy,” he says. Then he realised: “Oh … I’m at that level … People hit me now.”

We are here thanks to you. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its members – click here to learn more about how you can support us from as little as $1.