The Mutton Birds

In the same rich songwriting tradition as New Zealand's Split Enz, Crowded House, the Chills and Dave Dobbyn are the Mutton Birds, with one of NZ's most colourful music identities at its heart.

The Mutton Birds formed in 1991 when lead singer and main songwriter Don McGlashan decided to return to music after six years doing "other things". Originally he was a French horn player university student who found himself playing in both an orchestra and a theatre collective where the front line performed nude with painted bodies. Then Don made his name in New Zealand music when he joined the punkish Blam Blam Blam. When Blam Blam Blam broke up, as a result of another member's serious car accident, Don moved on to percussion group From Scratch before creating performance group - songs, dialogue, mime. The Front Lawn (Don with Harry Sinclair) went from live appearances to making short films and appearing on TV. But Don's heart wasn't in where the Front Lawn had ended up. He was writing songs in his spare time and was part of another theatre group. For the songs he'd formed a relationship with guitarist David Long, who had played on Front Lawn albums.

The Mutton Birds gave their first performance on St.Patrick's Day 1991 with a stand-in drummer. Eventually they heard that drummer Russ Budge of the Dribbling Darts could be persuaded to come back from New York to Auckland if the music he was to play was good enough. For the first year the Mutton Birds played as a three piece, Don trying to play bass and sing, which he found hard. It was all hard going for the Mutton Birds in the beginning. The finely crafted songs the band was playing were not what Don was known for, nor was it particularly fashionable at the time. Just before recording their first album bassist Alan Gregg (also of The Dribbling Darts) joined, and it was only then that the Mutton Birds worked out who they were.

Within 12 months, the album went platinum and then EMI Australia stepped into the picture and offered to finance the second album. 'Salty' was recorded in late 1993, self-produced but mixed in Australia with American producer/engineer Tchad Blake (American Music Club, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Crowded House). The first single, 'The Heater', debuted at No 1 in New Zealand. 'Salty' also went Platinum at home and the single 'Anchor Me' won Don NZ's top songwriting prize.

By now the Mutton Birds had started extending their activities to England, and in 1995 Virgin UK released 'Nature', a 12 song compilation of 'The Mutton Birds' and 'Salty', with additional production courtesy of Neil Finn. In mid 1996, the Mutton Birds recorded their third studio album in London, produced by Hugh Jones (The Bluetones, Dodgy, Echo and the Bunnymen) at Rockfield Studios in Wales. Now relocated to London, the band was doing it hard again, and not communicating. Don's miserableness is reflected in the songs he wrote for the album, refusing to write about the London he lived in and choosing to write about the people he was missing in New Zealand. David Lang returned to New Zealand at the end of 1996 and was replaced by Chris Sheehan.

'Envy Of Angels' brought the Mutton Birds to a world wide audience for the first time, with sales throughout Europe, South America and Canada. They achieved a surprise hit record in Australia in 1997 with a cover of the Blue Oyster Cult's 'Don't Fear The Reaper', recorded for Peter Jackson's horror movie "The Frighteners".

Despite the sales figures of 'Envy of Angels' tripling those of 'Nature', Virgin UK didn't take up the option to release further albums. Rather than return home the Mutton Birds decided that the only was forward was to stay in London and work on building up their following. To celebrate not having a record company the band released 'Angle of Entry' in December 1997 on their own Gravy Train Records. Recorded live at a semi-unplugged show at The Twelve Bar Club in London, its fourteen songs show a band having come through its trials creatively unscathed and musically strengthened. The first English Mutton Bird, Sheffield-raised, London-based Tony Fisher, replaced Alan Gregg on bass in mid 1998. The band gave it one more try with the release of a fourth studio album in March 1999.

Don McGlashan returned to NZ in 2000, concentrating on producing film and TV soundtracks. In 2001 to celebrate 75 years of its existence, APRA (the Australasian Performing Right Association), invited its members and an academy to vote on what they believe are to be New Zealand's top songs of all time. McGlashan was responsible for five of the final official Top 100 named.

In May 2006, after almost three decades of singing and writing and making music, his first solo album, 'Warm Hand' was released. His timing couldn't have been better. 'Bathe In The River', a song he had written for a hit movie and recorded by Mt.Raskil PS with Hollie Smith was one of the big NZ pop hits of the moment..