When I first saw Teeks he was dressed in stovepipe pants and a crisp shirt with a sweater slung over his shoulders standing in front a classroom teaching a bunch of stuttering night class students te reo Maori. Just 23 and smoothly understated, he wrote his full name Te Karehana Gardiner-Toi on the whiteboard and told no-one he is about to break out as one of New Zealand’s best soul singers. He still hasn’t. But that class and the rest of the world will know soon enough because his debut EP The Grapefruit Skies is released tomorrow.
Once you hear his voice, it’s so ridiculously good all you have is clichés to reach for: Jaw-dropping. Goosebumps. Velvety. Heavenly.
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When I manage to pin Teeks down for an interview, I ask, “Why soul?” “It’s the best,” he says. “I mean it says it in the title. It’s music for the soul. I don’t think you can beat it.” Growing up in Northland and Tauranga he listened to old school music his dad listened to: Elvis Presley, Bob Marley, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding. “And kapa haka is Māori soul.”
Most of his own songs come at home, alone in his room with a guitar. With the help of Māori music champion Tama Waipara, Teeks went to Brooklyn in 2015 and laid down a couple of tracks with producer Jeremy Most, partner of Grammy-nominated artist Emily King.
It took a couple of years to finish the rest of the EP. “It’s just timing,” says Teeks. “Just personal stuff. Family stuff. I couldn’t really focus.” The title of the EP comes from that recent time of loss. “For me it’s like being in a dream state and being with the person that you’ve loved or the person that you’ve lost. Watching the sun go down and wishing you can stay in that moment.”
