Though now defunct and barely known outside of Australasia, Supergroove were a brief, unexpected, yet impressive flash of hard funk rock from New Zealand. They only produced two full length albums, only one of which is considered to be the 'real' Supergroove by most hardened fans. Despite the thinness of their catalogue, Supergroove contributed to the resurgence of funk-rock music in the early-mid 90's.
The Beginning
Starting out as a three piece group with sax, trumpet and harmonica, the group of frinds that were to become Supergroove gathered guys who they'd heard were 'hot players' from their high school, and formed 'The Low Down Dirty Blues Band', and played around for a while in their home town.
After renaming themselves as 'Supergroove', moving away from blues and towards a new 'funk rock' sound and releasing their first independent single 'Here Comes the Supergroove', the seven piece funk outfit toured extensively through Australia and New Zealand, eventually returning to NZ to record their debut LP 'Traction' in 1994.
Success!
Traction (distributed internationally by BMG) was a tour de force. Particular stand-out gems include 'Your White Shirt', 'Can't Get Enough', 'Sittin' Inside My Head', 'For Whatever Reason', and 'Only the Rain'. Anyone who enjoys funk rock grooves and soulful singing would be well advised to pick up a copy of Traction for whatever it may cost you. Trust me.
The boys toured very successfully on the back of the Traction LP throughout Asia, Australia, and New Zealand in 1994/5, and also released an EP (Tractor), a box set of singles from the album, and a remix album by D.J. DLT.
Disaster!
It was shortly after this that it all began to go downhill. Karl and Joe started to feel more comfortable with the softer side of their songwriting, and decided they no longer needed Ché's voice to convey the emotion in their lyrics. Karl took over all lead vocals. Nick dropped all saxophone duties, deciding to concentrate on keyboards, and in holding with their move away from 'the funk' to a more poppy sound, brass player Tim was 'let go'.
The split with Ché was reportedly rather more amicable than the split with Tim.
In 1996 their second LP 'Backspacer' was released to mixed reviews. Fans of the band's original sound were stunned by the new album's weak, 80's pop inspired sound. BMG pushed the album hard, but it never really took off, and Supergroove eventually drifted into obscurity.
The Groove
Supergroove were:
Karl Steven - vocals, samples, keyboards, harmonica. On Traction you can spot Karl as being the frenetic nasal kiwi white-boy voice, in contrast to...
Ché Ness - vocals, who is and was a hot soul/funk singer. Now pursuing a solo career as hip-hop act 'Ché Fu'. Ché left just before Supergroove recorded Backspacer, and many would say he took most of the band's talent with him. The only non-white member of the band, Ché refers to his race as 'Pacifican'. Looks somewhere between Japanese, Tongan and Maori, but who cares, because the man's voice is melted butter.
Joe Lonie (formerly Fisher) - bass, vocals, Joe also designed all the band's album art and video clips. Also produced video clips for other NZ acts, including Bic Runga.
Ian Jones - drums
Paul Russel - drums
Nick Atkinson - keyboards and saxophones, Nick also acted as the band's de facto 'manager' in their early years.
Ben Sciascia - guitar
Tim Stewart - trumpet, valve trombone; kicked out in '96 when the band decided they didn't need a horn section for their 'new sound'.
So what ever happened to Supergroove?
As far as how good this 'new sound' was, all I can offer here is my own subjective opinion, but current store prices for the two albums illustrate quite effectively what a good idea it was to do away with Ché and Tim.
Traction still sells for $25 AUD (approximately $13 USD), with the limited edition Japanese versions with extra tracks bringing in $50+ (about $30 USD). Backspacer can be picked up for $5 AUD (do I need to do the maths for you?) in the bargain bins. Strange coincidence? You be the judge.
While writing this w/u I dug out my old copy of Backspacer and listened to it for the first time in 2 years, hoping that maybe I could hear in it some of the fantastic grooves I really missed from Traction. Nope. I got through to the third track and got so frustrated with their 80's style pop warblings I was forced to listen to Traction at full volume to save myself from losing faith. I can't believe they claim to be the same band.
Unsurprisingly, (remember 'New Coke'?) Supergroove Mark II fell apart in 1998 after Karl decided to leave. It seemed that after the failure of Backspacer the band just couldn't be buggered continuing. I sometimes wish they'd 'done a Soundgarden' and quit after releasing 'Traction'.
Supergroove's official website used to reside at www.supergroove.co.nz but was dismantled after their breakup. There are very few Supergroove related sites on the web, and the few that exist are poorly formatted and badly maintained, with many broken links and images. | 
