What has been keeping Dobbyn busy? "Mainly my family. And I've been concentrating on getting better at songwriting."

What? The man who has written New Zealand standards such as 'Whaling', 'Bliss', 'Be Mine Tonight', 'Slice of Heaven', 'Loyal' and 'Language' felt the need to improve?

"For singer-songwriters, each time you produce something, it's like starting afresh. A band keeps its personality, but solo performers have to keep reinventing themselves. And you aspire to something each time that is more than you can handle- but is worth aspiring to."

Dobbyn says that he has been "working on his musical literacy, getting the competance to match the confidence- and vice versa." As a result, he's "fallen in love with music again".

A couple of recent experiences confirmed to him that he was on track. When the Grammy Awards were on TV, he saw Bob Dylan tell a story about watching Buddy Holly in concert. "Their eyes met, and that was the spark which will always light his fire. I was right with him. Around that time, whenever I put on my guitar, it felt like it did when I first joined a band, I'd forgotten how exciting it could be."

Then, with his childhood friend Ian Morris- in Th' Dudes, they wrote 'Be Mine Tonight' together- he listened to songs by Texan songwriter Guy Clark. "I loved the storytelling, the eloquance. People can write songs in country music that seem grander, more universal, once they're delivered. The voice just sucks you and, and they've got stories to tell."

Finding a way of telling his own stories was what Dobbyn found difficult on The Islander. "There's never been a shortage of melody or music with me. But since Twist I've been concentrating on becoming a better musician: inventing chords, looking around, listening more than I ever have. What was agonising about this record were the lyrics. I had a lot hanging around, but they didn't feel right. Now, I feel a lot fresher about the whole approach of writing songs."

As a solitary songwriter, says Dobbyn, it's important to have a good time- and provide one for your audience. But the way he recorded The Islander made it feel like the most collaborative album he's done yet. Sessions began in Neil Finn's basement studio last September, when Dobbyn laid down several rhythm tracks with visiting Australian musicians Peter Luscombe and Bill McDonald. Both are sought after players in Australia; Luscumbe drums in Paul Kelly's band, and McDonald has played with Frente and Neneh Cherry.

It had been years since Dobbyn recorded with a band. "They were chuffed the way it came out: that the sound coming off the tape was the same as went on." Dobbyn credits the natural sound to Auckland engineer Sam Gibson (Finn's Try Whistling This) and the influence of american producer Tchad Blake (Crowded House, Cheryl Crow, Dobbyn's Twist).

In the summer of '97 Dobbyn re-entered the studiio with Allan Gregg and Ross Burge, the Muttonbirds' rhythm section that had played on Twist. "From then on, it was plain sailing. I took care of most of the guitar work, though there's bits of Neil on it here and there. Sam and I did some programming of sounds, a bit of jiggery pokery- but we found there were some layers that just didn't need to be there."

Dobbyn then followed Finn's approach with Try Whistling This. He went to New York. "Neil highly recommended that experience of getting out of town, soaking up another culture, seeing your music in relief."

Although that worked for Dobbyn, it wasn't in the way he expected. "I connected with a few musicians, but looked at what it would cost to work there. Then I looked at the job I'd done getting the music on tape, as a producer by default. It became clear that it was fine, that I should hold my head up and think 'do we really need those overdubs?'

"So I culled a few things out, and it came back to pretty much a rock and roll band. Everyone agreed it sounded better and better. Albums- you've got to live with them a while to really enjoy them."

Coming home also provided the title. "I was back only a couple of days, and went up to the Auckkland War Memorial with my son, Eli. A group of soldiers had just finished an ANZAC ceremony, were hugging each other and crying, with their families around.

"On the steps, there's this brilliant view across the harbour and Rangitoto. I got this incredible feeling of outpost, that I was way out on the edge of the world. And we have been all this time, while fighting other peoples wars. I was aware of how insular New Zealand can be, but expansive at the same time. The only reason people don't notice us is because we're a bunch of islands in a sea. Nobody gives a damn. That's the New York attitude.

"But there's something exotic about this place which we don't always see because we're *in* it. That exotic thing is a real mixture. I came to terms with the fact that I'm a Pacific Islander a long time ago. There's nothing vaguely European about me apart from the colour of my skin. So I've called it The Islander because it's a stamp of identity."

The Waiting is about frustration. I wrote it in York Street B studio a couple of years back. That chorus came straight away, so it was a chorus sitting around for a long time with nothing to do. I was playing a Supertramp-style Wurlitzer, which set the rhythms. It ended up being a pop record. It'll be a great one live, but a tough one to sing. I forgot to write the breaths in, as I did with 'Whaling'.

I was doing demos in the Lab. This one popped out in the control room, when I started playing the chord sequence. I didn't think too much about it, but instantly made some decisions, like going straight into the second verse after the first chorus. I wanted a concise ditty. It popped out, taking as long to write as it takes to play.

It's about the comfort of your own heart, wherever you're dragging it around. There's always somewhere you can plug in. Having an adventurous attitude.

The title image is of a soldier seeing his buddy on the perimeter wire, hanging there, not being able to do anything about it. It's a harsh image, but it doesn't carry on. It's a reassurance song, a buddy song. What captured me was the middle eight section, it's like a song within a song. I had fun with the arrangement. It needed to be fairly joyous: out of the dark images you get all sorts of things. Cole Porter's 'I Get a Kick Out of You' gave me the violin line around the melody. There's a bit of Mott the Hoople about the guitar riff.

I had that chorus, "be set free", and was in love with the chord change going to the minor before resolving to C- I must like it, I've used it quite a lot on the record.

I wanted a verse that was sinewy and wiry, and found a few strange grooves. They reminded me of Neil Young's Harvest. That's how I explained it to the rhythm section. But it's unusual how it turned out. There's a skip to it. A Wurlitzer plays a reggae thing every now and again.

It's a song about liberation- being set free through some kind of honesty.

From the beginning it felt like the 'Belle of the Ball' off the Lament album, or 'I Can't Change My Name' from Twist. That vibe. There has to be one of those epic balads. We recorded it about four or five times before we got it. Now it's got this swing to it, a pendulum feel to the drums. It's so good to play acoustic to that. I wanted it to sound Celtic. In earlier versions I had bagpipes in the choruses, but it was a bit too overt. It would have been a parody, whereas it's an honest love song. It's an apology song, a lament. Can't wait to play it in Ireland.

A good one when you're driving in the car. Towards the end it gets quite spooky. Neil was playing guitar, that wierd high stuff on the Ebow. He was whacking the guitar, going nuts. I was playing the groove guitar, it's almost like a ZZ Top guitar without the dirt. It was easy to throw surprises at the end. We had various vocal takes, which we left on. It's about a drive to the west coast when you're feeling bad, then finding something beautiful there.

A drunk's song. I wanted it to be country, but not trad. When I played it to Alan Gregg, he thought it sounds like Pavement, because it's sloppily played. For most of the recording it was in a key that was too high, I was trying to get a Hank Williams falsetto. It sounded too brittle to me. We brought the key down and whacked it along. I started writing it a couple of years back. I thought, I've got to write a loser's anthem. It's that Jimmy Stewart thing revisited- It's a Wonderful Life. It'll be interesting to see what kind of fan that attracts. Probably people staring at the bottom of their glasses. It's a parody really.

A latecomer that really stuck. An unabashed love song. I like that image of two people coming to a table, and there's nothing on the table, they're not bringing any baggage with them. To get to that point in a relationship is exceedingly difficult, but worth the journey.

I thought it was Lennonesque, coming from the same place as 'Imagine' or something. Piano by numbers. The lyrics were really hard. 'I Never Left You', the title, is like a cop-out statement: I must love you, I never left you. I'm very proud of the middle eight, it's like a separate song: it goes on about kids and angels. I wanted a straight out love song, and was squirming with the sentimentality of it for a while, but it's found its feet. I like the hooks it's got, but it's demanding on the voice.

It's gone through several stages. It's a small song: "keep a light on for me, I'll be around." I first played it as a full-on rock 'n' roll song like the Exponents, and that's pretty amazing, we'll release that at some stage. But to keep the song in context with the record, it had to be done in a piano / conversation way. So I recorded it at Neil's place on his beautiful Steinway. Then I took it to Ian Morris's place, ostensibly to get some string parts on it, which he loves arranging. It was looking expensive so we tried another tack, and added a slide guitar, some Mellotron strings that we put through a Leslie speaker. It came out like a Farfisa. It sits really well with the other tracks.

That was one of the red-headed children, as Tom Waits would put it. I hope somebody covers it.

That la da da da-da bit reminded me of Phil Judd. It was an accident. I was going to put lyrics in, and thought I'll fix it later. But I kept doing the high nonsense lyrics in the early takes. Then we had six to eight of these things. It sounded like the Tellytubbies, but it seemed to be right. You keep all the accidents.

I wanted to write a wish-list or manifesto. It started out like a Randy Newman song, just on keyboard. It didn't end up that way, but I had this idea of beautiful cultural things, paintings, poems, books all being eroded. I wanted to have a sense of loss through the verse, then have a bit of relief in the chorus. It came together by itself. I didn't think too much about the instrumentation. That was laid down in the first session with the Australian rhythm section. As soon as the bed was there, Neil came in as guitarist, playing those Keith Richards riffs. Odd for him.

That started as a story, I didn't even know what I was going to do with it. I kind of knew it would be a song. It struck me that doing a vaguely gospel backing would keep you involved in the story. All the lyrics happened in one night, sitting in front of the computer telling a story. That's how it started. I had all sorts of chords and arrangements, but thought that narrative was the main thing and I didn't need to mess around with it too much. To do a pastiche gospel thing wouldn't have been right: backing singers, horns, that Leon Russell soul thing.

It's an exorcism of dealing with Catholicism, the imagery we've all got. Look what these people do in the name of God. And this is part of me. But you don't have to believe all that stuff to be able to express what it's doing to your heart. That was my way of dealing with it as a fable or psalm. That may mortify traditional Catholics, but it's good to give it an airing. It's just a story, after all.