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In June 1975, Peter Grattan was aged just 23 but had spent over 10 years as a semi-professional drummer, playing with some of New Zealand’s top musicians, most notably Peter Posa, and widely touring New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands.
Meanwhile, his “proper jobs” included a year as promoter Harry M. Miller’s Auckland assistant, bringing him in contact with musical heroes including The Animals, The Yardbirds, The Who and Small Faces, and there were stints at PYE/RCA Records and Stebbing Recording Studios. In June 1975 he began a new career, employed by South Pacific Television (TV2).
Grattan remembers that “Three hundred people applied for three positions, and I was one of the three. We had to set up a telethon in the first week, New Zealand’s very first 24-hour telethon, something new to the country, which raised half a million dollars. It was pretty exciting. I had a spell as studio producer and Split Enz appeared on my shift, they were touring at the time and took time out. They mimed a song off their first album [‘Maybe’].”
Split Enz on Telethon, 1975; Andy Shaw animated for Here's Andy, c. 1975. - NZ On Screen
As exciting as that introduction to television production may have been, Grattan was soon settling into his trainee role in the children’s department, namely Here’s Andy, broadcast live daily. Andy was future television executive Andrew Shaw.
“Andy was a huge star, huge,” Grattan says. “I’d take sacks of mail home and my mum would answer it. It was kids’ television and we had contests and prizes and stuff like that but we would also play videos, pop hits of the day, like ABBA, Boney M, The Bay City Rollers. The record companies provided the vids, no charge, it was silly not to use them.”
The music video revolution had arrived but much of the material forwarded by the record companies just wasn’t suitable for the kiddies. This led to the creation of Radio With Pictures.
With the surfeit of free material, Grattan approached his boss, former C'mon and Happen Inn producer Kevan Moore. “Everyone feared Kevan,” Grattan recalls. “He had a very strong personality and we mortals never ventured into his kingdom uninvited. I was shaking when I went into his office to suggest a late-night Friday slot, just videos, no announcements and told him ‘It’ll be kinda like radio, but with pictures.’ Moore said, ‘As long as it costs us nothing.’ Radio With Pictures was born.”
With no front-person, that first series of Radio With Pictures ran for 13 episodes. “During that first series we included at least one New Zealand act every week: Red Hot Peppers, [Hello] Sailor, the Enz, Dragon …”
Grattan is convinced that music video pioneer Mike Nesmith happened to be touring New Zealand during that first season and used it as a template for his own video productions, indirectly leading to the arrival of MTV. Original RWP frontman Barry Jenkin also believed that to be true but, well, the jury’s still out on that. Regardless, Peter Grattan had created one of New Zealand’s longest-running shows. The format proved a winner and Radio With Pictures was immediately given a second season, although initially without its creator.
The Jolly Roger trio on Ukrainian ship Shota Rustaveli, NZ-UK return trip, 1977. Richard Williamson on guitar, Murray Duncan on organ and Peter Grattan on drums. - Peter Grattan collection
Given this rather auspicious addition to his CV, surprisingly, just 18 months into his new career, Peter Grattan took a lengthy sabbatical at the beginning of 1977 after he was invited to form a band for a residency on board a Ukrainian cruise ship, the MS Shota Rustaveli. He called the band Jolly Roger. This was no ordinary cruise, PG would have you believe. “There were two young officers on board, both named Vladimir, who got very friendly with us, the band, vodka in the cabin, asking about life in the west. We performed a special concert just for the crew, most of whom were sons and daughters of rich Russians, the only way they could see the world. They loved our ‘Back In The USSR’!
“At 2am off Cape Horn we were on deck after playing in the ship’s disco and we saw a submarine a hundred yards off and an inflatable leave the ship carrying the two Vladimirs. I later realised that Little Vlad, as we called him, was Vladimir Putin. They were KGB posing as ships’ officers.”
New Zealand television must have seemed quaint and boring by comparison but Grattan returned and discovered that during his brief absence there had been changes on the musical landscape. Punk had arrived in New Zealand. And Barry Jenkin was now fronting Radio With Pictures. “We still didn’t have a proper budget, we didn’t even have a proper studio, it was like a cupboard. We were still totally dependent on videos provided by the record companies, but there was some filming: Citizen Band, Th’ Dudes, The Scavengers and Suburban Reptiles, even Split Enz.”
In 1978 there was a second sabbatical, Jolly Roger accepting an eight-week Pacific cruise on board the ill-fated MS Mikhail Lermontov, which sank off Cape Jackson in the Marlborough Sounds in 1986. Throughout the late-70s, still employed at TVNZ, Grattan used a variety of band names for different occasions, different residencies. As well as Jolly Roger, there was Freeway and Snoopy. Grattan laughs when he recalls, “One year a confused IRD sent me an annual return addressed to J.R. Freeway Snoop!”
In 1980, during a broadcasting re-shuffle, Radio With Pictures was transferred to Avalon and Grattan found himself back in the Children’s Department, directing the weekly show, Tracy ’80, fronted by Tracy Barr. “It was Here’s Andy, only different. We had a resident band – originally The T’Zers, who evolved into Satellite Spies, and later Kairo, a top nightclub covers band who also had a residency at The Foundry. The music was pre-recorded at the RNZ Studio in Durham Lane. There were occasional guests. Jon Stevens was one I remember. I actually wrote the theme tune, Kairo recorded it.”
The Foundry was a popular licensed nightclub in Nelson Street, a stone’s throw from TVNZ’s Auckland headquarters. It was co-owned by a friend of Grattan’s, realtor Mal Rollinson, who offered him a 25% share in what was proving to be a lucrative enterprise.
“It was packed every night,” Grattan remembers. “There were queues waiting to get in. Kairo was the resident band, and Jimmy & The Jets were there for a while. It was pretty intense. International bands like Dire Straits and UB40 dropped in and jammed. Mr Asia [had] hung out there, it attracted all types.
“Too much profit is a problem, so to help save tax, Mal and Bruce the accountant bought a luxury Mercedes Benz each, and Mal advised me to buy a $55,000 Porsche 911. And I did, but rocky roads lay ahead. It couldn’t last. And it didn’t. But I managed to escape the Foundry mess without losing my home! Very close, thank you, Les Harvey, for not calling up my personal guarantee. Mind you, I did own a $55k Porsche 911 for six months in 1981! Crazy days!”
Married in 1980, Grattan says with a touch of pride, “Helen worked for Polygram and it was she who organised the Split Enz True Colours launch, a magical mystery tour for journos which finished up at Cornwallis Beach for a silver-service lunch.”
PG & The Hot Tips - 'Ready To Rock 'N' Roll' 7" released on CBS (1983). Clockwise from left: Gary Bayer, Jackie Thompson, Viv McCarthy (ex Larry's Rebels), Peter Grattan. "We did so well with gigs between 1982 and 1986 that we bought a Waihi beach bach from the band fund."
In 1981 Grattan formed PG & The Hot Tips, the most successful of all the bands he led. As a teenager, Gary Beyer had recorded instrumentals for Zodiac Records, regarded as something of a guitar whiz. In Australia he had served as Dinah Lee’s musical director. Bassist was Viv McCarthy, best-known as a member of Larry’s Rebels. The original vocalist, Jackie Thompson, was later replaced by Deni Gunn. This was the nucleus of PG & The Hot Tips; other members came and went, among them guitarist Kevin Furey, pianist John Houghton, Lou Moberley from the New Zealand Navy Band.
“It was a fun band,” Grattan says, “and we were much in demand for festivals, lucrative social and corporate events, telethons, shopping mall presentations with Andy Shaw. We did a TV spot on Hudson & Halls. There were four singles, three on CBS, one on Reaction Records. We made an awful lot of money and ended up buying a bach in Waihi out of the band fund.”
PG & The Hot Tips - Hot Guitars (CBS, 1982)
In the early 1980s there was a thankfully short-lived phenomenon which featured a medley of songs with a shared tempo and a common disco beat. ‘Stars On 45’ out of Holland was the first one, and it was a huge international hit. There was a whole string of these novelty releases and nothing was sacred, there was even a ‘Beatles On 45’. Locally, Dalvanius Prime released ‘Māoris on 45’. That was awful too.
Peter Grattan didn’t seem to think so and he shamelessly modelled PG & The Hot Tips’ first two singles on the concept. The first was ‘Hot Guitars’, a medley of familiar guitar instrumentals. CBS head Murray Thom was a friend of Grattan’s; he agreed to release it and the recording was helmed in the studio by respected producer Gilbert Egdell. It was followed by ‘Ready to Rock’n’Roll’, more of the same, this time a medley of 1950s pop hits. Both releases charted.
Zori Dagamzaroff - The Lament of the Volga Athlete (CBS, 1984)
PG & The Hot Tips’ third single was ‘The Lament Of The Volga Athlete’, another novelty, a spoof on the controversial Olympics in Los Angeles, which Russia boycotted. The B-side was the same recording played backwards “so it sounded Russian”. Grattan remains unapologetic about this dismal catalogue and relates with some glee that the late Bruce Morley, drummer and music critic, nominated ‘The Lament Of The Volga Athlete’ as the worst New Zealand record of all time.
CBS bolted after the ‘Volga Athlete’ but only after rejecting suggestions for a fourth single. A mooted All Black tour of South Africa in 1985 was another opportunity. But, says Grattan, “CBS thought that ‘Everyone Is Down on The ’Boks’ was too controversial and another original, ‘Boogie In The Massage Parlour’, was considered too risqué.” In 1985 Trevor Reekie released the fourth Hot Tips single on Reaction Records – ‘Bend Me, Shape Me’, a cover of the 1960s hit by Amen Corner. Studio heavyweights Liam Ryan and Vinnie Buchanan played on the session.
PG & The Hot Tips - Bend Me Shape me (Reaction, 1985)
Meanwhile, Grattan remained at TVNZ, as a sports producer. “I covered all sorts,” he says, “directing music-filled specials on archery, show-jumping, greyhounds, fishing, trotting, and Andy Dalton as All Black captain ahead of the Springbok tour.”
In 1982 Grattan was back doing what he really loved most.
“I was happy enough in the sports department but another opportunity came knocking,” he remembers. “Throughout 1981 TVNZ’s main children’s programme was Droppa Kulcha. It featured lots of alternative bands which the powers-that-be deemed not quite suitable viewing at 5pm so they decided on a change. In early 1982, with six weeks lead time, I was commanded to devise a new weekly pop series for the slot. This was the beginning of Shazam!”
Once again Grattan had come up with a formula that worked. Shazam! was a huge success and Grattan remained at the helm through to 1986. In mid-1986, after a divorce, Grattan married former Miss Auckland and Miss New Zealand runner-up Julie Bensemann. “In 1982 she also became runner-up as Miss Universe’s New Zealand entrant. Some say that I was the consolation prize!”
Peter Grattan and Phillip Schofield on the set of Shazam!
Grattan was granted two years’ leave of absence from TVNZ and the newly weds headed to London to seek work. There, Grattan scored a job at BBC TV where former Shazam! host Phillip Schofield was now hosting a kids’ show. Coincidentally, Andrew Shaw had just left the BBC to return to New Zealand. “Andy had been highly rated at the BBC,” Grattan says, “and the Beeb boss, Pat Hubbard, held Kiwis in high regard. But after the frantic pace at TVNZ, making four 30-second promos every week was boring and did not appeal.”
Grattan’s next stop was Music Box, a precursor to MTV, a pan European satellite channel owned by Richard Branson, directing live pop music shows. Then to Thames Television to direct the ITV network, 10pm thru 5am, then on to Grundy to produce Sale Of The Century and 100 episodes of Sky Star Search, which aired five times a week with resident judge Suzi Quatro. “She was a fabulous, fun lady who enjoyed a few pints at the pub at the end of the day.”
Peter Grattan and Bogdan Kominowski (Mr Lee Grant) in London, 2012. - Peter Grattan collection
In 1989 Grattan produced eight hours of live links from New Zealand House for that year’s Telethon. “Hundreds of Kiwis attended, partying on and donating $150,000 towards the telethon. Guests included many Eastenders and Coronation Street stars, Leo Sayer, Paul Eddington and Dame Edna’s Madge. The Mockers, then based in London, also played, but my biggest buzz was finally meeting Bogdan Kominowski (Mr Lee Grant), who’d been invited to appear on New Zealand television for the first time since 1968. But Andy Shaw, directing from the control booth in Auckland 12,000 miles away, said, ‘sorry, London, we are out of time’, and Bogdan’s spot was unceremoniously dumped. But we become like brothers and he remains one of my best friends.”
In 1990 Grattan was offered a senior position at TVNZ by new boss Julian Mounter: a three-year contract as Head Of Entertainment Production, with an annual budget of $15 million to produce 600 hours of shows across two channels, TV One and TV2. Julie, wife number two, chose to stay in London.
Looking back, Grattan says, “The TVNZ’s hierarchy seemed hell bent on blowing TV3 out of the water, by whatever means necessary. And they succeeded, signing up top TV hosts on retainers to stop them working at TV3, spending a fortune buying overseas shows left unseen on the shelf just so TV3 could not air them. TV3 had no chance of competing on a level playing field, in my opinion. The loser was the Kiwi viewer. And it was all very petty. I was banned from attending Billy T James’s final TV3 concert as a guest of Tom Parkinson. I’d been friends with Billy since my Whangārei days.”
In his new role, Grattan headed a team of over 50 broadcasters. He reels off some of their names with great pride – Ron Pledger, Gilly Tyler, Derek Wooster, Judy Anaru, Irene Gardiner, Simon Morris, Robert Rakete, Ginette “Lynn of Tawa” McDonald and Richard Driver, who directed a revived series of Radio With Pictures.
“Homegrown shows abounded,” Grattan says. “There were $100,000 Aotea Centre specials by John Rowles, Howard Morrison, Dame Kiri and Victor Borge. Over a million viewers watched the When The Cat’s Away TV2 Christmas Eve special.”
Grattan’s new partner Helen ran TVNZ’s International Division, and was headhunted by National Geographic in the USA. “It was quite an honour,” Grattan says, “but that was just the beginning of a ten-month process to gain Green Cards. When my three-year contract with TVNZ ended, we relocated to Washington DC, where we bought a home a few blocks from The White House. For the first time in decades I became a full-time musician, playing drums.”
With Helen’s career on the up, the couple soon relocated to London, where they spent the next five years. Grattan directed music and sports events for clients including FEDEX, Honda, British Gas and BMW, and he produced a documentary special for Ladysmith Black Mambazo. It was while filming at the Royal Albert Hall that the lifelong Beatles fan met Paul McCartney.
“I’d already met George when he launched his autobiography in New Zealand. It was a boring interview, never broadcast,” he says.
“I scored an invite to the Artists and Managers party after Macca’s Concert For Linda. Heaps of big names – Elvis Costello, Marianne Faithfull, Sinead O’Connor, George Michael, Desiree. I caught up with Neil Finn, reminding him of the nice ‘thank you’ note he’d sent me 15 years earlier after filming ‘Enz With A Bang’ just prior to forming Crowded House. And there was Macca chatting to Johnny Marr, so being a brave Kiwi, I bowled up to say hi in my black leather jacket. Macca shook hands, grunted and turned away. It was only later I realised that, as a Vegan, he abhors leather clothes, even shoes! But later, while standing at the urinal, a tall, bearded fella stood alongside me. I looked up and said ‘you must be the only drummer in the world taller than me! He laughed. So began a brief association with Mick Fleetwood.”
This chance meeting led to Grattan being contracted to market Fleetwood’s considerable collection of rock’n’roll memorabilia in 2001. And quite a collection it was: John Lennon’s white million-dollar stretch Mercedes, Elvis Presley suits, personal letters, jewellery, music equipment, an RV, and a television complete with bullet holes. “Only $600,000 worth of items actually sold. Mick lost $150,000 on the venture.”
Returning to New Zealand, Peter and Helen settled in Nelson, where he attempted to interest local politicians and businesses in a New Zealand Music Hall of Fame. His version didn’t happen but it started something of an obsession which continues to this day, at times making Peter Grattan unpopular in some quarters.
He remains defiant and unrepentant. “I just think it would be nice for more of our pioneers to be honoured in their lifetime,” he says. “I applauded the catch-up a few years back when they inducted half a dozen or so acts: Max Merritt, Larry’s Rebels, Dinah Lee, Peter Posa. But I think they should do that every year, instead of just two or three. I mean, Peter didn’t live to see his induction, nor Max, and Larry was dead two or three years later. I just think more could be done to honour our musical pioneers while they’re still around to appreciate it.”
Helen’s parents were aging, so they returned to New Zealand, living near Nelson where Peter ran the Mapua Music and Akaroa Jazz Festivals. His stay in Nelson was brief and he soon returned to Washington where he was Head of Production at DCTV.
Peter Grattan with a 100-year old Steinway in Florida, 2011. - Peter Grattan collection
In 2003, he and Helen separated, and Grattan purchased a house in Florida. He has been living between the US and New Zealand since 2011.
Peter Grattan at former US President Jimmy Carter's 80th birthday party in Florida, 2004. Carter sang a Willie Nelson song, and said that his mate Willie never let him sing! - Peter Grattan collection
No longer restricted to playing the drums, Grattan has added guitar and keyboards to his array of instruments. He has generally had a band on the go; his current Washington-based outfit is the Rockits, featuring Peter’s partner of 12 years, Robin, on lead vocals. Most gigs are decidedly low-key but Grattan is very proud that former US President Jimmy Carter joined him onstage to sing a Willie Nelson song on his 80th birthday. “He told me that Willie would never let him sing on stage.”
Peter Grattan rockin' in the USA with The Rockits, 2024. Jim, Eyes, Peter Grattan, Robin, BillE and BillyO, and the tip jar monkey. - Peter Grattan collection
Rebellion with Larry Morris, "a true hero and rock 'n roll rebel." From left: Kev Furey, Larry Morris, a fan, Chris Fox, Peter Grattan and Alan Wade. Napier, 2014. - Peter Grattan collection
In New Zealand, during his regular trips home, Grattan played keyboards with Rebellion, Larry Morris’s last band. He has always been a big fan. “Working with Larry Morris was a joy,” he says. “I first appeared on the same stage as Larry in 1966 but playing in his band all those years later was definitely one of my musical highlights.”
Peter Grattan is now based permanently in Virginia, with other homes in Florida and Whangārei. A citizen of the US, Great Britain and New Zealand, he’s barely slowed down, and still gigs two or three times a week. Summing up his career, he says, “Music empowers, it heals, inspires and unites. Sixty years of drumming has been my passion and thanks to those with whom I have been blessed to make music.”
Peter Grattan with his new Ludwig kit, 2024. - Peter Grattan collection
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