Troy Kingi in Joshua Tree Photo: Ezra Simons
Troy Kingi's latest album, Leatherman and the Mojave Green, the eighth in his 10:10:10 project of 10 albums in 10 years, got him out of a creative funk, he tells RNZ's Music 101.
"Just going back to a simpler time when you didn't overthink things, and things flowed freely, and you felt positive about the directions you were taking.
"So, I was just trying to recapture that again."
The album was recorded at the legendary Rancho de la Luna studio in California's Joshua Tree National Park earlier this year.
It's where his favourite album of all time, Songs for the Deaf by American rock band Queens of the Stone Age was recorded - and it's run by Dave Catching, original member of that band.
"It's just got one of those magical vibes. And it's not a very big space, it's pretty much like a small house.
"There's a kitchen sitting right in the middle, and Dave looked after us, he cooked beautiful food, and it was just a really cool vibe.
"In the actual live room, the air con is super, super loud, so whenever we had to record, we had to turn it off, and we were just drenched every time we'd turn it off, and we were just completely drenched in one or two minutes. So, it was very sweaty times over there in the desert."
Kingi's journey to Rancho de la Luna is captured in Desert Hikoi, a new series screening on RNZ.
It's the 30th anniversary this year of Rancho, and Kingi and band were invited by Catching to play a track on a commemorative album marking the occasion.
"Probably third or fourth day that we got in and he's like, 'Hey, I just wanted to ask you something we've got this album compilation, we've been getting all our favourite artists to do a collaboration song with me, and we're going to put out a record, and wanted you to be part of it?'
"He had a couple of little riffs he showed us, and then I kind of just made a bit of an order for the song, and it happened really fast. And then on the last day, I wrote the lyrics, and it just all came together really quickly and he was really happy with it."
Kingi said Leatherman and the Mojave Green has a harder sound than previous albums in his series.
But it harks back to the music - Pantera, Rage Against the Machine and Metallica - he loved at high school.
"I feel like this is probably the roots of my music. If you look at Guitar Party, [Guitar Party at Uncle's Bach] there's definitely little bits of it.
"But with this album, we've gone full force, straight into the desert rock vibe. And I'm so happy with it."
So, with albums one to eight in the series under his belt, what's next?
"We're working on a hip-hop album for the next one that I'm producing. But I've put a call out to a lot of my friends in the industry to see if they want to be part of it."
That's being recorded in November, and the final in the series is to be recorded at Abbey Road.
"It's not going to be Beatlesque. It's actually going to be massive orchestral... I'm saying it's like fake James Bond theme songs soundtrack. And probably the best example would be 'You Only Live Twice'.
"I keep coming back to that song with the strings and that, as if it was sung by Al Green. That's what the last one is going to be."
Troy Kingi and the Cactus Handshake head off on tour kicking off at Whammy in Auckland on 6 September then Kerikeri, Gisborne, Napier, Hamilton and Tauranga.
