L.A.B - Keeping it real

/// WORDS BOB SACAMANO IMAGES SUPPLIED - Lead image Boyd Anderson

They came, they saw and now they’re conquering all. From playing underage in East Coast pubs to headlining international stages, the full-on groove machine that has become L.A.B have come a long, long way, and we have the sneaky feeling that they’re just getting started. These boys from the Bay have done good.

In three years, L.A.B have released three stand out albums, toured to sell out shows up and down Aotearoa, and pretty much established themselves as the soundtrack to our lives. Last year alone they played to over 200,000 people, won the Radio New Zealand people’s choice award for best live act, and received rave reviews both here and across the Tasman. They’re so good that the Aussies will be claiming them any day now.

Good luck with that Cobber, because L.A.B – the name, apparently, doesn’t really mean anything except as a reference to a laboratory – are about as Kiwi as it gets. The band was formed by drummer and producer Brad Kora of much-loved dub/electronic outfit Kora together with brother Stu (also of Kora), Papamoa boy Joel Shadbolt (of Batucada Sound Machine), former Katchafire bassist Ara Adams-Tamatea and keyboardist Miharo Gregory. Each successful in their own rights, the joining of their forces has created something much greater than the sum of the parts. Their latest album – the creatively titled L.A.B III – was recorded at coproducer Lee Prebble’s (of Fly My Pretties and Black Seeds fame) home studio, The Surgery, in Wellington throughout 2019. The band were living, eating and sleeping in the studio for week-long stints, working around the clock, and the result is a tour de force that captures the sound of a band alive and in full flight.

Brad Kora

Image ©Plenty Limited

There are plenty of ‘70s influences, as well as Isley Brothers, Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers, the Police and reggae standards, guitar riffs, strings, horns, soulful piano and knockout vocals. L.A.B. III defies gravity in places and is gob-smackingly good. It’s hard to believe it’s three in a row in just three years.

The last time Plenty caught up with Brad Kora was about three years ago and L.A.B. was just starting out. Even in those days it was easy to see where the work ethic and focus that would be needed to propel L.A.B. skywards had come from however: together with Dad Tait Kora and at least one of his brothers, the family band would be gigging virtually non-stop around the eastern Bay of Plenty.

“We’d usually play Ōpōtiki on Wednesday and Thursday nights and Whakatāne on Friday and Saturday nights,” Brad recalls. “If we weren’t playing, we were rehearsing, mostly up to six hours a day. Dad was a hard taskmaster, if we stuffed up, we’d get a whack with a ruler. Out of that I think we all became perfectionists! And possibly also became tarred with the taskmaster brush; at least that’s what quite a few musicians we’ve tried to work with say!”

At school the brothers formed the eclectically titled Aunty Beatrice and, with the help of Whakatāne High School music teacher Tom Bayliss, won the Smokefree Rockquest with Mince Pie, a song they’d written about hanging out during lunch hour and sharing, naturally, a few pies. Aunty Beatrice went on to win the Battle of the Bands three years running, but one of the more little-known facts about the Kora brothers is their success as jazz musicians. “Every year we [the school] entered a band into the New Zealand secondary school’s jazz competition,” Tom Bayliss says.

“I had these incredibly talented brothers and suggested they enter a small jazz combo. And with the help of an exceptional lady called Merenia Gillies, we did just that. Merenia had the boys coming in early in the morning and practicing for hours, she really cracked the whip with them.”

You can expect continued crazy busy but good times for the Kora side of the band, known locally as “Wairakians”.

With another task master standing over them, and only weeks before winning the Rockquest, the Kora brother’s small jazz combo was crowned the best in all New Zealand’s high schools – no mean feat for a band of brothers who you might say didn’t exactly embrace jazz to their hearts.

Kora came to be in 2002 when fellow Kora brothers Laughton and Fran were both Wellington-based at Toi Whakaari, broke students studying theatre and dance, and playing in restaurants for free food. An offer of a gig resulted in the throwing-together of a band and Kora’s first live performance was the One Love Festival in front of 11,000 people – fitting, given that L.A.B recently headlined the same festival to an even bigger crowd.

Then, in 2013 Laughton and Brad left the band, and that’s about when things get really confusing. Laughton can be seen on the big and small screen, directs theatre and is also a part of Kora. Brad runs a gym in Whakatāne and is part of L.A.B with Stu Kora, who is also in Kora, and Fran Kora is one of four in the Modern Māori Quartet, as well as a part of Kora, and Laughton and Fran are in the Marley Reggae All Stars. It’s simple really.

This cup of overflowing extra-curricular commitments forced both Kora and L.A.B onto the backburner, but soon the brothers individually, and in unison, did some goalsetting, and for Brad and Stu it was L.A.B.

The rest as they say, is history, except for L.A.B. this is clearly early days. Already back in the studio and already preparing for another round of touring, the hardest working band in the country are showing absolutely no signs of easing up. It’s peddle to the metal for 2020 just like it was for 2019.

Whatever happens, you can expect continued crazy busy but good times for the Kora side of the band, known locally as “Wairakians” – a play on their roots in the Whakatāne suburb of Wairaka. And don’t expect the dizzying heights of international stardom to go to the heads of these guys.

“That’s the best part about being from Whakatāne. Doesn’t matter where you go in the world and with who. Come home and nobody gives a shit,” Brad laughs. “It keeps things real.”

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