Award-winning songwriter Jan Hellriegel has just released her fourth solo album Sportsman of the Year. It’s more than just an album – there’s a book and a podcast too, in which Jan shares stories from her life in music. She joined us to discuss her new project and to perform the album's opening track 'Hound Dog' live.
She's played with The Cure, toured with David Byrne and Jeff Buckley, and performed as a guest vocalist for some of New Zealand's biggest bands, including Straightjacket Fits and the Mutton Birds.
Now Jan Hellriegel has released her fourth solo album Sportsman of the Year: A Suburban Philosophy, with a book and a podcast to go with it.
She spoke to RNZ Music's Yadana Saw.
Yadana Saw: Why the three-pronged approach?
Jan Hellriegel: There was method in my madness. I just knew the album was going to be a good one. It was lining up to be my best work. I knew that.
I also knew that if I released it traditionally, then the odds would be, no one would hear it. That’s because it's very hard to get albums out there in the current landscape – there's a lot of people doing a lot of stuff.
I just thought, "How do I create this piece of work that maybe people will find interesting?" Then I woke up one morning and I thought, "A book. I'm going to write a book."
Then I thought the stories would make a really fun podcast, so I approached RNZ, and that's kind of how that all happened. Yeah, so it's all very exciting.
Yadana: Where does the name Sportsman of the Year come from?
Jan: I won Sportsman of the Year when I was in intermediate school. I remember being really proud at the time. Then somehow – over the years – that confidence went away, and I thought, “Where did that girl go?”
The reason I called this project Sportsman of the Year is because I'm kind of going back to claim that prize. It's time to go back and be proud of all of the things I've done.
It took me a very long time to come to a place where I thought, "Yeah, I'm a musician and I should be proud of that."
Someone actually described Sportsman of the Year as a self-help manual, and I do talk about how I turned everything around. I haven't always been like this.
I’ve had some times where it hasn't been great for me, but I turned it around and I turned it around myself. It's looking at life from a completely different perspective because I didn't want to go through the rest of my life feeling like I couldn't achieve anything or I couldn't do anything anymore.
So it's about that. I think it's a really important thing to share with people because I hope that maybe somebody will get some comfort from it or inspiration to go and do something.
And it doesn't matter how old you are, because I'm not exactly a spring chicken, but it's just a matter of starting and looking at life in a different way.
Yadana: You first made a name for yourself in 1992 with ‘The Way I Feel’, from your debut album It’s My Sin. Since then you’ve done so much. You’ve released four albums, you’re a mother, you have a career, you went back to study. But for many people, you’re still that young woman who sings in that video. You’re sort of frozen in time. I can't imagine what it must be like to live with that.
Well, without all of the things I've done, I wouldn't be here today. That's another sort of angle in the book, that all of the things that I thought were really not great, were actually great.
I think – this is my personal theory – that had I had amazing success straight after It's My Sin or Tremble, I don't think I'd still be doing it today.
So I'm actually really grateful that I wasn't really successful, like super uber-successful, because to me, success isn't being famous or selling lots of records. To me, it's doing the best work I possibly can and delivering the best work I can.
I feel at this point... I mean, I really don't want to be anyone else. There's no one else I aspire to be. I'm really content with where I've got to so far. It hasn't just fallen in my lap though, I’ve had to go and do quite a lot of work to get here. But yeah, I just... I'm just really feeling really good.
Jan Hellriegel’s Sportsman of the Year podcast is out now on RNZ, you can buy the book and the album on her website, and the album is available on all music streaming platforms.
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