The interview that took two years to land.

Meet Daniel Johann, Aotearoa's massively successful but incredibly reserved streaming giant.

It felt like a myth, a folk legend, something that couldn’t possibly be true.

When I first heard about Daniel Johann, he didn’t seem real.

His story came to me like this.

There was, I was told, a musician living in Pōneke.

He’d recorded and released an album when he was just 15 years old.

Over time, we’re talking many years here, his album blew up, massively.

It became a streaming juggernaut.

It was so big Johann didn’t need to play live, or make more music.

Johann had become one of Aotearoa’s biggest musicians on Spotify thanks to that one album.

My ears pricked up.

I had to know more.

So I contacted Johann on X (formerly Twitter) and asked him if he’d like to chat.

He said he didn’t want to talk on the phone, or via Zoom.

So I suggested I fly to Wellington and we get a coffee, or a beer.

He said he didn’t want to come into town, he hated the city centre, and he didn’t drink alcohol.

Instead, he proposed something else.

“I’d be more in my element at like bowlerama or the zoo or something if you want something a bit more than a guy who is struggling to hear you over other people eating lunch,” he said.

I agreed.

I booked the flight.

Then I got Covid.

Several months later, I tried again.

He didn’t reply.

I changed jobs. I kind of forgot. I sort of gave up.

And then I mentioned Johann in one of my newsletters. I said I’d been trying to talk to him for years. It just hadn’t happened.

He must have read that, because he got back in touch.

This time, he wanted to drink tea.

He wanted to tell me his story.

“I think you could do it justice,” he said.

Daniel Johann, as always, in the shadows.

And so, a few weeks back, we met on a drizzly Sunday and drank tea for nearly two hours.

His story is incredible, unlike any of any musician I’ve ever met.

We talked about all of it, how he made that first album in just a few weeks, how he had no idea it was blowing up until he checked his streaming income five years later, why he refuses to play live, why he only rarely does interviews and how he made his second album, last chance to see, that came out last month.

“I made melanchole as a kid, naively, by accident,” he said.

“It's not like I'm trying to be a celebrity,” he told me.

“It’s ridiculous. I make too much money,” he admitted.

He also apologised for not returning my messages. “I didn’t have anything to talk about,” he told me.

I reject that. Johann totally has hugely compelling story to tell.

That saga is published on RNZ today.

If you get a free 10 minutes, I’d love for you to go and read it.

It’s one of my favourite stories I’ve worked on.

Good things take time, I guess.

With Johann, that seems to be his life-long motto.

Everything you need to know.

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• As the 90s nostalgia boom continues, I’ve been wondering where Beck’s at. He’s perfectly placed to cash in right now. How about an Odelay tour with two turntables and a microphone? Nope. Instead, he’s touring with an orchestra to play much of Midnight Vultures. I really enjoyed this LA Times interview with him, in which he says: “I took real offense at the slacker thing.”

• Earlier this week I covered the opening of a new music venue in Pōneke called Meow Nui. Now, the venue’s first essential gig has just been announced with Home Brew set to play there on September 7. I hear there are many more shows locked in, but this sounds like a great way to get to know the place.

• Finally, today’s must-hear song comes from Mousey, the alt-rock project from Ōtautahi’s Sarena Close. ‘Dog Park’ is a smoking hot burst of grunge-rage that gets all tangled up in knots in the best possible way. She tells Rolling Stone NZ she wrote the song in just 10 minutes, but it absolutely doesn’t sound that way at all. If you like this, she’s got a second new song called ‘Opener’ out today too…

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