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The Sunday Star-Times
(Auckland, New Zealand)

October 8, 2006 Sunday

Contributed by Michele

Lucy portion
They have laid down eight tracks, including a heartfelt song about homesick Kiwis called For All of Us, featuring Lucy Lawless. It shows a more mature side of the How Bizarre kid. It will be released early next year on Jansson's new label Newco Music Manufacturing, a label which aims to give creative control back to the artist.

Rest of the article
It was a bizarre line, a bizarre song and a bizarre time. Pauly Fuemana went from rags to riches and back. Now the voice of The Otara Millionaires' Club tells TONY WALL he's on the way up again. I N 10 years Pauly Fuemana had a worldwide number one hit song, made more than a million dollars, fathered five children, lost his mother and his brother and was declared bankrupt.Now he's back. A decade after How Bizarre stormed to the top of the charts in New Zealand and eight other countries, Fuemana has again teamed up with the song's co- writer, Auckland producer Alan Jansson, for what the pair hope will be another successful album by the Otara Millionaires' Club (OMC).Fuemana's story is a remarkable one. He rose from poverty in Otara to co- write one of the most instantly recognisable pop songs of the modern era, and enjoyed all the trappings that went with it: meeting the likes of Cher and the Spice Girls, going to the Grammys, riding in limousines. The record sold four million copies, making Fuemana at least $1.5m.

He travelled the world promoting the album, but around 2000 he tired of it and returned to New Zealand, where he disappeared into life as a "house dad" on Auckland's North Shore.Then the royalties for How Bizarre started to dry up. According to the liquidator of Fuemana's company, his and wife Kirstene's "lavish lifestyle had not contracted when the royalties began to diminish".The company collapsed owing $91,000 to creditors; their bank made them sell their Birkenhead house. Then in June, the final insult: Fuemana, in his mid 30s, was declared bankrupt.Now renting in Beach Haven, Fuemana broke years of media silence in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Star-Times.He admitted he had been "a little bit stupid" with his money at times, but denied he'd blown his fortune.

"If you're talking about us giving money to funerals and stuff like that as blowing our cash, then yeah. I gave to my sister and brothers, at least 150 grand."I bought my brother Phil a Range Rover and my sister a BMW... because they were at the bottom of their glass, they were struggling. I said `here, have some money'."I wasn't gonna sit around and say, `hey man, I've got all this money and I'm gonna leave my family out'. That's not the Kiwi way man."He wants to repay his creditors. "I've gone to an auditor... he explained to me I need to do this and that, and I'm doing it."I'm not the type of person to run away, I'm not going to take off, I'm actually gonna try."A lot of royalties were absorbed by record company expenses, something he was not warned about."They [Polygram, now Universal] didn't tell me about it, only at the end, eh. They turned around and said I had to pay 50% [of tour costs]. I'm like, eh?"But if there is any bitterness about the way his career was managed, Fuemana doesn't show it. To him, those heady years from 1996 to 2000 were an incredible adventure."I'm from Otara and I got to see Italy and Spain and Germany.

To play at the Supper Club in New York and the Whisky a Go Go in LA. It was like a dream come true."He also has some wild rock'n'roll stories, such as the time he did an "All Blacks tackle" on a man in San Francisco, sending him through a plate glass window. The man had called him and his entourage "sheep shaggers"."Unbeknown to me he was the head of some record company, Universal or Polygram or something. They sent me a bill for the window."Fuemana is scathing of the way records are made in the US."I went to these studios and there were like three guys in there doing the same job that Alan [Jansson] does. Fifty thousand American dollars later I'm like, `what does he do?' `What's he doing?' I call them studio zombies."After the death of his mother Fuemana lost the will to tour and returned home. Then last year his big brother Phil, the South Auckland record producer who had helped launch his career in 1994, died of a heart attack.Although a sad time, it was also what brought him back together with Jansson. Fuemana has written about 60 tracks over the past six years, while Jansson has honed his studio skills.

They have laid down eight tracks, including a heartfelt song about homesick Kiwis called For All of Us, featuring Lucy Lawless. It shows a more mature side of the How Bizarre kid. It will be released early next year on Jansson's new label Newco Music Manufacturing, a label which aims to give creative control back to the artist.

That appeals to Fuemana."I'm in no rush, we're just taking our time on it. I think if we rush it now we're just gonna get wasted out there. If we take our time and get it down right, I think we're gonna make it; I think we're really gonna kick some butt out there."He is not worried that he will probably be remembered for the one song, and says it amazes him how many people loved it, and still ask to hear it."I'm proud of where How Bizarre has gotten us. Without How Bizarre, I don't think I'd be where I am today, I don't think my kids would have what they