 What I find unique about Marlon is he's existing in his own place right now. There's nobody doing what he does. I wish I could go on the road with him because he's sort of serving back to American audiences music that came out of the American experience. This tour is the first time I've played with a band in the US and it's my hope that people will come along and enjoy the music and want me to come back. Because we play American influence music, I guess it's the benchmark for us. It's like, you know, our people kind of think that what we're doing is credible. The band, I think they're just probably riddled with anxiety at the moment. I play mandolin and fiddle and there's ten fiddle players walking down the street out there that are better than me in America. Not like having anyone play mandolin in New Zealand, it's a weird thing to do. Maybe if we, if you just bring the general mix down about ten percent in my... I hope I get ready to play. I hope I can get my music across to as many people as possible. We're lucky here at KCRW because we have an incredible audience with a hunger for the new. We've had so many incredible artists come through the building. Marlon, I suspect he's looking at America as the bigger mountain just because the roots of what he's doing have history here. It makes you wonder, like, what's going on in New Zealand? Where, you know, how does a kid who comes up in that part of the world embrace this tradition? So my father was a punk rocker in a town of Rastafarians and my mother was a painter who listened to classical music at 1 a.m. Started singing in a school choir when I was 10 or 11 but also singing a lot on the marae, which is the New Zealand indigenous, like, meeting house. You know, you sing songs together and I guess I really heard harmonies for the first time. You know, come out really naturally in a folk sense, you know. I feel like country music as a respectable art form has been thrown by the wayside in the last few decades and it really, I mean, it always has been looked down upon as, you know, simple hillbilly music but I think keeping traditional life is important. There's obviously a mess of stigma around country music and I haven't seen anyone watch Marlon play country music and go, that's lame, there's anything lame about that, it's all pretty genuine. Alright. In radio, you don't have to describe music. We just press play. Decide for yourself what it is, you know. Sometimes it'll be great on record and then you see it live and it's still developing. So yeah, if I was working with him, I would say get him on the road and get that band to go along with him. Touring's addictive because it's a test of what the body can do and what the mind can take. I guess I've done probably 250, 300 shows in the last couple of years so it's certainly been my life. It's extremely overwhelming and confusing to wake me up in a different city every day. It does strange things to time. We've got the doors for the show opening in about an hour and a bit so we're thinking that our soundcheeks are probably not going to happen. You're in a new city going into what is quite a scary situation. There's a guy down in Australia. He's a tour manager. He sent me an email. He said, hey, I'm working with this guy down here. I think you should hear him. He's actually going to be playing this week. I hope the set list works tonight. I hope there's some sort of universality to how audiences enjoy it. It's a long game. There's no quick fixes and there's no immediate glory. It's a career and you build it up slowly. There's a lot of people here. This is really nice. This is good. I stood in the back because that's what I do. And I was dumbstruck. My voice, this amber clean, is hair-raising. When you're performing, that's really the refueling time, funnily enough. Even though you're laying on three hours' sleep for the fifth night in a row, it doesn't matter at that point. You come offstage and no matter how tired you are beforehand, you feel electric. This has been kind of weird. First few shows here and then starting from zero again and away. I'm going to be watching you grow. I'm excited to see how it rolls out. Obviously, we'll be the wind at your back. Thank you, Chris. The more praise or progress I make, the more I want to lock myself down and do better work, you know. If someone's driving home and they can hear my song and derive any sort of pleasure from it whatsoever, then that's a good thing. Thank you, Alfred. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you. It's KCRW on Chris Doritas, next up an artist that makes you wonder what's going on in New Zealand. There's a very special young singer-songwriter. His name is Marlon Williams. His debut album has been racking up awards in Australia and New Zealand. He's currently on his first headline tour of the States. Definitely keep an eye on... Do you know an uncharted musician whose music deserves to be shared with the world? Email artists at who is uncharted to be considered as a featured artist in an episode of Uncharted and for an opportunity to record a track at the world famous Village Studios in Los Angeles. Because your dreams are our dreams.