Citizen Band


They were called Citizen Band but they were no ordinary citizens. Brothers Mike and Geoff Chunn both had a Split Enz pedigree and Brent Eccles and Greg Clark got a glam rock start in Space Waltz. In old-school 1970s rock parlance, they were a supergroup.

Citizen Band were part-new-school and fitted snugly into the worldwide wave of groups who looked back to the 1960s for inspiration. Ironic in name and nature, they packed the Auckland Town Hall in 1979 despite their single releases not making it to the NZ Top 40 Chart.  

Greg Clark recording at Mandrill
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
Warren Sly, Greg Clark, Geoff Chunn, Brent Eccles and Mike Chunn, 1977/78
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
Mike Chunn backstage at Wellington Town Hall.
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
Citizen Band warming up for a summer tour
Geoff and Mike Chunn as Citizen Band play to a packed Auckland Town Hall, September 1978.
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
Citizen Band Mk.2: Brent Eccles, Geoff Chunn, Greg Clark and Roland Killeen
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
A Citizen Band Campus Tour poster from 1979
The debut Citizen Band album was issued with a green border by Mandrill. This was replaced by a blue border for the 1979 CBS reissue.
A 1979 CBS Australia publicity shot: Brent Eccles, Greg Clark, Geoff Chunn and Mike Chunn
Citizen Band in late 1980: Greg Clark, Geoff Chunn, Brent Eccles and Roland Killeen
Citizen Band in a 1ZM show, recorded at Radio New Zealand's Radio Theatre in Durham Lane West, Auckland, and broadcast a couple of weeks later on Bryan Staff's show
Citizen Band - Rust In My Car
Citizen Band at The Gluepot, Ponsonby, February 1979
Citizen Band signing with CBS Records, early 1979: Mike Chunn, Brent Eccles, CBS boss John McCready, Geoff Chunn, CBS staffer Gaynor Crawford (holding the reissued debut album) and Greg Clark
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
The 1980 live album CB Bootleg was recorded in front of an audience at Mandrill Studios. With the band in Australia it received little New Zealand promotion, spending a solitary week in the charts, at No.48.
Brent Eccles, Greg Clark, Mike Chunn and Geoff Chunn, circa 1978
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
Radio With Pictures Sweetwaters special (interview with Mike Chunn and Citizen Band live clip 9 minutes in)
The classic Citizen Band line-up, 1979: Brent Eccles, Geoff Chunn, Mike Chunn and Greg Clark
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
Citizen Band in 1979: Geoff Chunn, Brent Eccles, Mike Chunn and Greg Clark
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
The September 1979 Rip It Up ad for Citizen Band at the Auckland Town Hall
Citizen Band on the main stage at Nambassa, 1978
Photo credit: Courtesy of Peter Terry / Nambassa Trust
Citizen Band, 1978: Mike Chunn, Brent Eccles, Geoff Chunn and Greg Clark
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
The second Citizen Band album, Just Drove Thru Town, was produced by US producer Jay Lewis and issued in August 1979
It was the perfect fit: Citizen Band sponsored by Citizen Watches. From left - Mike Chunn, Brent Eccles, Greg Clark and Geoff Chunn, 1978
Producer Jay Lewis during the Just Drove Thru Town sessions at Mandrill in June/July 1979
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
CBS sign Citizen Band
Citizen Band's Geoff Chunn at Mandrill Studio, 1979 with producers Jay Lewis and Glyn Tucker Jnr looking on
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
Graham Parker shows Mike Chunn the chords and lyrics for his song Protection, September 1978. Citizen Band recorded it for their second album.
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
Citizen Band is awarded Most Promising Group at the 1978 RATA Music Awards at the White Heron, Parnell, Auckland, by artist Shona McFarlane with WEA Records' Tim Murdoch looking on
Mike Chunn at Mainstreet, Queen Street, Auckland.
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
At the end of the 1970s Citizen Band were one of the biggest live acts in Auckland – and beyond – and one of the hardest working, playing halls, schools, pubs and universities and gathering a very devoted live following.
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
Citizen Band - Dig That Tex (1978)
The New Zealand Herald reports the September 1978 Town Hall show
Home Tonight was the final Citizen Band single, released in November 1980, with Roland Killeen on vocals
The Citizen Band Fan Club
Citizen Band: Geoff Chunn, Brent Eccles, Greg Clark and Mike Chunn
Members:

Geoff Chunn - vocals, guitar

Mike Chunn - bass, vocals

Greg Clark - guitar

Brent Eccles - drums

Warren Sly - keyboards

Roland Killeen - bass

Trivia:

In 1978 Mike Chunn published a free newsprint zine, “Keeping it Kiwi”, initially to promote Citizen Band tours, but broadened the editorial to cover other local musicians.

When Warren Sly was a student at Glendowie College he talked the Prefects into letting him do the weekly bible reading at the assembly. He walked on to the stage with a giant bible and like a great orator, read a very lengthy spiel of nonsense from the Apocrypha, a discredited portion of the original 1611 King James Bible.

NZ rock albums were so rare in 1978 that Francis Stark wrote an essay length review of Citizen Band’s debut album in the September 1978 RipItUp. Stark praised the group for “the willingness to deal with recognisable local themes” (translates: NZ stories like Shortland St) and “the absence of geographic tinges in the singing” (translates: they don’t sing in American accents) and their use of “the melodic and rhythmic vocabulary of Ray Davies or The Beatles rather than Lou Reed or The Commodores.”

When CBS reissued the debut album in early 1979 they changed the border colour from green to blue.

In the 2015 New Year Honours, Mike Chunn was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to music and mental health.

Mike Chunn spent 11 years as Director of NZ operations for the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), retiring in late 2003. He founded and is CEO of Play It Strange Trust and has published several books, including the Split Enz biography Stranger Than Fiction.

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