The Wellington Sea Shanty Society

Breaker Bay Hall, Wellington

Friday 31 July 2026

I met my friend Vorn about sixteen years ago. We both worked for Tranz Metro, the commuter rail network in Wellington. Our job involved selling and clipping tickets on the trains. Many of the staff had worked there for decades – much longer than I’d even been alive. So Vorn and I were both among the “young” staff, even though he has about ten years on me. I don’t remember the exact circumstances of meeting him, but I do remember that Donna from the pay office shared that he was a musician, and not long after he sold me three CDs of his eponymous band. [My reviews of his most recent albums: The Winter Session, The Late Album]

We became friends and I remember him recruiting me to film him for a DIY music video. A few months later he asked me to drum for a gig he’d organised for the adult guitar class he’d been teaching. I was just a teenager, fairly fresh out of school, and finding my footing in the world. It meant so much to me – that a real musician would ask me to contribute to some of his projects – and it gave me a big confidence boost.

Vorn has always been iconic. He used to rock these huge red bejeweled sunglasses that clashed with our navy blue uniform. He was frequently seen biking around town in his fluro yellow Tranz Metro issue jacket, and busking on the waterfront, playing Jimi Hendrix covers on accordion. Vorn is a lovable enigma, perpetually true to himself. [See also, this great Audioculture article about Vorn, written by Michael Hollywood]

The first time I saw The Wellington Sea Shanty Society was at a bar called Mighty Mighty in 2013. I was there to see legendary Japanese rockers Guitar Wolf, and WSSS were playing at the other end of the room while the stage was being set. I remember thinking that it was a novel, fun concept. Most of the songs were reasonably well known, and invited audience singalong and participation.

WSSS was actually Lake’s project. Known for his groups Lake South and Urbantramper, Lake had befriended the French shanty crew Croche Dedans during his travels in France and transplanted the idea back in NZ. It made a lot of sense in this setting, a country settled by seafaring navigators and sailors, and populated by many whalers when first being colonised by Europeans. Lake asked Vorn to collaborate with him, and WSSS was born. WSSS’ third album, Ahoy!, is a collaboration with Croche Dedans, and Lake and Vorn have toured France a few times with them. [I should also share the most recent Croche Dedans album, Glou].

I remember seeing this video on the Croche Dedans Facebook page. The song was incredible, compelling and meditative, with gorgeous bones that could be fleshed out. I took it to some friends who I was starting a band with and we all agreed to cover it with a blues rock feel. It’s a shame we never properly recorded it, because it was easily our best song.

The first Breaker Bay Shanty event I remember took place in 2020. To me, this is when WSSS ascended from busking status to something more. It wasn’t just two guys playing singalongs on guitar and accordion, it was now an event, with a full band. Thomas (violin) and Nick (drums) from the Vorn band helped flesh out the sound, and MC extraordinaire Louis Tait helped set the scene with his poetic nautical monologues – a thespian possessed by the spirit of Herman Melville.

The setting was perfect. The backdrop of the stage features a beautiful painting of the bay. [You may also recognise it from this The Beths video]. The venue is right on the shore. Everyone had songbooks for singing along – think hymn missals from church, but more scurvy than spiritual.

I wasn’t exactly on my best behaviour. I’d consumed too much rum before the gig – to get into the spirit of things… Lake still uses footage from that night when making promo material for the band, and almost always uses a clip of me drunkenly staring into the camera, whilst wearing a pirate hat.

There was an obnoxious reporter from a current events show who hijacked the evening to get footage for a segment on her show, but once she and the camera crew had left, it was a fantastic night. Easily the best night of the year, and an exciting fixture in the calendar every time the lads book another show there.

I wrote @winstonpeters a campaign jingle and sang from the heart. Thus achieving my political and sea shanty dreams in one song @NZFirst you’re welcome ™️ pic.twitter.com/87TA8eNRwz

— Olivia Caldwell (@OcCaldwell) August 7, 2020

This was a year or two before “Wellerman” blew up on TikTok, and became the viral song that permeates pop culture now. It’s a genuine whaling-era song from Aotearoa that Lake and Vorn had discovered it in some ancient songbooks. I do remember it being a real highlight at WSSS gigs along with “Drunken Sailor”, long before virality struck. Somehow a postman in Scotland discovered this obscure old song from Aotearoa, and a video of him singing it struck a chord that resonated with people to the point that the song has been appropriated the world over. Even The Wiggles now do a version of it. Wellington Sea Shanty Society had two recorded versions of “Wellerman” before the song blew up, and those two songs currently have over three million streams on Spotify between them.

I’ve been coming to Shanty gigs at Breaker Bay Hall since 2020 now. So do they ever feel stale? Not at all. The setlists change over time, although firm favourites usually remain constant. They’ve just released a new EP, Never Mind the Rowlocks (with album art styled to imitate The Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks), so have a few new songs to add to the repertoire.

It sounds like the tour to date has been a total blast. The band played a low key pop-up gig on Leftbank in Wellington the night of the EP release. They’ve sold out a lot of their shows on the tour. In Auckland they played a live-to-air for bFM, and featured as the musical guests on televised comedy show 7 Days.

 

As we arrive in Breaker Bay, the locale gives a taste of the night to come. It’s a surprisingly calm day, so there is a distinct lack of waves crashing on the rocks nearby. But it’s certainly right on the shore. The air is lightly scented with seaweed. Thankfully that’s about the only smells we get whiffs of – the local sewage treatment plant has been infamous for mishaps all year, with no set resolution in sight for a long time yet.

It’s always interesting to see who shows up to these gigs. We see lots of pirates and sailors, as well as a squid. And stripes. So many stripes. It’s enough to get a zebra hot and bothered.

Dressing up is highly recommended. I won best dressed one year for a sexy mermaid outfit I’d made (complete with wig, shell earrings, and shiny scaled tail/skirt). My best friend Craig won the following year by wearing The Titanic.

You can tell that a lot of people popped into the local Look Sharp shop to get a suitable accessory – think plastic pistols and sailor caps. We see some people waving cutlasses in the air. But some people really put the effort in, and their outfits are quite impressive. Long leather boots, velvet shirts, corsets and waistcoats. And as the saying goes, you get out of it, what you put in. Those who dress up, sing, dance, and embrace the spirit of the night, have the best time. This is not a passive experience.

My mate Paddy had been up late the night before using a hot glue gun to attach trimmings and gold buttons to his blazer, and had pinned a soft toy kookaburra to his epaulette as a stand in for a parrot. The winning outfit of the night was a siren, with shiny tail, blue face makeup and trident. Well deserved.

I don’t want to share too much, lest I spoil the show for any yet uninitiated seafarers. There’s a lot of crowd interaction. Captain Louis, master of ceremony, welcomes us in with his welcoming address. He provides context for the night – touching on the band’s recent album, explaining what a rowlock is, and casting a spell that summoned seabirds and cephalopods into the hall.

And then the band begins. They start with a new original punk shanty. Thomas on the fiddle is that star in that one. Lake and Vorn share lead vocal duties, playing guitar and accordion, respectively. Nick is trialing his new compact pancake drum set, which sounds good despite lacking the depth or resonance of your standard drums.

The set list is varied. The new stuff is more punk themed. One was written in the vein of the much maligned ‘stomp clap hey’ genre of the 2010s. There are authentic olde tyme shanties – some true to form, some with updated lyrics. Lots of WSSS written originals. Shanties sung in Spanish and French. Contemporary covers with nautical themes (“Anchor Me”, “Whaling”), as well as ones that have been reworked to become nautical. I like the songs that are a bit more boisterous and involve punctuating the singing with the odd “HEY!” and “HOORAH!” and the like. There’s so many shouts of “Ho!” throughout the night that we could be at home in a 1990’s rap video.

Louis returns throughout the night to lead games and challenges. It’s a cold, windy night and we’re on the coast. But here, inside the hall, everyone is grinning and breathless and sweaty from all the singing and dancing. It’s frantic and silly and loud. Louis adds a lot to the night, making the evening an experience, more than just a band playing some songs on the stage. He casts quite the figure, with his wild, teased hair, and his poetic addresses. It’s probably a difficult balance, inspiring interactions, mutiny and shenanigans, fending off the heckles, and keeping the evening going roughly to script. As usual, it’s mostly my friends misbehaving. Louis takes it in his stride. We have an awful lot of fun.

It’s election year, and WSSS are a political band. It’s not always super on-the-nose, but these are musicians who believe in worker’s rights. Lake used to have a bumper sticker saying “Back the Teachers” on his guitar. They penned the song “We’re Not In London Now (Sam Parnell’s Law)”, about Sam Parnell, who is credited with establishing the 8 hour working day in NZ. And now, the lead single from their new EP is entitled “I Struck for Better Wages“, a rousing number that takes lyrics from 1893 and couples them with music that draws heavily from Dropkick Murphys’ sound with a punk feeling and fiddle.

And I think that in an era of divisiveness and distraction, sometimes it’s salient to come together in a room full of strangers, and celebrate community and creativity and the arts and things that are important. Some of these songs are from the 1800s, and some were written this year. Some are heartbroken and homesick. Some are full of excitement and adventure. But these songs, these shanties – they have the power to bring people together to truly live for a night.

Words and photos by Joseph James.