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'You have to reach into your own heart to tell a great story.' 'Getting people to spill their truth a process. She's revealing how she gets New Zealand music's biggest and best names to open up to her. Sitting in the kitchen of her Kingsland, Auckland, production company Notable Pictures, Parnell is admitting some of the trade secrets she's picked up over the past two decades. The director of Till the Lights Go Out smiles, her eyes twinkle, and she says: 'I've got some tricks.' 'I'm 20 years into my career,' says Julia Parnell, a veteran local documentary maker. It took one person to get them to finally open up and talk about it all. 'We allowed ourselves to say the truth, which was really difficult to do. 'There's a bit of angst that comes with it all,' admits Walters.

Many tears flowed during the making of the film. 'I am sure that there were others in the band that took a little longer to warm up to the idea and drop faГ§ades,' says Mac. The members of Siењ†0, from left, Marlon Gerbes, Chris Mac, Matiu Walters, Eli Paewai, and Ji Fraser. When cameras started rolling, Siењ†0's five members struggled to talk about much of this. making some mistakes and growing constantly. The incident severely injured fan Bailley Unahi, leaving her paralysed from the waist down and unable to walk. In the film's most emotional moments, the tragic balcony collapse at a backyard Dunedin gig in 2016 is covered. It covers the scars left by Kiwi music critics who dismissed the band's sound as 'BBQ reggae' - a term the band slams as 'racist'.ДЄnd it reveals why fans will never hear the results of a high-profile 2015 songwriting session with American super-producer Pharrell Williams. How a falling out with their German record label left their relationships in tatters and they were ready to call it quits. That means the film reveals things many fans may not know about their favourite band. Siењ†0 wouldn't have agreed to do the film if it didn't include all of the rough stuff, says Walters.

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Gerbes has a coffee with his dad around the kitchen table to discuss his father's ties to the Mongrel Mob.ДЄnd early footage of Fraser shows him endlessly practising guitar in his bedroom as a teenager.Д«ut, as Mac warns, 'this is not a puff piece'. Paewai reveals he drove his family crazy with his constant drumming. Glitzy footage of tours playing to fans in far-flung places, studio sessions with big-name American superstars, and their record-breaking first show at Western Springs, are all included in the film.ДЄlong the way, each band member is followed back to their hometown. Their rise is captured in all its glory, and many moments show how good life can be in the band. The film covers the group's early years, playing rugby during the day and music at night at drunken house parties and bars around Dunedin, before hitting the road and hitting it big with popular early singles like Don't Forget Your Roots. It will dispel widely-held notions that Siењ†0's rise to the top has been smooth sailing.ДЇor fans, there is plenty of behind-the-scenes footage to savour.

Putting it all into a film? In the past, that would have been out of the question.Д«ut the band's admission to binge-drinking is just one of many surprise inclusions in their hard-hitting new documentary, Siењ†0: Till the Lights Go Out.Дue in theatres on November 26, the two-hour film is a warts-and-all depiction of the journey of New Zealand's biggest band. It's those parts of their history they don't often talk about - not between themselves, and definitely not to media.

Revealing their binge-drinking origins is a rare admission to shadows lurking in Siењ†0's past. 'No-one's going to know, so it doesn't matter.' 'There's a warm blanket knowing that the details of your journey will never be known,' admits Walters. In interviews, the band's five members - Walters, Mac, drummer Eli Paewai, guitarist Ji Fraser and keyboardist Marlon Gerbes - rarely open up about anything that might put a dent in their clean-cut image. That decision was a turning point, one of many the band has faced over the past 12 years.ДЄ frank, unguarded, uncensored chat to a major news organisation about the band's binge-drinking origins is usually off the cards. The bandвЂ™s documentary gets a cinematic release from November 26.

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