The one bus banger ABs coach Steve Hansen had to hear

The worst job in rugby is leading the All Blacks Music Committee, says former player Brad Weber.

Back in 2019, with only one AB’s game under his belt, Weber was put on music duties, he told RNZ’s Music 101.

“It’s the worst job in rugby to be honest, because if you can imagine 36 different music tastes including coaches too, you have to play music on all the bus rides to and from every training, to and from the game, gym and other moments in team meeting you might have to have music ready.”

Brad Weber

The Mixtape

His choices didn’t always meet with coaching staff approval, says the former All Black.

“I would be getting texts from Fozzie [Ian Foster] and Steve Hansen being like 'this is crap, change the song'."

One bus banger, however, never failed to tickle the taciturn Hansen, he says.

“The unwritten rule was that the last song that you had to play after the game before you get to the hotel, so you had to have your Google maps up to make sure that it was about four minutes before you got home, but you had to play 'Wagon Wheel' because it was Steve Hansen’s favourite song.

“That was the last song after every single bus ride, he’d have his opinions on everything else, but as long as you did ‘Wagon Wheel’ you’re all right.”

Weber has musical form when it comes to revving up the ABs, his parody of Tenacious D’s 'Tribute', 'The Best Team in the World' was a favourite, he says.

“At the 2019 World Cup I think Angus Taʻavao came up with the team song and it was to the tune of ‘Old Town Road’ there was a couple of lines in the song that Steve Hansen really didn't like.”

Hansen set the team challenge to spruce up the lyrics but Weber had other ideas.

“So, I sat back and I was like nah stuff that, I'm just going to create my own song and so I did a parody to Tenacious D ‘Tribute’ and changed the lyrics and sung it myself and presented it to the boys and fair to say half of them probably loved it.”

He got to sing his parody with Six60, he says.

“Six60 obviously had got wind of it because they were around in Japan during the World Cup that year and they were back in our team room and they were just jamming, just casually like their friends and family are all there as well, and then they're like oh we hear that the boys have a team song and so I'm like oh cool they're gonna play ‘Old Town Road’ and Angus is gonna be able to get up and do ‘Old Town Road’.

“And then I just hear them play the guitar riff of the Tenacious D's and I was like 'oh sh**! This is me' and then they were pointing at me like come up come up and so they got me up on this little makeshift stage and I sung my Tenacious D parody song to all the friends and family and performed with Six60 on stage, so I think that's quite a cool little claim to fame.”

The All Blacks play France in the opening round of the Nations Championship in Christchurch on Saturday 4 July.

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