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His grief and some of those revelations flowed
into in "Angel in Realtime" - his Australian rock band's third
record, due out on Friday.
Le'aupepe says he started writing the record in 2017 when he
moved to London.
"I knew I was going to write about my father because I think I
just had this innate sense of my dad's going to die, because he
was sick and getting pretty old," Le'aupepe told Reuters.
After his father, Teleso "Tattersall" Le'aupepe, did pass away
the next year, the revelations started flowing.
He discovered that Le'aupepe senior had been born in Samoa, not
New Zealand as he had been told.
"It's not a unique story in indigenous or black families ...
It's a common thread in all families ... people turning their
back on what they were to become what they want to be. And that
was my father," Le'aupepe said.
His father was also 10 years older than the singer had thought
and had two other sons who had thought their father had died
years earlier.
One of the record's tracks, "The Man Himself" includes
Le'aupepe's thoughts about raising a family without his father
and is "mixed in with the with the revelations".
As well as paying tribute to his father, Le'aupepe also said he
wanted "to talk a little about my cultural heritage".
The record uses samples from composer David Fanshawe’s
recordings of indigenous Pasifika music as well as sessions
recorded in New Zealand with, among others, the Auckland Gospel
Choir.
Le'aupepe hopes people will "call their parents" after listening
to the album and "be a little cooler to each other, less
judgmental, just like my father".
Gang of Youths are about to go on tour, with dates in Britain in
March and from April in north America.
(Reporting by Sarah Mills; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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