Sol3 Mio: This is our story

"We just managed to hit a genre no one was doing. I'm not saying we're bad at what we do, we're good, but we were lucky."

It read: "Come home. Don't embarrass us. Give someone else a shot," recalls Pene Pati. On the cold - "coldest" - day in Wales, three Samoan opera students gripped glasses of whiskey and read the email with disbelief. Its author, one of their tutors at the University of Auckland, was supposedly a mentor. "He was Maori and close to us, because since the Maori and P.I.s were in fewer numbers we stuck together. It was a real shot in the heart," says Tai Pati.

"I saved it. As a reminder," says Moses Mackay. Two years later, the three opera singers, collectively known as Sol3 Mio (pronounced "sole-lay" like the Samoan word for male friend) handpicked for tuition at the exclusive Wales International Academy of the Voice, hold Masters with distinction and an album that last year outsold Lorde's in the New Zealand charts.

But that email - copied to a list of opera professionals, including Dame Kiri Te Kanawa - still stings.

To this trio, it summarises the challenges three working-class Samoan boys faced in entering the high-brow culture of opera.

"That's what kept us going," Pene says. "Either you break down or you keep fighting. He said we'd be an embarrassment to our people but I said we're going to still represent them, regardless of if we're an embarrassment or not."

The trio are jetlagged and bedraggled but full of energy; slightly defeated only because their cousin just beat them in a heated game of Foosball. After months of proofing their new book, working 14-hour days to film their DVD (out November 14) and performing in London's Albert Hall they must, their interviewer wonders, have plenty to say about being on the cusp of stardom.

Pene: "Damn economy seats."

Moses: "We had to sit sideways. The three of us, tucking one shoulder under here, the other under there. For 12 hours! The air hostesses knocked us every time. Most of them would laugh. We looked ridiculous."

A hot tub, showers and flying apartments are the accoutrements of the luxury planes of dreams but Sol3 Mio - two brothers and a cousin, who spent their childhood singing at rest homes run by the Patis' parents - are convinced they exist and when they become "famous" they will fly in one.

Aren't they famous already? "Sort of, in New Zealand. I guess," says Pene, who has just learned the group have been nominated for four Vodafone Music Awards. "We just managed to hit a genre no one was doing. I'm not saying we're bad at what we do, we're good, but we were lucky."

The three are chuffed an opera group is up for so many awards. Moses bemoans the state of pop music - "it's all about drinking in da club and getting shawties" - and Pene thinks youngsters will get sick of boring lyrics and the "dial-up internet sound".

Classical music is back in fashion and it's not just Sol3 Mio saying so. Music critic Paul Morley wrote in British newspaper The Observer last month that pop music belongs to the last century and classical is more relevant to the future: "[It] takes a new place in time, not old or defunct, but part of the current choice. It is as relevant as any music, now that music is one big gathering of sound perpetually streaming into the world."

Pene agrees: "Classical will make a definite return. People will listen to this art form that's been around for so long."

Not only are they changing the stereotype of opera, they're challenging the stereotype of who can get into the industry. For Pene and Tai, raised in South Auckland, stereotypes had a big role to play in motivation.

Growing up they had no money. There were times they went to school with so little for lunch their parents would tell them to drink tap water to fill them up. "It [opera] is my means of escape and getting away from the normal world," says

Pene. "The hardest thing in South Auckland is we've already been stereotyped from the get-go.

"That's one of the reasons I pursued opera. When we went to university, the three of us were stereotyped straight away. The teachers never gave us that equal chance. For me, that's when I thought ‘this has to stop' and started fighting the grind. People have this judged perception about our relaxed demeanour - don't mistake that for us having it easy."

But it's tough work chasing your dream, says Tai. He isn't just referring to strategically avoiding air conditioning to not dry out his voice, sleeping backstage because of exhaustion or the number of people who laughed at the whole idea of

Sol3 Mio.

"People don't understand the challenges of singing operatic music. You can't really bluff your way through opera."

As much as the three love their fans, they are sick of people thinking their voices are a party trick, that a trill can be whipped up at the snap of a finger.

"Even on the plane," says Pene. "‘You guys are opera singers? Sing the whole plane a song.' Next time I'm going to say I'm a gynaecologist."

Before the boys go on stage they huddle together and say a prayer of thanks.

"I can't imagine what it would be like to walk out by myself," says Moses. "Show after show, that would be horrible. I think that's why solo artists have some kind of entourage with them because it gets really overwhelming. You need somebody there who brings you back to reality because, after a while, things get hazy and you forget where you are."

This is why family is so important to the two brothers and cousin Moses. When they hear someone's voice breaking they rearrange the harmonies. When they fight they forget about it on stage and "it usually resolves itself by the end of the performance because it's hard to be mad when you're joking with the crowd", says Pene.

Later this year they are touring New Zealand with their families for a Christmas vineyard show, featuring Tai and Pene's girlfriends, who are also opera singers.

While all three are known for their humour ("It's part of our culture" explains Pene), Moses, the youngest at 24, is teased as the immature one.

It's a call with some substance. Over 90 minutes, when he thinks no one is watching, he makes shadow puppets against a projector - a duck, a bird, a fish. He also jokes about not wearing underwear on stage, claims to be best friends with

Lorde (he does actually live near her in Auckland's Devonport) and pretends to smoke through a rolled up pamphlet.

"As you can tell," says Pene, "this young man is single to mingle. Cruising for losing. Just putting it out there for the readers."

But Moses is full of wisdom for up and coming musicians.

"Many of our friends try to write music for the industry. They're chasing the wrong dream.

"We've seen it happen, unfortunately. People have a dream but since they're not getting that fame and initial success they change to try and be someone else. All of a sudden they become lost because they didn't stay true to themselves.

They're now in a game where they are a nobody because they tried to be somebody."

As for that email? "We could call the tutor up if we win at the V.M.A.s," suggests Pene.

"Maybe it was like reverse psychology," says Moses.

Sol3 Mio: Our story, with Donna Fleming, $38.99, out now, Penguin.