2003 Media Interviews
BIC
RUNGA
Her
Three-Year Journey Ends In a Beautiful Collision
Original content copyright 2003 to Campus Circle.net
Original article is at: Campus Circle.net
Date: 6 January 2003
By: JOANNA VARIKOS
Bic Runga says that she could have been doing other things during the past three years–a painter, a landscape gardener, or making coffee for record producers. But why do that when she could spend time writing and producing her own album? And that’s exactly the 26-year-old New Zealander what she did.
It wasn’t an easy road for Runga to complete her latest album, Beautiful Collision. The was the stress of following up her first album, Drive, which won its fill of awards, including the Tui–New Zealand’s equivalent to the Grammy. Then, there was the need to please a whole lot of fans that anticipated the second album to match the first. But through it all, Bic Runga’s hard work has paid off. She was honored with the Silver Scroll Award for her achievement in songwriting, she’s the biggest thing to come out of New Zealand, and she's landed a deal with Columbia Records. Runga took time out of her busy schedule (never mind the fact that she woke up early in her native New Zealand, the time zone for which is a half-day in advance) to talk about her new album, producing her own work and the influence of her spiky-haired sister…
Campus Circle: How did you come up with the title Beautiful Collision for your new album?
Bic Runga: It came to me as a song and I wrote the song first. The song itself is about fate–how fate beautifully throws people together, and it would seem haphazard, but it’s quite perfect.
How does this album differ from Drive?
On the first record, I was just trying to make an album quickly. I only had three weeks and limited resources. But I spent three years making this record. I was just taking my time and more importantly, I was learning how to be a producer because I started out not knowing what I was doing at all. But I was putting myself through a course in record production. The first album is a little more naïve and a little simpler, which doesn’t make it any less of an album. In fact, there’s a lot of people in New Zealand who prefer that record, but I find it unlistenable because it was so rushed.
With the success of the first album and all its awards, did you feel pressure to do the second album?
I guess so. But internationally, I’m still a clean, fresh palette, really, because I didn’t have international success with my debut record, so there was no pressure coming from America or England. But in New Zealand and Australia, there’s a lot of people who feel really close to the first album, [so] I was mindful of them. I guess those people who feel close to the first record, it takes a while to get used to the second one.
Would you like that international success? Getting recognized wherever you go?
Well, I don’t like what it means at the present time. Maybe in the past, perhaps, I like what it meant to have a successful record in the '60s. But it just seems like a different industry now. I have this romantic notion about making a contribution to music for the sake of music. But now the industry seems quite convoluted, and it doesn’t seem like it’s about music at all. So it’s not a race I want to be running in.
Your father, mother and sister were all musicians. Do you think that influenced your decision to become a musician?
Yeah, it was particularly my oldest sister who made me want to be a musician ‘cause she was cool. She was a spiky-haired Goth, and my dad used to take her to work in bars when she was about sixteen and I was eleven. I used to watch her in my mother’s bedroom putting on make-up and totally transforming [herself] into this superstar——a suburban superstar.
She was into Kate Bush and Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Smiths and the Cure. And if it weren't for her, I’d still be listening to mom’s Cliff Richard records and Burt Bacharach. She brought some anarchy to the household.
If you weren’t a musician/songwriter, what would you be doing otherwise?
I think I’d probably go into some visual art because I actually do really miss that. I didn’t get into art school and it’s the main reason I ended up a musician.
Do you thing if the opportunity arose, you would drop everything to become a painter?
No. I think you could do everything. I could be sitting here painting now but it doesn’t mean I’d have to give up everything else.
What’s next for you?
Well, I’m renting this house in L.A. in December and January and it’s got a grand piano, so I just want to do a four-track LP from home and maybe pitch that to a producer. I don’t want to go through trying to self-produce or record right now. But I would go back to that maybe when this experience is a bit more distant.
Original content copyright 2002 to Campus Circle.net
