Shakenstir UK

bicRungadotnet

Shakenstir UK

News Articles

Shakenstir UK

BIC RUNGA - Sheila Pham Interviews New Zealander Bic Runga

Original article is at: Shakenstir UK

Date: 10 October, 2002

By: Sheila Pham

"Rapunzel's Organic Almond Butter. It's like peanut butter but made with crushed almonds. It's so good."

- Bic Runga's favourite toast topping.

New Zealand may be a small island in the Pacific, but it's produced a mass of musical talent in recent years. Neil Finn's solo career has been a little under-whelming since the split of Crowded House, but there is now a younger generation ruling the airwaves. Some names you might start hearing a lot more of are The Datsuns and The D4. But perhaps the biggest thing to come out of New Zealand since the All-Blacks is a 26 year old female singer-songwriter-musician named Bic Runga. Her raw and melodic debut DRIVE is the top selling Kiwi record of all time, going seven times platinum there (and beating the pants off Split Enz and Neil Finn in the process).

She was recently in Australia to promote her highly anticipated sophomore record, BEAUTIFUL COLLISION. I talked to her about the difficult journey towards the creation of her second album.

So how do songs come to you?

They just sort of arrive. You can definitely craft them to some extent but sometimes you get the feeling that songs come from some other place and they're not really to do with yourself.

Not too long ago you were involved in a series of sell-out concerts around New Zealand with Dave Dobbyn and Tim Finn. How was that?

It was good. I think when you're a musician one of the greatest things is playing with your heroes. Tim Finn and Dave Dobbyn are heroes of mine, though I was never awestruck. It was a good time to do that show because I was in the deepest, darkest depths of my record and I was kind of disappearing. It was good to socialise myself again with musicians, and just get over it really because if you over-record something you sort of lose your sense of self. It's nice to refresh yourself by playing live but not having the pressure of doing your own show.

Your favourite musicians include Neil Young and David Bowie who aren't exactly modern. So what are your thoughts on the music that's out there now?

Well, there's a lot of music at the moment which is borne out of record companies trying to make lots of money quickly. I don't think a lot it has enough substance. But that doesn't mean to say that there isn't a lot of stuff out there that does have substance. There certainly is. There are people who have really made a mark like Missy Elliot, Dr Dre, Eminem - a lot of hip hop. I think they're real innovators. But all the old school music has already stood the test of time even after thirty years, forty years. And I relate because of its purity.

You were invited to play at the Lilith Fair when that was touring across North America. How do you relate to other modern female artists?

I definitely wouldn't say I identify with female singer-songwriters outright. But I liked Tori Amos's first record. And I really like Fiona Apple. I've seen her, I've met her, I've seen her play live. I think she's got real substance.

How do you feel about playing live shows?

I love small venues. They make a lot more sense to me 'cause you can still see people as individuals in audience unlike in a stadium or a big crowd. Though it's good to mix it up, I definitely prefer smaller crowds. But I just can't keep those small crowds otherwise I'd go broke

You come from an unusual cultural background. Did you identify with both the Chinese and Maori cultures growing up?

I definitely identify strongly with my family because we did seem to be different. We stuck out like sore thumbs in Christchurch because it's very Caucasian. I guess my sense of identity came from my family because we just seemed so different from everyone else. We probably weren't really. But I think there was a demarcation between brown people and white people in Christchurch.

You have a sister who plays in a successful Kiwi band called Stellar. What was your relationship like with her when you were younger?

Bo was such an inspiration to me because she was older and cooler. During the 80s she was a Goth and she only wore black. She had a great record collection; your typical older sibling that puts you onto music.

Your album has also just been released in the USA riding on the back of the success of your single "Sway", which was featured in an important scene in American Pie, as well as the soundtrack. So where did the song "Sway" come from?

It was just inspired by some graffiti that I saw. Someone had just graffitied the word "Sway". It's just an intriguing word, not one of those words that I use in my day to day vocabulary. Actually, there's a really nice line in a David Bowie song Let's Dance that goes: "let's dance, sway through the crowd to an empty space."

So why did you record this album in 8 different studios in New Zealand and America?

I just really didn't know what I was doing. The whole thing was a complete mess. I don't know if you've seen a documentary called Hearts of Darkness by Francis Ford Coppola's wife which is about the making of Apocalypse Now. The film just took too long and they spent too much money. And I think he was a bit of a freak. He just didn't know what he was doing. That's no comparison at all but now I understand being involved in something bigger than yourself. At any given time you don't know whether you've just completely fucked up and wasted a lot of money (laughs).

It took three years in total to make this record right?

Yeah, it was very draining. And three years is too long to spend on anything. I could've gotten a university degree in three years. I could have made a claymation movie.

So given how draining the process was, how do you feel about your latest record?

The world was full of possibilities when I was 20. Now I've seen a bit more of the world, I'm a bit more discerning. I do miss something from early days of recording, you know, before you realise what a monster the record industry is. It's still full of possibilities but I actually preferred being blissfully ignorant. I liked the purity of thought I used to have. I think the actual quality of the song-writing is better for me the second time round though. There's a nice simplicity about Drive but you can't keep making the same nursery rhyme. My saving grace was knowing what good craft was. It puts you in the family of people who make chairs, people who make bookshelves, people who make jewellery. It makes you feel what you do is kind of normal. But because the songs just materalise, they're not really made of anything. They're not tactile. I really do miss doing something that's visual and can be touched.