Getting the Bic Idea

Interview from

Interviewer:    Andrew Polson

Website address:
http://www.reaction.co.nz/nzmusic

"The sound I'm going for on this album 
has been pretty clear to me for the 
last four years. It's going to be really 
dark because there ain't many happy 
songs; and it's going to be really sparse.
I write off most music I hear because
it's just too busy. I like space - lots of 
space. I like snappy snares - hate deep 
snares; and I'm really fascinated by
the difference between a loop and a 
real drummer - drums that sound like 
loops but aren't loops. When you've 
got a loop going and go back to the 
button to stop it, rather than doing a 
big (drum fill noise), like a drummer 
would, it just stops. I'm really 
interested in what that does to the 
song.

There's going to be lots of that on my album - not loops but live drums that sound like loops - a lack of fills basically. Wayne does that really well - he can play to a click like no-one, it's scary. And I have to say I like anything with a tremolo smacked on it - I think that's why I like Portishead so much."

I ask if she's worried about alienating her audience - after all everyone knows her from Drive as 'the girl with the guitar'- but she says it comes down to who you are trying to please.

"I really don't mind if no one likes it. Dobbyn once said that as soon as you try to make a hit album you get all messed up - you've got to make yourself happy. It's like you're the one who has to listen to it when it comes on the TV or the radio - if you cringe, you cringe every time you hear it. And you'll be living with it for years - it's such a permanent thing, recording a piece of music."

Runga says it has taken till now for her to get up the courage to speak up and say what she wants. Previous attempts to record her songs were unsatisfying. The recordings that would eventually become part of the 'Drive' EP were done in Wellington on the back of a QEII Arts Council grant through Pagan Records and even though she was pleased at the time to be recording her songs, she was having doubts even then.

"It was done with Trevor Reekie (head of Pagan Records) and Nigel Stone who I both really like, and I do actually like working with, but it just wasn't where I was going," she says. "I was only 18 and I didn't really know how to say no to anything. I think even back then I still knew what I wanted music-wise but I was more diffident - I didn't speak up."

She later recorded a demo of Drive herself "... which I took up to Sony, who I'd always wanted to be on" and secured herself a four album exclusive deal with the label. Sony then bought the Wellington recordings off Pagan and sent Runga back into the studio to try re-recording that song with more instruments. But in the end they ended up putting out Runga's original demo as the single. "I almost killed it," she says, "it needed to just breathe, the way it was released."

Later when Sony sent Runga into a studio in Ireland with Irish producer Nial Maccan and (ex-Crowded House member) Nick Seymour. As she said in an 'un-charted' interview, they went in "... with the hope of getting an album done but it just didn't really work out."

The sessions produced one really good recording, her next single Sway, but overall Runga was still not happy with how things were going. She came back to New Zealand and was due to have Dave Dobbyn produce in December last year ("He would have just been totally cool"), but then she broke her collar bone which put back the whole recording and meant Dobbyn couldn't do it.

With a vacuum in the producer's chair, Runga decided to seize the opportunity and sent a written proposal to Sony to produce herself.

"It was the first time I'd organised a piece of writing since I was at school! I would have had to have spoken out by then otherwise I would have had a nervous breakdown, but I'm really glad that I asked. Sony were really cool. They were a bit scared at first producing my own album 'cause every other session I've had I freaked out, but it was only because I never got what I wanted. Now our contract allows me to do anything - I have complete musical artistic licence. And Sony America are into it. We've had guy come out called Peter Asher (who is their in-house producer and practically one of their second in commands) just to basically be encouraging. It's just like having a sounding board and it was really good. They are just the coolest record company 'cause I think they know I've had such a hard time with it."

She says she doesn't just want to stop at her own music either "I would love to produce someone else's album. I think I can empathise with young artists who maybe don't know what they want, or do know what they want, but pretend like they don't.'

I ask her if she has any production heroes.

"Butch Vig, absolutely," she answers immediately. "He's the man, and I guess most people who make that sort of music would agree that he's pretty cool. With Garbage you can hear all the songs and all the vocal performances are so attitudey."

As our interview comes to a close, Runga says that even though it has been a struggle to get to this point she is still grateful for those previous experiences. "Every single session I've ever had I have to give credit to, because if I hadn't done those I couldn't do this. A lot of people thought I had no ideas because I never spoke up - and fair enough. It was my own fault, but I won't let it happen again."

This interview is reprinted from the Apr '97 issue of NZ Musician Magazine, and is copyright to them.