On her new album, Bic Runga gives up trying to be \u2018Bic Runga\u2019. Instead, for the first time, she tries being herself, writes Chris Schulz.<\/p>\n
She brushed her hair behind her ears. She gazed at the rain falling outside. She sat in a long overcoat and sipped her coffee. She called herself \u201ca little old lady\u201d and said, scarcely believably, \u201cI\u2019m 50 now\u201d.\u00a0 She shrugged her shoulders, and said: \u201cEverything is exactly as it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bic Runga is back, but not as you remember her. She is older and wiser, with far fewer fucks to give. Ask her about nerves, or pressure, or expectations, and she\u2019ll reply: \u201cI don\u2019t care about that anymore.\u201d Question her about where she\u2019s been and she\u2019ll respond with a joke: \u201cLoading the dishwasher.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next week, Runga releases her sixth album, Red Sunset. It\u2019s her first collection of all-new material in 15 years. This, she says, is a hard reset, a chance to reboot and reintroduce herself with an album full of the kind of music she wants to make, the tunes she would never have been allowed to release before.<\/p>\n
That means soft and subtle experiments, and wistful, shimmery, carefree jams haunted by Runga\u2019s whispered vocals. Her partner, the famous-in-his-own-right Kody Nielson, handles production, which is minimal. The title is a reference to \u201cyearning and unrequited love,\u201d says Runga. \u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018Don\u2019t you want to watch this sunset with me?’\u201d<\/p>\n
Will her fans like it? There\u2019s another shrug. Runga doesn\u2019t mind if they don\u2019t. \u201cIt\u2019s going to do what it\u2019s going to do. It doesn\u2019t matter what it does,\u201d she says. \u201cSome people will need it and want to hear it, and for other people, it won\u2019t come on their radar at all. You can\u2019t do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s worth remembering the history of the person doing all this shrugging. Runga is one of the most accomplished songwriters this country has produced. With 20 Tuis, she is the Aotearoa Music Awards\u2019 most awarded artist. A Silver Scroll trophy sits on her mantlepiece. She has a permanent place in the NZ Music Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
Her three-album run of Drive, Beautiful Collision and Birds between 1997 and 2005 may be the best any local artist has ever had. When I asked industry experts where Runga sits in our pantheon of songwriting greats, only Neil Finn, Dave Dobbyn and Don McGlashan were mentioned as competitors. \u201cShe remains one of Aotearoa\u2019s most significant modern songwriters and performers,\u201d one replied.<\/p>\n
So Runga\u2019s new carefree attitude hasn\u2019t come easily. She admits the weight of being \u201cBic Runga\u201d got to her over those years away. \u201cI probably overthought things,\u201d she nods. \u201cI could have tried to stay \u2018in\u2019 the whole time, but \u2026 trying to chip away at it constantly and stay on top of that game would have exhausted me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bic Runga (Photo: Supplied)<\/p>\n
Working through that is one reason for her lengthy absence. The other is her family. She and Nielson have three children together, and while Runga\u2019s continued touring over the years, and released the covers album Close Your Eyes in 2016, music was often placed on the back burner, replaced by family life, and that dishwasher.<\/p>\n
Did she stop writing? \u201cKind of,\u201d she says. \u201cIt takes a lot of uninterrupted concentration.\u201d She tells a story that will be familiar to any parent. \u201cIf there\u2019s a song in the air and you can\u2019t quite grasp it, and then someone says, \u2018Mum, where are my socks?\u2019 it\u2019s lost into the ether.\u201d<\/p>\n
But family is also the reason behind Runga\u2019s return. Things have changed over the past year. Runga\u2019s eldest is preparing to leave home. The impending vacuum terrifies her. \u201cIf I don\u2019t do something with myself again, I\u2019m just going to be mourning the loss of my children,\u201d is how she describes her thought process.<\/p>\n
So, songs started haunting her, fragments and snippets that had stayed with her, some dating back 20 years. Runga began waking in the night, jotting down ideas, just like she used to. \u201cHalf of the job is just getting up in the night to grab it,\u201d she says. She and Nielson began working them up, figuring them out, often in their home studio.<\/p>\n
Next week, we get to hear the results. Fans are in for a shock. Runga knows Red Sunset may be a reach for some who want her to rinse and repeat the rawness and emotional intensity of \u2018Sway\u2019 or \u2018Drive\u2019. This, though, is where she\u2019s at now. \u201cI\u2019ve always got some bee in my bonnet about something, and now it\u2019s about being middle-aged,\u201d she says. \u201cI want to know what a little old lady has to say, now that I am one.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is the first time Runga has made an album that\u2019s just for her. If anyone else wants to hear it, great. If not, Runga says that\u2019s cool too. \u201cThere\u2019s always this imaginary, \u2018I should be here, I should do better,’\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s all fictitious, because the way things are is exactly the way they are [supposed to be].\u201d<\/p>\n
It sounds like wisdom. It looks like maturity. It feels like contentment. How did Runga find her happy place? There\u2019s no pause, no staring at the rain this time. Instead, there\u2019s another shrug, delivered with a big, wide smile. \u201cI\u2019m old. It just comes with age.\u201d<\/p>\n