Gin Wigmore is about to embark on a New Zealand tour, then she's packing up and moving to Palm Springs. She tells Yadana Saw how she balances music, motherhood and her driving need to do new things.
Gin Wigmore Photo: supplied
Every time Gin Wigmore’s husband sees her number flash across his phone, he's terrified.
According to her, it's because he never has any idea what Gin's going to tell him.
It could be, “The world is ending,” or, “The most amazing thing is happening,” or “it could be I’ve bought ten horses and we’re moving to Timbuktu.”
“Anything is possible. I’m a total dreamer and I drive one hundred miles an hour into anything." Often that "anything" bears no resemblance to the other things she's up to, Gin brightly explains.
Take for example, last year, when she was promoting her fourth album Ivory. Gin had just recently become a mother, started a clothing label, corralled a "girl gang", and was taking steps to become a veterinary nurse.
And now: “I was going to start study this year and then I bought a hotel in the desert in Palm Springs so me and my family are actually moving to Palm Springs in April."
At this point in the interview, I'm starting to relate to Gin’s husband, Jason Butler.
“My vet nurse is on the back burner for the minute 'til I get this hotel running.”
“It’s a seven-room, little kinda Spanish hotel at present and it needs some tender love and care, which I am going to figure out how to do and I’ll go up there and run it.”
Gin Wigmore, one of New Zealand’s more distinctive singer songwriters with that “whisky and dry” voice is now adding hotelier to her credentials.
“I’ve stayed and travelled my whole life really so it seems like something I could really use a lot of that experience and put it into this place.”
It is difficult to see fault in Gin’s logic. After all, she's tasted success before, coming to prominence as a teenager when she won the 2004 International Songwriting Competition. Gin went on to have a successful music career releasing four studio albums.
Though she says she never really set out to make a career out of something she enjoys.
“It just baffles me ... I had no idea what that [a music career] really entailed and then however many years - 12 or 13 years later I’m still doing it.”
Gin explains the early years of her career now shape how she approaches all her endeavours.
“They all started out as ideas like, 'Let’s make clothes, let’s run a hotel or let’s open a rescue centre for dogs or whatever,' all these things are on the go, so I don’t see them as not working out yet, they’re all working, it’s just different degrees of how much they’re working.
“I’ve always wanted to do lots of things in my life - so many things!"
Gin Wigmore tour dates:
- Wellington: Tuesday, Feb 5 | Opera House
- Christchurch: Wednesday, Feb 6 | Isaac Theatre
- Dunedin: Friday, Feb 8 | Regent Theatre
- Auckland: Saturday, Feb 9 | North West Wine, Beer and Food Festival, Kumeu | with Tami Neilson and Jed Parsons.
