Gin Wigmore has a beautiful six-month-old boy, a brand new album – Ivory, and she's just started a 'girl gang'
To be in a room with Gin Wigmore is to be in a room with a human enthusiasm machine.
It’s been four years since Gin’s last album and the most significant development in her life since then isn’t a musical creation but a six-month-old boy who in many ways seems to take after his mother.
“He is so hyped. And that totally transfers to my whole existence again too. I go through life and I forget that we had to learn all these things. Like how to hold a spoon and how to try and sit up and that our feet are amazing! And that we’ve got these little fingers and that it’s really hard to go to the bathroom.
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Ivory - Gin Wigmore's new album cover Photo: supplied
“You get to re-live life and it’s just so wonderful. As I say he’s hyped to be here, he was a fast birth – he was here in two hours. He was like, ‘Right – let’s go world!' He doesn’t like naps, but he sleeps through the night, he’s good. He hates his daytime naps just cos he’s so hyped.”
The term ‘hyped’ also suits Gin. Whether she's talking about her newborn son, her upcoming album or the fact that she decided to promote her album with a project called Girl Gang; her passion for what she’s doing is palpable.
Girl Gang is a project where Gin gives her songs to other women – artists she admires from non-music disciplines, and they create art inspired by those songs.
“For me what’s genuine is to look at what's important to me and right now women are getting a real platform and that’s very dear to my heart. Being able to say and be heard and speak your mind about things.
Gin says the biggest problem, which see sees a lot of on tour is that women 'can be real mean to each other': "I think we’re our own harshest critics."
“We’re judgemental and we’re unkind and I don’t want to play into that and be that anymore. I was a bitch as a teenager. I totally was like that and I’m constantly trying to evolve and be more self-aware.
“So this project was a way to bring us together, celebrate women, realise and show the world that there is room for everyone. That there is room for all of us. There are ways to make and create art joyously rather than competitively.
Gin and her husband have been Los Angeles based for several years now, and although she loves coming home – making sure she returns every year, she's not sure living in NZ would keep her as busy as she'd like.
“I wouldn’t be able to sustain anything to the degree that I do in music over there. Everything from working with brands, writing for advertisements, writing for film, writing for TV, writing with other artists, writing for other artists – the list goes on.
“My husband and I are opening a store in two weeks for a lifestyle company we’ve started. Things like that I’m not sure would survive out here. Just because we have manufacture and design all in downtown L.A. I wouldn’t even know where to start with the production here.
“I just think I’d run out of things to do. And I see the ceiling. I hate seeing ceilings. I don’t like ceilings. If I could have every house with no roof that would be awesome. So I feel that in America. I see space, which is cool.”
Gin Wigmore’s Ivory is out now.
