Ngaiire Interview

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One of Australia’s most interesting musicians to date, we speak to the fabulously interesting Ngaiire ahead of her performance at The Gum Ball Festival this April. Uniquely stylish, with the vocal prowess of epic proportions, Ngaiire is the very definition of originality. Read our exclusive Ngaiire interview! 

Hi Ngaiire, how are you?
Sterling. Struggled with some jet lag the last week but feeling closer to my former self, thank the lawd.

Where are you in the world right now? Set the scene for us.
I’m back in Sydney. Sitting up in my room surrounded by what I will call ‘formulated’ mess. Receipts, boarding passes, hire car documents, an enforcement order from failing to appear at jury duty and multiple half unpacked suitcases from my last month in the US, Canada, NZ and now this last weekend in Victoria.

Sounds busy! So your new tracks are amazing, what’s been happening since we last spoke to you when you were touring with Blue King Brown?
I released my debut album late last year and things have been on the up since then. I’ve done a couple tours in support of that, and have been really worked on getting a solid band and team of good people to work with so I’m really looking forward to the next couple of months as a result of all these seeds being planted.

You’re performing at The Gumball festival, how do you find playing the festivals on home turf in Australia?
I know Australian audiences better than anywhere else in the world, so I definitely feel more at home playing here. I thought leaving home to move to Sydney was bad arse, but the US is an even bigger leviathan. I just played some shows there recently which I loved because it really pushed me to up my game and find ways of being better at my craft because there are just so many thousands of people over there who are on the same grind. Both they and their audiences have access to such a wide range of world class music that we would only dream of being able to walk down King Street to see so you really have to bring it.

Where’s the most amazing place your career has taken you so far?
Touring with Alicia Keys and John Legend would have to be a prize winner for me. Whenever I walked into my trailer back stage and saw the set run sheet on the wall with Alicia Keys and John Legend’s name and then mine right under John’s I’d have to have a little lie down. These are people I listened to through high school and never thought I’d share the same air space with let alone THE SAME STAGE! I still get funny hair pricklies when I think about it.

Your ‘Lamentations’ came out last year, how was the feedback from the album?
I’m so proud of LAM. I put everything I knew into it as I wanted it to be as honest as what was in my heart and to have it make so many end of 2013 lists like the Cooper AMP 25 most highly recommended albums was more then I ever expected.

I love ‘Dirty Hercules’ vocal layering and harmonies, what was the inspiration behind that track?
Dirty Herc’ is one of the older songs on the album. I wrote this one when I first moved to Sydney many years ago and I started working with a wonderful Sydney composer and pianist Marcello Maio who helped me find my songwriting voice. I am always fascinated by how women are around each other and how particularly competitive we are in the music industry. We’re already having to live in a solely matriarchal circus, why not find ways that we can work together? Human nature is a bitch sometimes.

Your known for your exquisite style, and unique fashion sense, is this self-styled, or do you have a good team behind you?
My mum was a proud seamstress who ran a little label in Papua New Guinea (where I grew up) for working women, so she would see it as a great creative opportunity when she had to make costumes for my brother and I when we were kids. At school we had a thing called Book Week every year where you got to dress up as your favourite book character. Whoever won best costume walked away with a stack of books. My brother and I subsequently would always win as my parents would take things quite seriously and stay up till the early hours of the morning constructing a hook out of foil for my brother’s Captain Hook costume or sewing bread fruit leaves into a dress for whatever mystical forrest creature from Narnia I wanted to be. So I absolutely think that those times were paramount in how I approach fashion and what I wear on stage. My mum occasionally still contributes to my stage costumes when I’ve run out of ideas, but for photos shoots I work a lot with a wonderful team of very close friends and professionals Vassi Dyulgerova, Summer Pagaspas and Melaine Knight. Vassi shoots and styles a lot of my music covers including the one for ‘Lamentations’ and Summer is my makeup lady for these shoots as well as important shows and music videos. Melaine dresses me whenever my mum or I don’t have the time to think about it, yet I don’t have the slightest clue how Melaine does either amidst dressing people like Prince and Beyoncé. I don’t even know how I snagged her as a friend haha!

You spent a lot of time in Japan whilst writing ‘Lamentations’, what’s the music scene like over there?
It’s wild. Japanese people are just wild and the things they’re into are just so broad and exciting and obscure and impelling and everything. I went there to write with a guy called Aaron Choulai who is a brilliant pianist, beat maker and composer. I had been a fan of his work for some time, so when I got the opportunity to record the album I quickly approached him and said I wanted to come over to Japan, shoot the the breeze and write some tunes…without even having met the guy properly. I’m glad he didn’t freak out when I propositioned him because we made some magic music together and all in a tiny little underground bar outside of Tokyo. We’d write during the days then in the evening his mate Hamije who owned the bar would spin some records from artists I’d never ever heard of in my life and probably would never had if it weren’t for that experience.

Did you discover any Japanese artists we should listen to whilst you were there?
Totally check out Olive Oil. Great Japanese Hip Hop producer. I know Aaron was doing some stuff with him while I was there, but he’s got that really unique almost strange approach to beat making. I like things that a little bit off kilter which is why I connected with Aaron and why he connects with Olive Oil.

You’ve worked with some great people, who’s been one of your greatest inspirations?
Most of my friends are musicians or artists who are on the grind like me so they inspire me the most. Music is about community. Without community you can’t get anywhere. My friend Elana Stone, Sydney musician/singer, inspires me a lot. I’ve know her, like a lot of my musical friends, to get down when things don’t go to plan, but she keeps making music because she loves it and it makes her happy even if she’s doing it for little to no money. We all want to make it but money should never be the sole focus of where you want to go.

In an age that is saturated by music – due to its availability through Soundcloud, Youtube and Vimeo – how hard would you say it is to stand out from the crowd and spread your music to audiences globally?
It is unbelievably tough out there and the industry is changing so fast sometimes it feels like you’re chasing after your own tail. I think about how unhappy I would become if I tried to adjust to each trend every time the wind changed and I think the only thing you can do is, without going about it blindly and completely unaware of what’s going on around you, is focus on being the best you can and as honest as you can be about what you’re putting out. You’ve also really got to know what kind of artist you want to be and what you want out of it. Like I said before, if it’s money you’re looking for you’ve got it all wrong. Stay true.

Outside of Australia, where are you most popular?
Well, we should probably say outside of Australia and New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea, the US would be next on the list.

Your music is reminiscent to artists such as Jill Scott, Erykah Badu and even Little Dragon at times – where do you take your vocal inspirations, as you’ve got such a great range of vocal techniques.
I grew up in the era of big voices – Mariah, Whitney, Celine etc. Mariah was my favourite. She was all I ever listened to when I was a kid and then I started doing music in high school and my whole world was blown apart by how many other genres there were and how you could still sound soulful in Rock and in Bluegrass and in Country and in classical so I guess in a sense I kind of ran with anything I thought moved me or had some kind of otherworldly guts to it and came out with a kind of bastardisation of everything I love, which is what I think ‘Lamentations’ sounds like. Like a compost cookie. You know those cookies you get from the Momofuku Milk Bar in New York made out of leftover potato chips, pretzels, chocolate chips and everything else? I think they have one in Sydney.

Australian artists are really starting to get recognised in the UK, with artists such as George Maple… what do you think has changed in the production in Australia that is reaching a wider audience than before?
I think it really comes down to everything being so digital and so online. We are more exposed to the rest of the world than we ever were. Having successes like Hiatus Kaiyote being nominated for a Grammy and the raucous people like Lorde, Gotye and Kimbra have been making has definitely helped in directing the world’s gaze this part of the hemisphere.

Ok, let’s get to know Ngaiire a little better…
What’s usually the first thing you think about in the morning?
How bad my morning breath is. Sometimes I get out of bed just to brush my teeth and then come back to bed.

Long Island iced tea or mint tea?
Neither. Rooibos is my jam.

Cancun or the Himalayas?
The Rockies in Canada. I met a first nation’s elder called Elder Tom from the Blackfoot People while I was in the Rockies a couple weeks ago and it completely changed the way I feel about Canada. There’s so much ancient history I never fully acknowledged in Canada and that I really want to learn more about.

If you could collaborate with any artist, living or dead, who would it be?
Andy Warhol. You said artist right?

Thank you for your time, and we look forward to seeing you at Gumball!

Catch Ngaiire at The Gumball Festival – 11th-12th April 2014. 

Watch Ngaiire ‘Dirty Hercules’ below…

By Hannah Shakir

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