Bic Runga

New Zealand's biggest selling female recording artist Bic Runga was born Briolette Kahbic Runga on January 13, 1976 in the South Island city of Christchurch to a Chinese mother and Maori father. Her mother had been a lounge singer in Malaysian nightclubs in the 60's. Her father also sang. Not surprisingly not only did Bic (pronounced "Beck") end up with a singing career, her sister Boh fronts the band Stellar* and her other order sister Pearl sings as well.

Bic started playing drums at age 11 before picking up the guitar and keyboards at 14 to play in jazz bands. For a while at school she had toyed with the idea of becoming a poet. When she took her first songwriting attempt to the band she was with Bic realized it now wasn't her song any more once they played it and decided to go out on her own.

In 1994, at the age of 18, Bic left Christchurch for the more populous Auckland in the North in search of a recording career. Performing café gigs for a year while writing and recording songs and building up a reputation with her powerful live performances, Bic eventually put a demo tape together which she took to Sony Records. Not only was she offered a recording contract, Sony New Zealand didn't think the demo tape needed re-recording and released the first single 'Drive' as it was. 'Drive,' a haunting pop ballad, was written just minutes before her first solo performance in Auckland. She didn't have enough songs to make up a 40 minute set.

'Drive' charted top ten in the national NZ chart and won Bic Runga the prestigious 1996 Silver Scroll, an award for excellence in song writing previously held by such celebrated New Zealand songwriters as Shona Laing, Dave Dobbyn and Strawpeople. Throughout 1996, Bic heading her own shows as well as sharing stages with such legendary New Zealand names as the Finn brothers Neil and Tim.

Bic's second single, 'Bursting Through' was released in September 1996 and went top twenty, A third top ten single, 'Sway' followed in May 1997. By this time Bic was already focused on the making of her debut album, also named 'Drive,' featuring a re-recorded version on the title song. Bic Runga wrote every song and produced it as well. In the pre-production stages, Bic had the invaluable assistance of legendary producer and A&R man Peter Asher (James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt), who had expressed an eagerness to be involved after hearing her demos. Asher helped Bic choose which of her songs to record (from a shortlist of 21), and gave expert advice on the arrangements. Then with a core band and Bic playing guitars, mellotron, xylophone and drums herself the album was completed in just three weeks. To create an atmosphere Bic took Dave Dobbyn's advice and shifted an array of furniture and lamps from her home into the studio. 'Drive' was then mixed in Los Angeles by Matt Wallace (Faith No More, John Hiatt) and Wallace mixed the album - with Bic looking over his shoulder the whole way. The album was initially released in New Zealand in August 1997 and throughout the rest of the world in the following year.

In New Zealand 'Drive' immediately established Bic as a major star. At the Tui awards - NZ's equivalent of the Grammys - she won Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Best Vocal Performance and Best Songwriter. The album went on to become the biggest selling local artist album in New Zealand music history.

Over the following two years Bic travelled around the world promoting the release of 'Drive' and performing, sometimes alone with an acoustic guitar, sometimes with a band. It made sense for her to base herself in New York for long periods during that time, and it was in New York she wrote several songs which would be recorded for her second album, 'Beautiful Collision' - including the album's first single 'Get Some Sleep'. Other songs for the album were written after Bic returned to New Zealand in 1999.

Again self-producing, Bic moved between studios in the USA and New Zealand, utilising the skills of many engineers and musicians. 'Beautiful Collision' was recorded in varying degrees in New York, Los Angeles, Auckland (including Bic's home studio), Wellington and Christchurch. In August 2000 Bic took a break from recording to tour New Zealand with fellow NZ musicians Tim Finn (Split Enz, Crowded House) and Dave Dobbyn. The sell-out tour covered 17 cities and the CD released from the tour is the best selling NZ live CD ever. The last track for 'Beautiful Collision'- 'Gravity' - was completed at Quad Studios in New York at the last minute, while Michael Brauer (Coldplay, New Radicals) was busy mixing the other tracks. 'Drive' and 'Beautiful Collision' sold seven and eleven times platinum respectively in New Zealand. There had been six years between.

The third album, "Birds' arrived after just a three year gap. Having spent most of 2003 and 2004 living in Paris and London, Bic returned home to New Zealand for the summer of 2005, a homecoming which ended on a sad note for the Runga family with the death of Bic's father, Joe, in early 2005. Bic went on to complete a world tour playing as a soloist in support of the Finn Brothers through March and April of that year. Talking with Bic on tour, Neil Finn expressed his support and enthusiasm for Bic's idea to record her next album as live as possible. With selected New Zealand and Australian musicians - including Neil Finn - Bic Runga spent a month in August recording the album 'Birds' in Auckland's Monte Cecilia House, built in 1879, with much of the album recorded in live takes. The songs themselves, darker than her previous albums had also been written much more quickly.