Taste Test: Gin Wigmore

THE FIRST ALBUM I BOUGHT WITH MY OWN MONEY
(What's The Story) Morning Glory. I bought it at this place called, I think, Music Wave, this like two-metre by two-metre record store in Devonport, in Auckland. I was about 13. I was absolutely obsessed with that song Don't Look Back In Anger. It made me feel sad, and I loved feeling sad, and I loved sad songs. I was your classic horrible teenager - I must've driven my mum insane.

THE ALBUM I'M LOVING RIGHT NOW
I've been listening to a lot of Karen Dalton. She's really cool; I like her voice. It's a crazy voice! I've never heard anyone with a voice like that. She sings a song called Sweet Substitute, which is about her lover being better than her regular man. I like what she sings about – wanting, but also feeling kind of removed – and I like the way she sings it.

MY FAVOURITE PARTY ALBUM
Stuff from the '50s, '60s. I love doo-woppy stuff like The Ronettes and The Shirelles, Mama Said. I love dancing to Elvis. Chuck Berry. Anything from that time has this magical quality at a party, because it makes people dance, but actually dance! No one's all over each other in some meat market way; the men become gentlemen and the girls become ladies. Everyone gets a little bit classier, somehow. It's better than grinding your junk up on someone to Rihanna.

MY FAVOURITE COMEDOWN ALBUM
I've got a greatest hits of Irma Thomas. I love her, and I love all the songs on it; but It's Raining and Cry On, those would be my repeat songs. I'd never think to write a song about something so simple as rain; but then you hear Irma Thomas just singing “it's raining so hard/it's really coming down” and you're like 'fuck!' It's amazing the way she can do that.

THE MOST SURPRISING RECORD IN MY COLLECTION
Benji Hughes. He's this Viking-looking dude from, I think, Scotland [actually North Carolina]. I was turned onto him by Mikey Elizondo, who I recorded Holy Smoke with. And I listened to it, and I didn't get it, and then I did get it. And then I love it, and then I don't like it at all sometimes. Then I love it again. Then sometimes I look at it and wonder why the fuck I even have it. But I feel like I need to have it; it needs to be there in my record collection. It's literally the most surprising record I have, because I never know how I'm going to react when I put it out. Like, I could be 'this is blowing my fucking mind!' and then the next time I'll be like 'wow, I hate this!'

THE FIRST GIG I EVER ATTENDED
Moby. I was probably 14 or 15. It was at the North Shore Events Centre. I went with a couple of girlfriends, and then we were picked up at the gate at 10.30 or 11 or whatever. I was a big fan of Moby when I was young. He was huge in New Zealand; it was at this stadium, it was packed. It was actually where I used to do my gymnastics on Saturdays. Then I went to this gig there!

THE WEIRDEST GIG EXPERIENCE I'VE EVER HAD
Last summer in New Zealand, I feel off the stage. I was reaching out my wineglass into the crowd, and I stepped onto this black sheet that was between two of the monitors, and I didn't realise there wasn't actually a stage under there. So I fell, like a metre drop, right on my fucking face, and then lay there on the ground like a fucking dick. People were screaming; there was like two or three thousand people there, and there were just these death screams from these teenage girls. It was really, really mortifying, getting back on stage and dealing with looking at the crowd.

MY BIGGEST NON-MUSICAL INFLUENCES
People, people, lots of people. Friends, lovers. They know that because I'll tell them: 'Hey, I wrote a song about you! You pretty pumped?!' And they'll ask: 'good or bad?' And I'm like: 'a bit of both, a bit of both...'

THE COOLEST PERSON I'VE EVER MET
Charlie Sexton, definitely. I was doing a lot of co-writing for Gravel & Wine, and he was at the top of my shortlist of people to work with. And we did, we had three days together. He was a really cool dude who smoked way too many cigarettes, stayed up so fucking late, and was so nonchalant about everything; he was a really bad influence.

THE BIGGEST CELEBRITY CRUSH I'VE EVER HAD
I was obsessed with Leonardo DiCaprio when I was, like, 11. I saw Titanic five times, and that's a really fucking long movie. I had posters on the wall, I had a wallet full of pictures I'd cut out of magazines.

IF I COULD HANG OUT IN ANY TIME AND PLACE IN HISTORY
I'm a bit of a cliché: I'd go back to Paris in like the '20s, '30s. I know that's probably what everyone says, but there's just something so romantic about France in that era.

IF I WASN'T MAKING MUSIC
I'd love to be a primary school teacher. Teaching five, six year olds. I'm actually training by correspondence on the side to get my degree. Kids are fascinating; I love how they're so enthusiastic, so full of wonder, so untainted by the shitness of the world; they're yet to be beaten down by life. That eagerness to know things is so cool, because when you get older, you get lazy, you get 'who gives a fuck?' Being around that excitement is amazing.