Gravel & Wine

Me? Well, my full name is Virginia Claire Wigmore, shortened years back to Ginny, then with a little more innocence lost, it got dwindled down to an even tidier nickname, “Gin.” I guess my ma & pa were always big fans of a few cheeky G&Ts on a regular occasion, so it seemed a winning fit for all.

The music? It all started rattling out of me around 12; can’t say it was all that great, but it seemed to pull a slightly misfit and unclean crowd of around ten folks on a Wednesday night from 8– 9pm, so I guess it had some sort of legs. And those legs luckily grew a little bigger, landing me on the mean streets of Sydney after a few rocky and somewhat sinister detours through the west coast of New Zealand baking one too many lemon meringue pies and to the badlands of the party party Gold Coast. Ending up with my feet firmly and sensibly held in Sydney, I managed to write a short & sweet E.P., titled quite simply, Extended Play, purely because I wasn’t the savviest kid in the music club and never actually knew what “E.P.” stood for, so I thought I better clear that up for the other rookie vocab musicians alike.

After the E.P. had lived out its life on the shelves of about four music stores and one AM radio station, it was time for me to sign up to play with the big boys and make an album. I was skeptical of this happening due to my highly un-prolific nature. But with the help of a few good men such as Mike Elizondo and Dan Wilson, I was able to make my very first album, Holy Smoke, a reality and take my first step towards global domination. Global being largely New Zealand, where Holy Smoke took a grip on my homeland for a hearty year of praise, adulation and radio saturation. Being proud as punch with all that success, a U.S deal with Motown, winning gold-coloured awards and free stuff arriving by post regularly, I decided I better not throw in the towel on being an “artiste” just yet. So I threw my university application to the real world in the drawer one more time and ventured to the US of A to begin work on Album #2.