Bic Runga on music, Māori identity and insomnia ahead of NZSO concert

Saturday, 7 March 2026

As the rain and wind lash Auckland’s Kohi Beach Café, Bic Runga appears in a stylish black coat, evoking her poised and graceful 2010 opening for Leonard Cohen in Wellington. Widely seen as one of New Zealand’s four biggest and best popular musicians, she still has her famous presence and drive. (Albeit there’s an appealingly nervous edge as we settle into the rhythms of our conversation.)

Her Valentine’s Day release Red Sunset and tour, especially her first full-length concert with the NZSO, occasion our chat. Given the vastness of her repertoire, we concentrate on her NZSO setlist - Listening for the Weather, Something Good, Hey Little One. Runga wants to be a bridge over troubled waters. “Because we’re getting so polarised. I think the artist’s job, right now, is to connect people.”

Sipping a long black, Runga’s eyes light up when I ask whether Birds is a song about death: birds being messengers of the underworld in Māori mythology? “Hard out, man. I saw one of those fricking morepork the week my dad died. I told him and he looked so gutted. That stuff’s real, man.” Birds, her third album, was shaped by that sensibility. “Dad was so connected to that stuff, always slightly on another dimension.”

Burying her father -Joseph -on the Eastern Māhia Peninsula hill he came from, was one of Runga’s most profoundly Māori experiences. “All that stuff was so connecting and so spooky,” she gestures, really animated. “I’d like to read it more in the newspaper. [Some] people think you’re really weird when you talk like that, but I love it. I can talk like that until the cows come home.”

Voice tuned to te ao Māori

Haere Mai Ra, Runga’s 2019 translation of Sway, is so moving and beautiful. She agrees Māori is perfect for love songs, playing with her hair. “Māori’s really good to the ear. I definitely feel like all my soppy love songs are like Māori waiata, just without the Māori language. There’s all those really yearning Māori love songs from the last couple of hundred years.”

The series, Waiata/Anthems - which she also recorded Kāore He Wā (There Is No Time) for - has been an “amazing” experience. “Dame Hinewehi [Mohi] has really achieved what she’s set out to do. There’s been so much more Māori music, so much more Māori music on the radio. It’s really good for us to keep nurturing the development and confidence of Māori popular music.”

Get Some Sleep shadows Runga’s chronic insomnia. “I’ve stopped sleeping altogether. Dude, it’s crazy, what the hell? I think if you want to sleep well, you have to almost plan the whole day, so you’ve done all the kinds of things to make yourself sleep well.” Like a military campaign? “Yeah. We do a lot of walking now, two 45-minute walks daily. That does help a bit, but not necessarily. It’s the whirring brain. It just doesn’t want to let up. I think I’ve always been like that, because that’s a really old song. I remember being like that as a kid, time-travelling all night.”

Over the road, last night’s storm continues to pound Kohimarama Beach. Runga and her producer/husband Kody Nielson have enjoyed raising their three children in the neighbourhood the last 15 years. When I interviewed the elusive Nielson (Unknown Mortal Orchestra), he praised Runga’s inspiring positivity. “You almost have to make positivity your habit, eh?,” she responds.

For her description, Nielson’s “quite enigmatic”, even after 15 years. “He’s quite an original thinker and he’s got a good bullshit detector. He’s so funny. Like, hysterically funny. And our kids are quite funny too because they’ve got his sense of humour. We do a lot of laughing. We laugh all the time. Everything’s hilarious to us,” she laughs, as she often does.

I note her humour, too. “Aw, thanks. That’s nice. It’s not what I’m known for. I’m known for sad-ass songs … I see the absurdity of everything. Like deep absurdity in everything. Because the fact that we’re even here at all is nuts.”

Cost of creativity

A prominent artists’ rights advocate, Runga laments the cost of living in Auckland and Wellington. “I really wanted to buy a studio space in Wellington about 18 months ago. I couldn’t believe the rates. I was like: how does anyone try to set up anything creative in this city? So that didn’t happen. It’s really sad. Wow. Way to make a place boring, eh? Make it really expensive.”

What about her line, “Melodies in my head, if I didn’t get them out I’d go crazy”? “Oh yeah, arguably it’s already happening,” she laughs. “It’s annoying having a half-finished song. That sucks. You know? … I had to write something for APRA recently, and if I didn’t get up in the night and tend to it any time something came, it would drive me nuts. You have to really be switched on to it all the time.”

One of Red Sunset’s standouts is You’re Never Really Here. “That’s what it’s like to have your partner on tour all the time. Even when they’re back home, they’re still somewhere else.” The title track’s line Tell me things you’ve never told zings. “What do you think of that song? Did you think, oh wow, she’s having a midlife crisis? It might be surprising stylistically, but that’s where I’m at.

“It’s going to be interesting to see what people think of the record, if they hear it at all. It’s not a fun time to release music. There’s so much distraction, and it’s so under-appreciated these days. It’s a bit of an intellectual challenge to try to get inside new music sometimes. It can be a bit taxing when people are already, like, exhausted.”

Carrying her father

At 50, Runga isn’t at all nervous about performing with a classical orchestra a la the NZSO. “It’s a real honour to work with them. I can’t believe the efficiency of orchestras. I love it. I love the well-oiled machine and being around this amazing sort of military operation.”

She will carry her father’s “pure and fearless” influence with her onto the stage. “I have a picture of him in his army uniform on my screensaver, and so I see it every day. He’s got a big smile on his face, and I tap into that vibe,” she says, with that beguiling Runga grin. “He’s knee deep in snow hunting deer and that’s probably his happy place. A reminder to do what you love and do it happily.”

Bic Runga performs with Kody Nielson and the NZSO at Wellington’s Michael Fowler Centre on April 2. Tickets: ticketmaster