Ask most Americans what they think of New Zealand and they’ll probably say something like, “Isn’t it where Lord of the Rings or The Piano was filmed?” While Kiwi films have become popular overseas, Kiwi music is a much rarer import.

Enter Gin Wigmore. The Auckland-born 22-year-old was the first artist signed to Island Records Australia last year. She recorded a five-song EP in Sydney, and now she’s in Los Angeles, gearing up for her first full-length album release. Gin’s music is just as charmingly unusual as her name. It’s a startling mixture of honky-tonk swagger and earnest acoustics. Her voice is somewhere between Macy Gray’s throaty pleading and Joanna Newsom’s pixieish warbling. Many other young singer-songwriters in the quirky-young-female genre have tried at the whole originality thing. That’s the whole problem — they’re trying at it. Gin is not. In song, video, and person, Gin Wigmore is effortlessly unique. Maybe it’s the New Zealand thing.

Kelly Wiles: You’ve been touring all over Australia and New Zealand, but you haven’t toured in America yet, have you?

Gin Wigmore: No, this is actually my first American interview.

KW: Wow! And I get to do it! So cool! How long have you been in L.A.?

GW: I got here about a week and a half ago, and I’ve been writing with a whole bunch of producers. I’ve been a bit of a producer slut [laughs] for the last month or so — meeting everyone and falling in love with what they do and going, “Oh, I want to make a record with you!” and changing my mind every five seconds…

KW:  All the press that’s been written about you so far mentions your voice. The hook on you seems to be that it’s incredible to hear such a raspy, soulful voice coming from a petite white girl. Before the press started, were you aware that your voice was different?

GW: Well, when I first started singing, at about 14 or so, it was a bit “Woah, Gin, you’ve got quite a crazy voice,” but nowhere near as much “Oh my god, where did that come from…?”  I think that comes with press, You’ve gotta find a story. And yeah, I agree. It’s quite a strange voice, but I’ve just always sung like that. I went to singing lessons and said, “Is there something wrong with my voice? Am I a mutant?” And [my teacher] goes, “No, you’re opening up your throat fine, and that’s just what comes out.”

KW: You got your first break by winning the International Songwriting Contest with your song about your father’s passing (”Hallelujah”). Winning the contest opened up a lot of doors and was a huge transition point for you in terms of professional career. Was the actual songwriting of “Hallelujah,” which is a highly personal song, prompted by any kind of turning point in your own personal creative process? Did it change the way you wrote songs?

GW: That’s a really good question. I’ve never been asked that, and yes, it did. I think that when you’re young and you’re writing songs, you tend to make things up, to use your imagination. You don’t want to be too out there with your personal life because you could get judged for it. If you’re talking about something that’s really close to your heart, you think that someone could pick up on it and go, “Oh my god, gossip gossip.” So you kind of keep those things quite well hidden. When I wrote “Hallelujah,” I’d just come back from Argentina and totally explored who I was. From there, I thought, Well hold on. Why don’t I start writing from personal experiences? I found that I could really pull my heart out on those ones because it’s not just some fictional character. So ["Hallelujah"] was kind of a starter for me in writing about real experiences and things close to home.

KW:  What struck me about “Hallelujah” was how skillful the melody is. There’s a rhythm change in the song that’s pretty sophisticated. Did you ever take music lessons, or did you just learn by hearing other music?

GW: All by hearing. I didn’t like having to practice, so I’d never done lessons and I never was allowed in the school choir because they thought that I was not the most academic kid in school. I was known as a disruptive child, so they were like, no we’ll leave Gin out. [Laughs] So I didn’t get any help at school — no one saying, “Hey, you’re good. You should do this…” Music was just a hobby. I loved singing and I loved writing, and it was more just a way of being an angsty teenager.

KW:  What kind of music did you listen to?

GW: I was not very cool with what I was listening to, actually. Edith Piaf was one of my favorites, and soundtracks — the soundtrack to Les Miserables [laughs] and Phantom of the Opera.

KW:  Oh, I’m a theater geek as well.

GW: Theater geek, yeah. I don’t know why, but that music just seemed so exciting. [Laughs] And then Oasis was my first tape…and No Doubt. I bought Oasis and No Doubt on the same day, and I was pretty stoked.

KW:  Do you come from a musical family?

GW: Mum plays violin, but pretty dodgy. My dad always wished he could play guitar but never really got into that. He was given a deck chair and a guitar for Christmas so he could try and relax. He used the deck chair but left the guitar, and that’s when I picked it up.

KW:  Wow, so you were actually playing your dad’s guitar…

GW: I was using a little Fender electric guitar. I’d plug in the amp and I thought I was pretty awesome just playing “Danny Boy,” and then sort of progressed from there.

KW:  What does your family think about your success?

GW: They love it. Well, my mum didn’t really know what I was doing until about six months ago. I think it’s quite hard for a parent to grasp that you’re a musician, that you play to thousands of people, and that you’re an entertainer. She was a bit like, “What?” at first, and then I got her into a gig and she was sort of “Oh wow, so this is what you do?” So she’s pretty stoked. And my sister is an actress. She’s in the top show in New Zealand. She moved to London to try and make it there, but it’s not easy because, unfortunately, a New Zealand top show doesn’t really translate out of New Zealand so well.

KW:  What’s the show called?

GW: Shortland Street. It’s a doctor/surgeon love affair — scandal kind of thing.

KW:  “Under My Skin” has this swing-type, big-band, Charleston-y instrumental. When you first wrote that song, did you hear that music in the background, or did that music come later with collaborators?

GW: Well, that song was born out of a really boozy night. It was about 4:00 in the morning, and you know when you’re all sitting around and you’ve come back from wherever you’ve been, and you’re all saying, “Should we go to bed, or should we just keep going?” and that night we thought we’d [laughs] just keep going, and so I pulled out the guitar and just started playing, and “Under My Skin” just came out. The next day, I remembered it, so I kept writing it. It was a really quick song to write. I didn’t see it as anything more than just a boozy-night song, and think it’s quite hilarious. I’ve got this serious love affair with honky tonk pianos and New Orleans-y music, ukeleles, and all that kind of stuff, so I just said, “Hey, let’s put loads of that on the EP.”

KW:  In the video for “Under My Skin,” your movements are on fast-forward while the song plays at a normal tempo. I’m guessing that you had to film that in slow motion?

GW: Oh yeah, and it was so tedious! I had to do a take with each outfit and I had to sing slow motion, “I got youuu underrr my skinnnn.” [Laughs] It was my first video and it was a 20-hour shoot, and we only had one day.

KW:  Before you won the contest, had you been playing gigs on a smaller scale?

GW: I wasn’t really gigging around. I mean, at 14 I was playing at an open mike night every Wednesday for a year, which was quite fun because they didn’t know that we were underage, and so we’d go in there and smoke cigarettes and sip vodka shots, and I’d play, so we’d all get in for free, which was quite cool, and the next day at school we’d all have something to talk about. But it was nothing more than that.

KW:  So was the transition from unknown to recording artist kind of zero to sixty? Was it overwhelming?

GW: Yeah, it was, actually. It was like zero to sixty, in regards to press and all that. I had two songs…well, I had a whole bunch of really shit ones, but I had two songs — “Hallelujah” and “Angel Fire” — and so when I won that contest and the next minute I was being tracked down by record companies, I was like, “Man, I’ve got no songs!” At first I didn’t want to do [music]. I didn’t know if that was me. I thought that was the famous people’s life — that was for rock stars. I’m quite a realist, and I thought there’s no way I could be packaged up like that, and I’ve only got two songs — this is ridiculous. So I thought Well, I’ll maybe write some more music, but I’m not going to think about it as a job yet. I wanted to be a teacher.  So I went back to New Zealand and did religious studies, psychology for a bit, and then did the teacher’s degree for two years.

KW:  You signed your deal in Australia about a year ago. How long did it take you to record the EP?

GW: Two months, I think. Well, we finished on a Sunday and thought, hey, party time, and then got a call on Monday saying, “Sorry, the producer knocked the file and he hadn’t backed it up,” so we had to do it again. [Laughs]

KW:  What was the recording process like?

GW: It was cool. It was homegrown. It was just me and the producer, Tony Buchen, and he’s fantastic. We had a laugh just going into his little studio. We’d chuck down music each day and ruck up whenever we wanted, and I think it was quite a cruise-y process, because we both lived there (in Sydney), so there was no “we need to do this now” kind of thing, like [it's been here in L.A.].

KW:  How would you compare the record process and the music industry in America to Australia and New Zealand?

GW: It’s a real business in America. It’s a bit easy come-easy go. There’s a huge rock pub scene in Australia — it’s an AC/DC crowd, which doesn’t give much room for singer-songwriters or anyone of any different vein. Here in America, there are so many venues to play in; it’s a bigger market with these people in the business who really know what they’re doing. It’s much slicker in America, which is good. It’s great that I can be a part of it. I mean, this is it. If you can get to America, it’s pretty cool.

KW:  What’s the attitude towards celebrity in Australia?

GW: It’s non-existent. No one really cares. There’s no such thing as fame in New Zealand because you’re all mates with each other. It’s not, “Oh, let’s see what you’re having for dinner.” You can go about your business. But last time I was here, we went to this fancy restaurant and there were paparazzi everywhere, and it was actually kind of cool.

KW:  How do you feel as a female artist who is just breaking into this? Has there been anything that has happened so far in your career that has made you feel scrutinized or judged? Has anyone told you that you’ve got to look or dress or act a certain way?

GW: I haven’t been involved in that, and I don’t want to be involved in that. I’ve got a strong sense of who I am and I think that will carry me through whatever I need to deal with. For me, it always comes down to music. I’m a musician, and that’s what it should be about. Those kinds of things start to come in and you’ve just gotta go, “Hold on. No way, man. I’m writing a good song, and I don’t have the time to worry about that kind of stuff.” You can buy into it, but I think you’ve gotta have the kind of personality that lets that get to you. You don’t need to let it get to you.

KW:  You grew up in New Zealand. A lot of Americans don’t know a lot about New Zealand. The only thing I know about it, I’ll admit, is Peter Jackson is from there…so yeah, most of us are pretty ignorant about New Zealand and kind of lump it in with Australia. What would you say are the major differences between Australia and New Zealand?

GW: I think really the main thing is that Australia is a bit more outgoing. There’s a real lust for life — people aren’t afraid to share it, which is quite cool to be around. It’s great energy. Not to say that New Zealanders don’t have that energy, but it’s kind of more reserved. There’s just a higher energy about Australians, which is great when you’re starting in a career. I get the same vibe in America, where it’s okay to be really working your ass off and doing well. In New Zealand, sometimes you get a little bit of an, “Oh, you’re a dick if you’re doing well.”

KW:  Is there any underlying rivalry between Australia and New Zealand?

GW: There is, but it’s a big love affair, really, at the end of the day. I mean, I’ve got an Australian boyfriend, and at the end of the day, we both get along — we love each other.

KW:  Are your parents both originally from New Zealand?

GW: Oh yeah, we go generations back. We actually used to run half of the north island — all the farming on the east coast — so it’s quite a strong Kiwi heritage.

KW:  If you weren’t a musician, you think you’d be a teacher, as you said?

GW: Yeah, I thought a primary teacher would be pretty cool, but now I’m thinking…well, maybe actually I could be a dog breeder. I could breed dogs out on some ranch somewhere, and then write songs and send them out by a postal system. [Laughs]

KW:  Could you see yourself settling back down in New Zealand at some point?

GW: Maybe someday. I’d love to have some place somewhere in New Zealand, because it’s where my heart is. Australia is a great spot as well, but for now, I’ve actually been thinking about moving to New York or L.A. — Venice Beach or something — come September, when I have to run the promos for the record. I’m really loving America. It’s funny because the first time I came here, I was 18 and I really didn’t like it. I wasn’t old enough. I wasn’t old enough to have a drink, for a start, and I think also I needed to be old enough to really get the people here. Now I’m obsessed with it. I think it’s fantastic.

Get your copy of Extended Play, plus check out the videos for “Under My Skin,” “These Roses,” and “S.o.S.” on Gin’s MySpace.