Kiwi Gin Wigmore looking for mercy with forthcoming record

Gin Wigmore

Like many artists, singer-songwriter Gin Wigmore is stunned by Donald Trump’s victory in the race for president. She’s terrified about losing her rights, and scared for many of her friends. The native New Zealander, now living in Los Angeles, is also coming to terms that America is trading a president who chose one of her songs for his public playlist for one who may very well cut funding for music education.

On tour
Gin Wigmore will tour the West Coast in July and August 2017
Current tour dates below

Wigmore, 30, has no idea how Barack Obama found her music, but she’s happy he did and included her on his summer playlist, which was made available on Spotify.

“I have this really romantic vision of him telling Michelle, ‘Hey, put on ‘Man Like That’ again,” she said during a brief phone call the week of the election.



“I was getting all these messages from friends,” she said. “It’s cool having the President on my side. I doubt Trump is going to listen to my music, thank God.”

Wigmore, whose full first name is Virginia, has released three albums so far and just finished recording her fourth, which is still unnamed but will be released next spring or later. The Kiwi’s 2009 debut, Holy Smoke, was recorded with Ryan Adams’ previous band, the Cardinals.

After her follow-up album, 2011’s Gravel & Wine, got re-released in the U.S. two years later, single “Black Sheep” got plenty of play on TV, on episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, Teen Wolf and The Good Wife. She also appeared at every stop of the 2013 Vans Warped Tour.

In the interim, the raspy-voiced, tattooed singer was making a name for herself as with the swing-dancing, bluesy “Man Like That,” which scored a Heineken Skyfall commercial featuring James Bond himself, actor Daniel Craig. In the spot, Craig acts out a chase and fight scene aboard a train while Wigmore croons on stage for the higher class riders.

Wigmore is a fan of the crossover appeal between music, TV and ads. Radio, traditionally the way new artists were introduced to audiences, offers fewer opportunities, she said. Ad agencies, meanwhile, have taken a huge step forward in finding new talent.

“I’m really grateful for music being able to have such a strong role in ads,” she said. “Radio these days is so narrowed.”



After recording and releasing another album, Blood to Bone, last year, Wigmore had no plans to get back to work for herself so quickly. Instead, she wanted to write for others. She said she considers herself a writer foremost, whether she’s writing songs for herself or other musicians, for film, or for entirely different purposes.

But by July, she found herself in full-on album mode. Inspired, she rolled with the process. The following month, she had completed 11 songs that made her proud.

“It was as organic as it could be,” she said. “It was a very relaxed album.”

The first song from the forthcoming album was released last week. On “Dirty Mercy,” Wigmore’s vocals are set against screeching guitars. She calls it her most rock n’ roll song to date, and has said it represented her headspace as she began to write the album.

To the songwriter, each album is a testament of what she is capable of achieving, her missteps, and a chronicle of her life. She compares it to the ultimate diary entry.

“It’s a real chapter of your life,” she said. “Things that I do well in life, where I’ve gone wrong, what I could be better at, particularly the relationships that you have–the friendships, the people that you come across, your thoughts about the world, your thoughts about how you fit into the world, your shortfalls, and your music writing.”



Wigmore wanted to have more substance in her songs on the new album, and more grit.

Substance and grit just happen to be two of the qualities necessary to make it through four years of “Trump’s America.”

“I can’t even begin,” said Wigmore, reacting to a question about the election. “It feels very surreal; like I was watching an episode of The Walking Dead. I’m in a bubble out here in Los Angeles–in California, really … but it felt kind of like a somber bubble.”

Wigmore is most concerned about issues that will get pushed aside by the president-elect’s administration, such as climate change, fossil fuel consumption and healthcare.

She’s also worried about the precedent it will set for other countries. America’s enemies will be invigorated, and its allies absolutely terrified.

Closer to home, she’s not worried about losing her working musician status—Wigmore is married to American Jason Butler, lead singer of punk band Letlive.

“I’ve been more concerned about my rights as a woman,” she said. “Some of the foul shit that comes out of his mouth is archaic, and he’s a misogynistic fool.

“What he’s doing, and how he rips into women; what kind of an example is that to younger kids? That’s kind of what ‘Dirty Mercy’ for me was about. We need empowerment for women again. Not that sexualized, dumbed-down kind of empowerment. Intelligent, free will, free speech—it’s all those things we need to be setting an example of.”

Let It Ride North American Tour Dates
11/23 – Hi Ho Lounge – New Orleans, LA
11/25 – The Social – Orlando, FL
11/26 – Jack Rabbits – Jacksonville, FL
11/28 – Vinyl – Atlanta, GA
11/29 – New Brookland Tavern – West Columbia, SC
12/02 – Hi-Tone Cafe – Memphis, TN
12/03 – Off Broadway – St. Louis, MO
12/05 – Deluxe @ Old National Center – Indianapolis, IN
12/06 – A&R Music Bar – Columbus, OH
12/07 – The Club @ Stage AE – Pittsburgh, PA
12/09 – The Hollow – Albany, NY

Follow Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.

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