Anika Moa has set aside her wild life for a while to concentrate on cleaning up her act. Photo / Supplied
Anika Moa is almost unnervingly down to earth. It's refreshing, given how easy it could have been for the Christchurch-born musician to have developed an attitude.
On tour to support her third and most-recent album, In Swings The Tide, with Anna Coddington as her support act, Moa says
she has toned things down. "If you asked me three weeks ago what I was up to I would have said I go out and get drunk, spew in my handbag and steal stuff. "But I'm on a liver-cleansing diet, so I read books," says the 28-year-old. "I cook. I clean. I listen to music - and I am going crazy with boredom," she laughs.
Moa has played around New Zealand many times and says "so long as I'm playing music with all my friends, people I love, then I don't mind where I play". But she admits she loves playing theatres because of the feeling of intimacy. "I feel like I'm at school all over again, doing another production of The Alley Cats of Ponsonby or Tom Sawyer."
Famously frank about having no attachment to fame, Anika has said that if her journey ended with her having babies and staying at home she would be happy. "New Zealand and family are very important to me, so if I could have babies and live on the West Coast of the South Island, which I am going to do soon, then I would be happy."
The pure-voiced songstress has reached the point where many younger singers are compared to her. And she's not frustrated at this. "I'm from a little suburb in Christchurch called Hornby. It's very flattering."
* Anika Moa's tour runs until August 9. She plays Auckland August 9, at the Transmission Room.
