Even in a land where poppies never get a chance to grow tall, singer-songwriter Miriam Clancy could probably get away with diva behaviour. Her 2009 second album Magnetic, hit number four on the iTunes charts in its first week, and received four and five star reviews everywhere it went; but she’s warm, open and, as Melody Thomas discovered, has a laugh which explodes out of her with such force, you can’t help but laugh along.
MIRIAM Clancy is in a state of flux. She’s about to relocate to New York to record her third album, with producer Chris Coady, named by The Guardian as one of this generations’ ten producers-to-watch, and who’s worked with Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Grizzly Bear, Blonde Redhead and Beach House.
“After thinking about who I would ask to produce ‘if I could have anyone’, I dreamed up Chris… We tracked him down, sent some demos to his manager and he was really keen… I feel really good about working with him, like it’s the right fit and I’m headed in the right direction.”
In the meantime, Clancy, her husband, and their three children have moved from house to house. She’s spent the last two months in Point Wells, about an hour north of Auckland, near Leigh.
“We have been house sitting everywhere; all the songs on the [upcoming] album have been written in various houses, with my little studio that I just haul around with me,” she says.
“I’ve had to drive into Auckland heaps, and a lot of songs were masterminded while driving without the stereo on.”
As well as recording the new album, Clancy will spend time in the US writing and recording an album for Chicago-based multimedia charity “At What Cost”, and freelancing for international film composer Mario Grigorov’s company Sibling Music – after working with him recently on the soundtrack for Kiwi film Hopes And Dreams Of Gazza Snell.
Part of what makes it all possible is the APRA Professional Development Award she just won – and the $12,000 that comes with it.
“I hearts APRA,” she says.
The accomplished artist began life in Foxton; an area known mostly for the windmill you drive past on your way to other places (“I know – what the hell? It’s the weirdest thing!”) and for its outrageously good fish and chips (“I actually worked in a fish and chip shop ‘til I was eight, so I know…”)
Clancy got out of there when she was 15.
“It’s a pretty small town… a bit of a wasteland for teenagers,” she says.
Clancy moved around, spending six months in Palmy and a year in Wellington before she headed north to Auckland.
“My Mum moved there and I followed her: ‘Mum I’m hungry – can I come stay with you?’” she laughs.
Clancy didn’t release her first album til she was 32, but music had always been a part of her life.
“All I ever wanted to do was write morbid maudlin little tunes, and play the saddest songs I could get my hands on. I just knew this was what I was gonna do,” she says.
Clancy spent years in Auckland doing midnight gigs in little venues, earning money doing session work and doing “lots and lots of covers”. Eventually she decided to put her own stuff out there.
“There comes a time where you just hate that song you have to do… you have all this pent up frustration, and then you realise you can just stop and do your own thing,” she says.
Going from being paid to sing to having to secure gigs for nothing was a bit scary, so Clancy went back to her Mum’s.  
“Mum had to put up with a tortured artist sitting on the couch trying to write songs… [They were] mostly horrendous; songwriting is a craft and the more you do it the better you get. I look back at those early stages and I can see what had inspired me… but it’s a bit like watching someone draw their first picture - it’s cute but it sucks,” she says.
Both of Clancy’s previous albums are emotionally very honest, but she says the next album will be truer to who she is than either of them was – perhaps more as her bio positions her, as “somewhere between melancholy and rebellion”.
“I was told over and over in high school that I was anti-establishment and needed to conform and I just don’t think I can, even now. I guess the melancholy/sadness comes in part from not fitting in, and the rebellion is what it takes for me to actually do something in the face of that.
“The first album was definitely leaning along singer-songwriter lines; I knew I wanted to branch out into the different tastes I have but I didn’t feel I’d nailed it. For the last album I presented all my songs to a team to rate, and I wouldn’t do that again this time. Now, I’ve written these songs I freakin’ love and I’m doing what I want as opposed to what’s expected.”
“All my eggs are in the artistic basket this time round, and I don’t give a shit about whether it’s gonna sell, as long as it’s something I can stand behind.  Selling out is not an option anymore.”
Miriam Clancy’s final hoorah, Mighty Mighty, July 7.