http://nz.entertainment.yahoo.com//091027/3/fci6.html

Anika Moa about to hit the road

Singer and song writer Anika Moa kicks off an extensive tour of New Zealand's smaller centres on Thursday. RACHEL PINDER of NZPA caught up with her.

Anika Moa didn't want to do the usual routine of stopping at Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch on her upcoming tour.

Instead, Moa's Bringing Aroha to Aotearoa Tour 2009 will take her as far south as Stewart Island and as far north as Kaitaia, stopping at 24 places along the way.

As well as touring the main centres, Moa play to audiences in small towns including Ranfurly, Granity, Raglan, Featherston and Havelock North.

And she's excited about getting into the heartland of New Zealand, kicking off on Thursday at the Gaiety Hall in Akaroa, 75km south-east of Christchurch.

So why did Moa decide to get off the usual well-trodden path of touring musicians and get among the locals?

"Because nobody else ever does it," she said.

"I wanted to do an extensive tour, and I wanted to tour for longer than three weeks. The way to do it is to go to the small towns.

"Nobody knows you there. But they don't care, they just all turn up, with their dogs and their cats and their grannies," she laughs.

Moa says she'll be put up in bunk beds on Stewart Island, which she says will be awesome.

It's her first extensive tour of New Zealand, although she says she's done a lot of long tours.

This time she'll be accompanied by a small band which includes two of New Zealand's finest musicians -- bass player Chip Matthews (New Loungehead, Opensouls) and drummer Nick Gaffaney (Solaa, Jan Hellriegel). Playing support is Julia Deans, lead singer of Wellington band Fur Patrol, who will be showcasing songs from a debut solo album.

Moa tours at least twice a year around New Zealand.

"It's a good excuse to meet quirky people on the road, eat some yummy local kai and fall in love with my fellow musicians and the beautiful crowds we'll encounter," she says.

Moa thinks the crowds don't differ too much around the country.

"The same people that like me in Oamaru are the same people who like me in Kaitaia," she said.

Fans can expect lots of new songs on the tour, lots of laughing, lots of drinking.

"On their behalf," laughs Moa.

"My audiences are real hard-out," she added.

"It's just going to be fun. There will be lots of experimental stuff as well, and audience participation is a must," Moa said.

She's also got some fresh new songs to road-test.

The new songs are mostly about love.

"Love songs are the best -- and sometimes the worst, but for me, the best. On tour, I'm going to perform most of the new songs and I've even gone electric, as in electric guitar-ing. I call it doing a Dylan," she said.

Moa is known for entertaining her audience with her down-to-earth stories, delivered with a dimpled grin and a cheeky mainland accent.

As well as the new songs, Moa will be showcasing favourites from a career that began with winning most promising female musician at the Smokefree Rockquest in 1998 and has included the critically acclaimed albums Thinking Room and Stolen Hill.

"It's going to be half and half, because I don't want to disappoint anyone who's hoping to hear an old song," she said.

Moa says she's been writing a little bit this year and says she's now got enough material to do an album, which she's going to start recording in December.

It's planned for release in March.

"I start my album the day after the tour finishes, and I've got a lot of songs prepared already," she said.

Moa's last time on the road was in February when she did a winery tour with Dave Dobbyn and Opshop.

But she has kept herself busy this year travelling and organising her album.

"It's a lot of work," she said.

Moa plans to continue touring next year, in New Zealand and overseas.

"Everything I do is just the same. It sounds quite boring but it's just my work," she laughed.

She's previously toured in Australia, England and Ireland.

But Moa says going back to Europe is not on the cards any time soon.

"But I never say never," she said.

Moa did manage to spread her wings a little further afield earlier this year, when she went to Mexico to film her travel experiences for TV One show Intrepid Journeys.

"I just pick up trips wherever I can. Sometimes I want to go out and take a couple of weeks off and do stuff like that, you know, like really intrepid stuff.

"I don't have any plans for it in the future but I do want to do it." she said.

Moa had been to New York, London and Ireland before on trips, but never anywhere too far off the beaten track.

So where we should she really like to go if she could go anywhere in the world?

"Probably Iceland," she says, without hesitation.

"Just so I can hang out with Bjork."

Well until then, Moa will be heading the length and breadth of New Zealand, so watch out for her in a small town near you.