Howes took time before her Queenstown gig to tell the Queenstown Times why she admires female singer-songwriters, predictive texting and cussing cowboys.
QT: What did you have for lunch today?
HH: Pasta, Phoenix honey cola.
QT: What is your favourite food?
HH: Mum's cassata icecream cake.
Dad's vege spaghetti.
QT: What is your favourite spot in Queenstown?
HH: I really love the autumn trees, wild rosehips and strangely, the ravines and ominous mountains.
The adrenalin rush I get - maybe because so many people perished chasing gold and because my Dad was a dare-devil on the Skippers Gorge!
The trivia of life is dwarfed by those mighty mountains, skinny roads and harsh conditions!
QT: Queenstown needs more . . .
HH: Freedom camping grounds.
QT: Queenstown needs less . . .
HH: Disposable income.
QT: Who are your role models?
HH: Political/social song-writers. Poets. People who represent and help rehabilitate prisoners, misled youth, abuse victims, refugees, homeless and poor people.
Female pop song-writers who managed to keep releasing charged albums and work within a crafty mega-machine that is, or was, the music industry, like Tracy Chapman and Joan Armatrading.
QT: What's the latest CD you bought?
HH: My most recent purchase was Rio Hemopo on vinyl.
Very nice message, beautiful vocals and good production.
QT: And the latest DVD?
HH: Deadwood. Those cowboys sure know how to cuss and make it sound like poetry! Just glad I wasn't there.
QT: What is your favourite way to relax?
HH: Purakaunui. But locally, cards and home-made Asian noodle soup in a tidy house with Van Morrison or Burning Spear on the stereo and my pussycat purring on my lap.
QT: What winds you up?
HH: Too many things!
QT: What cracks you up?
QT: Ricky Gervais. Actually more so than him, my sister, Daisy. And, sadly, predictive texting.
QT: What are you reading at the moment?
HH: The book I was reading has disappeared under my piles of paperwork...
Lost for the past few months, but is called The Famished Road, pretty trippy.
QT: Do you have a favourite quote you live by?
HH: Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Can't say I live by it but it's a good one.
I have my grandmother's little bronze figurine of three little monkeys covering their eyes, ears and mouth in my kitchen. I see it every morning and night.
I think she lived by that and I like to be reminded of her wisdom.
QT: If you could do anything, what would it be?
HH: Make everyone put the welfare of others before their own greed.
•Hannah Howes, is performing at Revolver, tomorrow at 8pm.
The 29-year-old, is supported by Wellington group ROY G and the BIVinators and DJ Lafta, a dubstep breaks roots from Dunedin.
