New Zealand is a special place for Los Angeles-based blues singer Beth Hart.
She's been here a handful of times on promotional trips, once supported British singer-songwriter David Gray and lived in Auckland for a six-week stint with her husband. But it's the visit that set her on a path to a healthier life that is her most memorable.
"It was when I was in the midst of all my illness and addiction. I had stopped drinking, but the medicine the doctor put me on to stop drinking, I became more addicted to that than anything I've ever been addicted to before," she explains. "The counsellors could see I was very sick so they said, 'We think it'd be a good idea if you took a little break from the road and came in here and got yourself well'. That was the beginning of me getting healthy."
A number of years on and Hart isn't just healthy, she's happy, too. She has a new album on the way, Better Than Home, and it's a cracker. But Hart can't lie; the raw, emotive body of work took her to the edge and back.