"NATALIE IMBRUGLIA INTERVIEW"

Thu 11 Oct 2001 14:02

She may have retreated from the limelight over the last couple of years but Natalie Imbruglia's been busy preparing her post-'Torn' career. After a year off to get her head together, Imbruglia set about trying to replicate the multi-million selling international smash hit album 'Left Of The Middle', an uneviable task that took it's toll.

In an candid interview with dotmusic, the former soap star details how she punished herself during a "torturous" writing process, visited "dark places" and suffered bouts of paranoia, could have easily returned earlier but "that would have been the easy way out", and feared people expecter her to produce another 'Torn' which, she assures us, most certainly isn't going to happen.

Older, wiser and "more mentally together", Imbruglia's comeback single 'That Day' is finally released on October 29 with the album to follow.

What have you been up to for the last few years apart from doing the album?

"That's it basically for the past three years. I took a year off which looking back was a mistake but mentally I needed some time out cos the whole first album was a bit overwhelming and I was afraid to start. And then I started and it took about a year to get a direction going."

Were you prepared for the success of 'Left Of The Middle'?

"No, I think I was actually expecting a hard time cos I'd come from an acting background and I was shocked to get away reasonably unscathed and then for 'Torn' to do so well…you couldn't have planned it better could you?

If you could be back in '96 again would you do anything differently?

"No, cos there was an innocence and naivety to my approach and I was really thinking 'this is my first attempt and maybe in five albums time I'll have a song that people will listen to'. I was expecting nothing and that made it sweeter."

How has it affected working on this album?

"Pressure. It took me a long time to get the critic out of the room. I'm quite a perfectionist with my work so initially everything I did I didn't like so I had to get myself to a place where I'd allow myself mistakes and started to write good songs. That took about a year.

Are you better equipped now?

"I'm just four years older and you get more comfortable with yourself whatever job you do. Mentally more together and more confident musically cos I took my time and waited till I got a direction and music that felt right. It would have been easy to release the album a few years back and there would have been less pressure but it would have been a worse album. Even though I waited and tortured myself it means for the campaign I'm going to be more confident."

Were you tempted to go with a second album straight away?

"Not at all. I had enough songs for an album. It's difficult to stay in that writing mode for four years cos it's insular and you want to get out there and perform. It would have been the easy way out but it would have been a shit album."

Is the time lag a problem for you? What would have been an ideal time?

"I don't think there is an ideal. If the music's good, then it's good. I'm not concerned with keeping my profile out there I'm just trying to make music that's better than the last record and is me growing as an artist and if that took me four years than it takes four years. Ideally I'd like to be Stevie Wonder and do three albums in one year. Maybe it just takes me longer but I hope it won't be so long next time."

Did you listen to 'Left Of The Middle' before you started?

"No. I couldn't. It still weirds me out. I've probably listened to it, off my own back, twice after it was made. Unless I heard it in the supermarket and it'll be the same for this album.

"I went to some really dark places writing this album because I was giving myself such a hard time about it. I got through a period where I didn't leave the house and I got paranoid. Like I didn't want to speak to anyone until the album was done and it went on for days, weeks and months and months and it was really bizarre.

"I got to the point where I just made my peace with it. I'd done enough work and I thought 'I'm really proud of this and it doesn't really matter. I don't need to live up to anything. I've done a good job now let it go' and then it became fun. I'm quite relaxed about it now and I feel like I've been through the worst."

Do you feel pressure to reproduce the success of 'Torn'?

"I didn't feel I needed another 'Torn' but my fear was that everyone's expecting another 'Torn'. You can't repeat something like 'Torn'. A song like that comes along and affects everywhere at once so rarely for anyone it's going to be a pain in the arse to follow up. That's why I'm going with such a different song. I'm not trying to do 'Torn' again. This is me now so like it or lump it. There's probably some more straight forward pop songs on the record than 'That Day' but I want people to get out of their mind that I'm going to do another 'Torn' cos I'm not."

Tell us about the first single?

"I wrote 'That Day' with Pat Leonard in LA. We had this great piece of music and this great guitar riff and I had a bunch of lyrics I'd been working on. I was flicking through my book trying to feel what fits. I had this stream of consciousness that felt right but it was a bit weird and it didn't have a chorus. I showed it to Pat and he said: "Don't touch it, I love it. Let's do it."

"I've got nodules on my vocal chords and I was having a really hard time with them so we literally went in for the demo and I said: "I can't sing today," and he was like "well just say the words and we'll do it later," and that's the melody we kept. So there's something quite organic about the song.

"It's quite a powerful emotional statement. It's on the verge of having a breakdown but there's that point that you accept everything good or bad. So there's a relief in it.

What else can we except from the album?

"It's more of a band sound than on the first album. There's a Sunday's influence that I like. I want to have happy good feeling songs in amongst the miserable ballads (that I'm good at) but I wanted the balance. There's a way of doing it with melodic guitar where you can have uplifting songs without it being cheesy."

Any favourite tracks?

"I love 'Come September' for personal reasons. A lot of people like 'Goodbye' but it's not my favourite."

Is the new album more a reflection of you?

"Definitely. It's more revealing than the first and more honest. It's about expressing the parts of yourself you usually keep to yourself and I think I've definitely purged. To me it was a very dark process but when I've spoken to people about it they say it doesn't feel dark."

Was the final version how you envisaged it?

"Yeah. Considering I can only play a few chords myself I've had to get this picture in my mind and get the people to play it. I know what I like but I had to find people who can understand what I like. It's not too far away from what I envisaged. It wasn't just 'there's a song let's put it down', it was 'this doesn't feel right'. I chose producers near the end to bring a different energy cos it was starting to have too much of the same."

Last time around you got lumped in with the whole Alanis angst rock scene. Did that mis-represent you?

"I don't think so. A lot of that was authentic with where I was in my life. I was definitely a lot more angry then. That was an influence around that time. I tried to take that a step further when I started the second album and the songs just sounded awful. I was listening to far too much PJ Harvey and I was trying to be angry and I wasn't angry so it was contrived. I tried to figure out where I was."

What do you want to achieve with this record?

"I've already achieved it personally. I've played it to some of my peers and got their opinion on it. I've played it to Bono and when you've played it to someone like that, where do you go? He was great. He loves 'Do You Love?', he gave constructive criticism on certain songs and he was really proud and he thought I'd done a good job. Getting myself to a place where I am proud of it is my biggest goal. Obviously I'd like to do well so I don't get dropped by my label and can keep making records but you've got to be true to yourself."

What are you looking forward to?

"Gigging. I'm still putting my band together and once that's in place I can't wait to get back onstage basically. I want to do a big tour."

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