miss world

It’s only taken a few short years, but singer-songwriter Missy Higgins has catapulted from average Aussie schoolgirl to global music star

WORDS STEPHANIE GREEN

It’s hard not to envy Missy Higgins; her life seems too good to be true. Her stratospheric singing career began just a few years ago, when she won a radio talent competition as a 16-year-old schoolgirl, on the strength of the original composition “All for Believing”. Her first album, The Sound of White, was released in 2004 and went on to become one of Australia’s biggest hits of the year. At the 2005 ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) Awards the album picked up five gongs, pushing it to platinum-status nine times, while overseas it sold 100,000 copies and led to several UK and US tours. Missy’s second album, On a Clear Night, was released earlier this year and recently picked up two ARIA Award nominations. Fresh from a US tour, the singer is set to embark on a national tour of Australia.

For those who have heard Missy Higgins describe herself as an introvert, it may come as a surprise to learn this tour will feature some of Australia’s largest music venues. As she explains: “I love playing to large audiences but I don’t want people so far away I don’t feel connected to them. I used to fantasise about singing to a sea of people when I was young and it is an incredible feeling, but a big part of my show is feeding off the audience. If I can’t feel them, I feel disconnected. We’re playing in big venues but we’re scaling them down… bringing the audience in closer.” (Her tour program describes this as “intimate theatre mode”.) Missy adds: “We’re definitely not attempting to fill out the whole arena! These shows will be big enough to be exciting but not so big that I have to be Barbara Streisand Vegas-style!”

Photo: Steve Bacon

Missy’s rise from obscurity happened with lightning speed and, on the face of it, came easily for her. She admits ruefully: “Sometimes I wish I’d struggled a bit longer, just so I could truly appreciate how good it is to be in my position. It’s hard not to take it for granted sometimes. But my music is a result of everything I’ve been through up until this point; to regret anything about my past would be to regret the artist I’ve become, and I don’t.”

If the Melburnian’s upbringing in a warm, loving and financially secure family left her short of musical subject matter, her own emotional make-up provided plenty of fuel for songwriting. She reveals she was something of a clichéd teen, feeling misunderstood and writing tortured lyrics in her bedroom.

“I’ve always used music as a means of expressing things I couldn’t otherwise. Performing these songs is almost as cathartic as writing them, because you’re letting your thoughts and worries go; you’re releasing them into the audience so that they can sit on someone else’s shoulders. Something that might seem trivial to one person, I feel like it’s the end of the world.”

For good measure, the music business gave Missy a couple of knocks to add to her collection of emotional bruises.

“‘Scar’ was written about some bad experiences I had in the beginning. Like any other business, the music industry is full of people who look at you with dollar signs in their eyes. Since then I’ve learned a thing or two about opinions… and whose matter. When you’re starting out, it’s hard not to believe all the sugary enthusiasm and hollow promises.

Missy’s rise from obscurity happened with lightning speed and, on the face of it, came easily for her. She admits ruefully: “Sometimes I wish I’d struggled a bit longer, just so I could truly appreciate how good it is to be in my position. It’s hard not to take it for granted sometimes. But my music is a result of everything I’ve been through up until this point; to regret anything about my past would be to regret the artist I’ve become, and I don’t.”

If the Melburnian’s upbringing in a warm, loving and financially secure family left her short of musical subject matter, her own emotional make-up provided plenty of fuel for songwriting. She reveals she was something of a clichéd teen, feeling misunderstood and writing tortured lyrics in her bedroom.

Photo: Tony Mott “I’ve always used music as a means of expressing things I couldn’t otherwise. Performing these songs is almost as cathartic as writing them, because you’re letting your thoughts and worries go; you’re releasing them into the audience so that they can sit on someone else’s shoulders. Something that might seem trivial to one person, I feel like it’s the end of the world.”

For good measure, the music business gave Missy a couple of knocks to add to her collection of emotional bruises.

“‘Scar’ was written about some bad experiences I had in the beginning. Like any other business, the music industry is full of people who look at you with dollar signs in their eyes. Since then I’ve learned a thing or two about opinions… and whose matter. When you’re starting out, it’s hard not to believe all the sugary enthusiasm and hollow promises.

“I definitely feel a lot less pressure these days to be a ‘marketable product’. I’m lucky that because of the success of my first album, I have that feeling of security.”

While The Sound of White’s success gave Missy freedom, both financially and artistically, it brought with it another set of problems – high expectations. “I knew how hard it was going to be writing my second album so I wanted to make it easier for myself.”

Her solution was to head to Broome, on the spectacular, rugged north-west coast of Australia. Not only did the vast space renew her creative juices, she found new inspiration.

“It’s so far away from city life that you can’t help but slow down. Then things come into focus that you’ve been overlooking or suppressing for way too long. ‘Steer’, especially, sums up the things I discovered.” Her early head-start on writing this album was another way of avoiding the dreaded “second-album slump”. Although production values and the budget were on par for both albums, what makes this second album different is the studio location.

“We didn’t record in a public recording studio… but out the back of Mitchell’s house [producer Mitchell Froom]. So we could take our time, have tea breaks and sit in the garden, and have home-cooked meals! It was just a great, relaxed atmosphere and we all became really good friends.” She was also adamant about writing all material herself. “It was my ego that made me want to write this album completely on my own. I wanted to be sure that I could make a good album without any help.”

Photo: Tony Mott While Broome may have influenced Missy’s latest work with “a sense of certainty”, she considers that her music is still a world away from the sense of place that permeates the work of Melbourne’s other song-writing poet, Paul Kelly.

“I admire anyone that can make the words ‘St Kilda’ and ‘Acland Street’ sound beautiful!” she laughs. “People start writing songs for different reasons: although I’ve always been very socially conscious, it’s the emotional rather than the literal that makes its way out when I sit down at a piano. When I try to write a protest song it just ends up sounding stupid and completely clichéd! I just stick to what comes naturally to me.”

If the singer has one complaint about her new-found celebrity, it’s the loss of anonymity. “I like to sit in the corner and observe everything so it’s… different [now]. Artists need to observe in order to get inspiration, so I’ve had to find it in other areas.”

But Missy’s quick to add, “All the negatives, though, are so heavily outweighed by the positives that I feel stupid even talking about them!”

And right at the top of her list of pros is… “travel!”.

Missy enthuses: “I love it so much. Not only with touring but also in general, getting to explore different parts of the world and live among different cultures… meet new people. I’m constantly amazed at how frequently I seem to be meeting or collaborating with people I used to hold on such a pedestal.”

Missy’s favourite destinations:

Kuranda and the whole of Cairns are such beautiful parts of the country. When I wrote ‘Sugarcane’ I had the sugar-cane fields of Cairns in mind. The smell of the burning mills stuck with me forever, like there was toffee in the air! The Kuranda Amphitheatre is just stunning at night when all the trees are lit up and people are dotted all the way up the hill as far as you can see.

Every time we visit the Gold Coast it’s just so nice to swim at such beautiful beaches. My best friend’s family has a place in Coolangatta so I’ve spent a bit of time around that area (and had some of the best Mexican food at the local Aztec!) My band is trying to convince me to go to Sea World along the way but I’m not sure I’m as brave as them! We’ll see, I guess.

I also have a soft spot for Newcastle, especially Darby Street with its cool little shops and cafés.

Missy Higgins “… For One Night Only” tour:

17 Nov, Sat
Kuranda Amphitheatre, Cairns, QLD
18 Nov, Sun
Townsville Entertainment & Convention Centre (Intimate Theatre Mode), Townsville, QLD
20 Nov, Tue
Great Western Hotel, Rockhampton, QLD
22 Nov, Thu
Gold Coast Convention Centre (Intimate Theatre Mode), Gold Coast, QLD
23 Nov, Fri
Brisbane Entertainment Centre (Intimate Theatre Mode), Brisbane, QLD
24 Nov, Sat
Mullumbimby Leagues Grounds, Mullumbimby, NSW
25 Nov, Sun
Coffs Harbour Ex-Services Club, Coffs Harbour, NSW
27 Nov, Tue
Port Macquarie Panthers, Port Macquarie, NSW
28 Nov, Wed
Tamworth Regional Entertainment Centre (Intimate Theatre Mode), Tamworth, NSW
30 Nov, Fri
Newcastle Entertainment Centre (Intimate Theatre Mode), Newcastle, NSW
01 Dec, Sat
Sydney Entertainment Centre (Intimate Theatre Mode), Sydney, NSW
02 Dec, Sun
Belvoir Amphitheatre, Perth, WA
05 Dec, Wed
Rod Laver Arena (Intimate Theatre Mode), Melbourne, VIC
07 Dec, Fri
Adelaide Entertainment Centre (Intimate Theatre Mode), Adelaide, SA
08 Dec, Sat
Homebake Festival 2007, The Domain, Sydney, NSW
09 Dec, Sun
Wollongong Entertainment Centre (Intimate Theatre Mode), Wollongong, NSW

Stephanie Green says:
I lived in Singapore for 10 years and, like most expats, suffered the odd bout of homesickness now and again. The only thing that helped was to crank up some Aussie music. Missy Higgins is the first artist to make it onto my list of ‘Musical Vegemite’ for expatriates after Crowded House, Paul Kelly and Hunters and Collectors.