Sia: Finally, I've got mums
Tuesday, 15 Apr 2008 12:44
Sia - taking a deep breath after winning motherly approval
The sometime Zero 7 singer and solo star meets inthenews.co.uk's Louise Cadell before a stunning London performance.
After a gyrating Har Mar Superstar and amid a set of glowing blue flowers and a rainbow back-drop, singer Sia Fuller and her band took to the stage at the Koko club in London as the victory theme from Rocky boomed loudly around everyone in the audience. After almost a lifetime in the music business, Sia can finally feel victorious. Sia has arrived.
To watch the video for Sia's new single, The Girl You Lost, click here
Clad in black suits and masks, all outlined with multi-coloured neon glow-in-the-dark lines, the effect was to make Sia and her band look like a group of stick figures, the kind with big faces that kids draw. With white gloves moving around in a Michael Jackson manner, Sia commanded the attention of everyone as the band launched into their first song.
The theme of the night was one of child-like frivolity helped greatly by the fact that Sia, with her diminutive frame and impish voice, is herself small enough to be a child. Dancing around on stage and making the audience laugh gave Sia a goofy and innocent appearance, partially hiding the fact that she knew exactly what she was doing. When she did unmask herself and the lights came, the band proceeded to do what they do best: entertain.
A singer since she was around 8 years old, Sia is clearly at home on the stage and behind a microphone. "My mum and dad had a band and I used to want attention," she explained before her show at the Koko, "so I asked if I could sing some harmonies with them. I used to love the attention."
Attention, it seems, wasn't always so easy for Sia to get. Mainstream popularity has eluded her somewhat in the past, despite the release of two albums and her collaborations singing with the band Zero 7. But just when things were looking down, the "Six Feet Under thing" happened.
"That totally resurrected my career again," she sighs, referring to when her song Breathe Me was used during the last few minutes of the finale of the US television show, Six Feet Under, in 2005.
Not one to miss an opportunity, Sia decided to count her losses, pack her bags and head to America. "I have to say, I am way more successful over there than I am over here" she says, adding that coming back to play in London has been strange. "It's actually been harder on my ego to come back because I've been playing much larger venues in America, so coming back here I'm like... oh... "
But coming back does have its perks. "I've had a very fiercely loyal fan base here for ten years or so now and I'll happily play to 60 people a night if I had to. Koko is a beautiful venue and I don't want to play venues bigger than this anyway because I'll lose connection with the audience. I like to be heckled, I like to have some sort of communication and I don't want to lose that."
Heckle the audience did. During her entire set they laughed with her and listened just as intently when she sung as when she spoke, giving her a steady dose of the adoration she clearly enjoys. Songs from her latest album, Some People Have Real Problems, were sung, with hits from previous albums and some crowd favourites from her Zero 7 days extracting whoops and cries of joy from the people packing all areas of the venue.
Though the audience seemed utterly rapt with Sia, it felt to me like one song blended into another. Every tune was littered with enough melodic ups and downs to make Mariah Carey proud, yet on some occasions, Sia's vocal gymnastics didn't change her songs for the better. When she did play Breathe Me, the quiet beauty of the song was altered towards the end, demolishing the climactic restraint usually preserved. Still, I was probably only one of a few who noticed or even cared for the lack of variation.
I tell her that after the "Six Feet Under thing" my mum is a fan. Sia delights in hearing this. "Mums come to my gigs now. My last album got mums. All my friends mums, they've texted 'I've got Sia's album. It's lovely, we've been listening to it through dinner', things like that," she says excitedly. "I love that! Finally, I've got mums!".
"It also coincides with the getting of my own mum. Mother-daughter relationships are often complex and mine and my mum's has totally blossomed and become really awesome in the last year so it's like at the same time I got everyone else's mum I got my own mum," Sia adds, clearly astonished at all that has happened for her in the past few years. It seems like this little girl is finally getting the attention she wanted all along.
Louise Cadell
The Girl You Lost is released on April 21st.