Sia (Zero 7)

Although most of us wont automatically recognise the name Sia Furler, her voice will most certainly evoke a flash of memory. Her silky, sultry sounds have triumphantly conquered both sides of the musical pond through her major collaborative work with chill-meisters, Zero 7. Despite her enormous success with the group she has maintained a steady solo career for many years and is set to release a new album – Some People Have Real Problems – in January, on the back of a British tour. She spoke with me recently as she prepared to leave New York for the UK, by staying in bed and watching documentaries about gender disassociation. Her playfulness was immediately evident from the effect of her a strong South Australian accent combining with a chirpiness that was near the point of hysteria.

Tell me a little bit about your forthcoming album
It’s just another album. For me, it’s my job, the best job ever. I’m so lucky because it doesn’t really feel like work. There’s four cycles – you write the album, you record it, you sit around and wait for a while then you promo and tour it. Each album usually has a different feel based on where your life or your friend’s lives are at. This is going to be a more mature album because I’m more mature (playfully sniggers). There’s less drug references….no not really. It’s a broader brushstroke about love and life (now breaking into full belly laughs – can we take this girl seriously?). The artwork is the best artwork ever. We got all the kids on the website and MySpace to designed the artwork.

There were some big collaborations on this album, right?
I invited Lucia on ‘Little Black Sandals’ because she’s got such a good voice. And Beck has this deep timbre that he used on Seachange that’s really resonant. I felt that would go nicely on ‘Academia’ so I asked him and he said because he’s so nice to me.

Since the last album what have you learned as an artist?
I certainly know that I was miserable for Colour The Small album and I was singing really closed mic-ed. It was definitely a studio album and trying to translate live was difficult. I realised from touring with Zero 7 that I had a lot more fun on stage, I liked singing out. So with this album I wrote it a little bit less fragile. I wanted to sing big songs rather than intropspective, close mic, breathy stuff. I’ll always be grateful for ‘Breathe Me’ because that totally resuscitated my career and gave me an identity here in the US but it is quite a hard song to sing live.

Are you looking forward to you UK tour and especially the December 4th gig at King’s College?
I don’t really have a profile in England, I always play pretty small gigs. My favourite crowd is 1200-1500 jam packed sardines. And sold out. That’s when I feel like the energy is good because it’s intimate enough to have a conversation with the people in the front and the back.

Have you got better at live gigs as you’ve become more accomplished as artist?
Yeh, you get more comfortable. I don’t need to drink to stay on stage now. I’ve gotten older too and I understand more about how inconsequential we all are in the grand scheme of things. One shit note or one fuck up doesn’t make a bad gig. People come to be entertained and to support you and enjoy it. If you make a mistake and apologise, they’ll forgive you. That was the whole point to calling the album Some People Have Real Problems because it’s a note-to-self. It’s a reminder that some people don’t have rice or they have a terminal illness and here’s me and all my friends going ‘the traffic really sucks’. I’m starting to get rich, successful and famous but it’s starting to freak me out a bit because I don’t want to become a dickhead. I like to keep reminding myself that I am a human being and I’m part of a community. We’re all here to help each other evolve.

Zero 7 – do you consider youself ‘part of the band’?
On the last album I had more involvement on a purely contractual and financial basis. We were partners in that album, to a degree. I’m a bit sad about it but I don’t think I’m going to be doing any more stuff with them because it’ time for me to concentrate on doing my own thing for a while. Plus, now I’m getting really busy because here in America it seems they really like me.

Do you have any personal vocal influences?
My Dad used to play a lot of 60s girl band stuff in the car when I was growing up – like the Shangri La’s. Also Chrissie Hynde, Annie Lennox, Sting and my uncle Colin from Men At Work (actually her Godfather, they are not related).Even, when I was about 17, Mariah Carey and Lauren Hill. Oh, and Jeff Buckley.

Do you miss Rundle Street?
I really do. I miss the beach at Port Willunga. I miss sitting outside Al Fresco’s and having a coffee. I also miss The Carver Hut on Hindley Street and the bar that used to be called Q but it called Sugar or something else now. I liked to go there and play pool and have a dance. I want to go back.