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Kate Ceberano on life, love and longevity

Kate Ceberano

Kate Ceberano talks to Alana Lowes about dancing like no-one is watching, surviving the cut throat music industry and now at 50,  putting together a compilation album of her biggest hits.

She hit our airwaves in the 1980’s as a teenager with her funk band and then her sultry solo hit “Bedroom Eyes” and with a music career spanning 35 years, Kate Ceberano is a national treasure. Her bubbly, vivacious personality is self described as “exhausting” to her family but it’s this energy which has allowed her to wear the many hats of international singer-songwriter, actress, ambassador for the National Breast Cancer Foundation and her most important role – wife and mother to Gypsy.

I sat down with Kate to chat about life before, during and after music stardom and why her daughter is her greatest inspiration now.

A: Tell us about growing up, your everyday life, dreams, music idols?

K: Growing up in the 80’s was a pretty halcyon period in music and film in my opinion.

The hangover of the 70’s continuing to weave its magic on me with Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, ELO, Elton, Stevie Wonder and the Stones and then Michael Jackson came along and changed the whole paradigm.

I loved to dance and he [Michael Jackson] and the great Quincy Jones introduced me to disco….”I wanna rock with you, Don’t stop till you get enough”

I used to lose myself and all inhibition on the dance floor. I would dance for hours and hours and sing along with every word to every song and at the top of my lungs. Earth Wind and Fire, Gladys Knight, Ami Stewart, Donna Summer and Blondie.

A: What about first kisses and finding yourself in this era?

My interest in boys was heightened by the glamour of movies like The Rose, A Star is Born, Saturday Night Fever and also teen flicks like 16 Candles and Breakfast Club, but it was Grease that decided my fate for me. I wanted to be like Olivia and break out of an Aussie suburbia replete with blue light discos and Westfield shopping centres. I wrote 1997 hit, Pash, years later about my first kiss at Shopping-Town.

My dad was one of the first naturalised australians after the many years of  Australia being the not-so-proud country famed for its embarrassing ‘All White Policy’. [Kate’s father is American of Filipino descent and her mother is Hawaiian] To be a person of any colour, other than white during this time made for an interesting obstacle to overcome. Was I a chink, a wog, a darkie – What exactly was I?

Well, in finding out, I found many things about myself in my early teens. I learnt that I was resilient, myopic – shortsighted, hence my audacious lack of fear on stages, ambitious, eager to challenge stereotypes left right and centre, so very eager to please, I was just ME, albeit, a very embryonic me, but the base of my character which remains pretty much the same today.

A: Did singing come naturally to you?

K: I think so, but I didn’t aspire to being a singer. I was more interested in becoming an actress who could sing so I could do music theatre, or be in musical movies.

A: Have you channelled your music idols throughout your career?

K: Oh yes, every one of them at different intervals in my life. Billy [Idol] for jazz, Donna [Summer] and Chaka [Khan] for disco, Blondie for pop and Marianne Faithful and Patti Smith for my inner punk heart.

A: Your music crosses different genres, do you think it has evolved over the years?

K: Yes it does evolve. I have a stronger interest in the composition and production. I’ve also loved being across the instruments as well, playing piano and drums more regularly in shows.

A: You’re a household name, what’s left to accomplish?

K: It’s lovely to feel established, but that comfort can be sometimes be counter intuitive to the art bone. I’m never satisfied I guess, and the wins along the way burn off fast and seem only to fuel my appetite for for more. So it’s a pretty hectic creative energy around me and not for the feint hearted. Hence why my husband are such a great team. He totally has my back and is sincerely tuned toward my desires and dreams as an artist.

A: What keeps you passionate about being so creative and the thirst for creating music?

K: It’s difficult to put in words. I think it is something akin to a therapy for the soul. I think through music I’m trying to finesse and define things for myself and then hopefully give that experience to others.

I think people like to see artists particularly women who give and try with every note.  Amy, Aretha, Adele, Renee, Tina, Delta and Montaigne risk everything in the effort to do so. Its heroic! Its exhausting too and you have to borrow from the future to do it. But it’s an awesome feeling. My daughter thinks I’m a boss. Who could ask for anything more.

A: Was there ever a time when you thought “I can’t do this anymore” and what kept you going?

K: Many times, but you gotta keep at it – Persistence. Life gives you nothing for free except lessons to learn from.

A: Do you have any other mantras you live by?

K: Be a better human!

A: In a generation of 140 characters or less, what do you attribute to your longevity in the music industry?

K: I guess all of the above. Learning how to recover fast and get over it to get on with it attitude. But, most importantly, it’s because I absolutely love what I do UNEQUIVOCALLY!

A: Early on you rejected the advances of working with Kylie Minogue’s hit creators and other industry big players, how do you think your creative input may have been swung into a different direction at that time had you taken up the offer?

K: That was a hundred years ago and i no longer speculate on what I could’ve, would’ve, should’ve been, but I know for certain that clearly I may the right choice for me – even if it didn’t always feel like that at the time.

A: The decision to go it alone and launch your solo career is gusty, is that how you would describe Kate Ceberano, as a gusty go getter?

K: I don’t really know what I was thinking at that time. But I did love, and still do, love doing what I want to do. I’m not so great at being told what to do. Ask my husband. After seeing Wonder woman recently, he said it’s like living with me. It’s like go go go go all the time and all about LOVE LOVE LOVE AAAARRGGH! Again, i’ll say it – I’m Exhausting!

A: What are you most proud of during your career?

K: Keeping myself busy.

A: If you chose only one of your songs to perform forever, which would it be and why?

K: They are always changing in favour with me.

A: How did you go through your long catalogue of fabulous songs to narrow it down for your Anthology album?

K: Get your family and friends to compile their hit lists.

A: You’ve been quoted as saying “money can really spoil art” can you elaborate more on this?

K: I just think sometimes that people think that if you throw money at some potential, it can increase the potential or make it fire. I think that an original idea like art is sacrosanct to the artist himself and not talked about with too many people to begin with and should be born and raised on the whiff of an oily rag. Whereas marketing on the other hand requires loads of money and careful consideration. You could have the best idea in the world but without the financial grunt behind you it can be futile.

So whilst that quote is correct, it has to be amended to add that corollary.  ART and commerce need to be friends sometimes.

A: What would you tell your teenage self just starting out in the industry?

K: Stop being so interested in boys. Work out who you are first, then get amongst it. I got soooooooo distracted.

A: Would you let your teenage daughter take up a career in the music industry and how would you guide her through?

K: In Gypsy’s words, “We’ll see what life brings”, and I’ll support her and help her in any way I can. She isn’t that keen on all the attention and I’m rather proud of her stance on that. So many kids today seem to crave some platform without truly discovering what they plan to place on it. Be a person first and foremost is my advice to her.

A: Do you see yourself ever retiring, if not, why?

K: I don’t think there is such a thing in rock n roll.

A: Who is on your bucket list to work with creatively and why?

K: Sia would be someone I’d love to work with. She is above many strata of this commercial music world, seems autonomous and free. I’d love to just hang and tell stories. She’s one of the real ones.

A: Who is on repeat on your playlist at the moment?

K: Joni Mitchell with the symphony orchestra singing Both Sides Now, A Case of You and Jazz Standards.

A: Who is inspiring you at the moment?

K: My daughter, she’s super fierce!!!!

A: And finally, what does a normal every day in the life of Kate look like?

K: Oh you don’t wanna know….you’d be exhausted trying to keep up.

 

 

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Alana Lowes

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