I Guess This Is Growing Up

Kate Miller-Heidke hates her albums. Her words, not ours. Her output to date has been received well both critically and commercially. In 2007, debut album Little Eve climbed to #11 on the ARIA charts – eventually certified gold. Follow-up record Curiouser, released in 2008, hit #2 and was certified platinum. In 2009, her single Caught In The Crowd won the International Songwriting Competition. She hates them, though.

“Oh, I can't even listen to it,” she responds when asked – with almost alarming speed. “It makes me want to slit my wrists. It's probably my biggest influence; wanting to be different from the last thing I did – because I hate it. Right now, I'm kind of still in the honeymoon phase with this new record. I'm feeling pretty good about it all. I know in six months, though, that I'll hate myself again. That'll be the impetus to make something better.”

That album is Nightflight – Miller-Heidke's third solo album, released earlier this year. It's a definite departure from her prior work. Having original risen to fame through her work as an opera singer, Miller-Heidke's work has always possessed a bent for the quirky and theatrical – from breakthrough hit Words through to viral comedy song R U F*cking Kidding Me? (The Facebook Song). Nightflight is different.

It's not entirely of this world. It's ambitious; august and magical. Still, there's a humility and directness that's always been somewhat buried on Miller-Heidke's previous albums. Where previous album Curiouser was recorded in California with one-half of production duo The Dust Brothers (Beastie Boys, Beck), Nightflight was written by Miller-Heidke and her husband and collaborator Keir Nuttall in Nuttall's grandparents' house in Toowoomba.

“We spent a long time making the record exactly the way that it needed to be made,” Miller-Heidke says of the process. “There was a lot of exploring that had to be done – but I guess I had a vision of what I wanted the essence of the record to be. I wanted to somehow capture the spirit and the dynamics of the acoustic live shows that we've been doing over the years.

“We've done hundreds of them over the last couple of years and I really wanted to somehow capture that... lush, organic, thing,” she elaborates. “The new material has actually been working really well live. It's great, actually. The new songs have given the show much more depth and scope, I think. It's been great bringing all the material together. I rework some of the old songs and just plain chuck the ones I hate.”

It seems to coincide with a greater shift of perspectives for Miller-Heidke – both as an individual and as an artist. Contrary to her (well-earned) reputation as an exceptionally gifted entertainer, Miller-Heidke has always seemed to struggle with her own form of celebrity. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there's always been a significant disconnect between Kate Miller-Heidke as a performer and Kate Miller-Heidke as a person.

Onstage; Miller-Heidke is effortless. Her prodigious skill as a musician, coupled with her theatrical experience as an opera singer, allows her to titillate an audience through a beguiling mix of vocal pyrotechnics and witty charisma. In conversation; Miller-Heidke isn't quite as comfortable. She's guarded – her speech punctuated by long pauses, choosing her words carefully; often asking questions to clarify exactly what's meant by each inquiry.

“I think turning thirty was a huge milestone for me. It really did have an impact on the way I look at my life and the world around me,” she reflects, before laughing. “But, no, I don't feel like I know what I'm doing most of the time. Most of the time I feel like a total fraud. Occasionally, I get flashes of maturity. Very occasionally. Most of the time, though, I feel like a fraud – in music, in general life.

“I actually did a big tour with Ben Folds in the US recently and I had a big conversation with him about it. He told me he still feels like a fraud of a musician as well. That generally made me feel a lot better,” she laughs. “Honestly, it's actually a good thing, sometimes, I think. I think it's good to guard against complacency. You know, if you're always feeling dissatisfied...”

Her recent guest appearance on ABC's Q&A – and the resulting complications – go some way toward illustrating Miller-Heidke's issue. As a guest-panellist, she copped considerable criticism for not offering sufficient critical comment on the Federal Budget. Though later defending herself quite eloquently, she generally doesn't seem comfortable with a world where musicians are judged on anything other than their music.

“Sometimes it is all too self-referential for my taste. I don't like having to always consider how other people are going to view me or how they're going to interpret what I say. I don't like that aspect of the music industry,” she reflects. “I do regret going on Q&A, in retrospect. It would have been fine had it not been the budget special – and had I not been so stubborn. I should have done some research.

“But, really, I just don't think people want to hear that shit from musicians, you know? Like, I don't want to alienate conservative people or Christian people or whoever. Anyone can find something in a song. Music can really unite people. That's one of its main functions,” she counters. “I don't want to see my favourite musician blabbing about the budget on Q&A. I want that person to live in a more sacred space.”

To this end, Nightflight feels like an important record for Kate Miller-Heidke. After a series of increasingly stylised and theatrical endeavours, arguably culminating in electronic side-project Fatty Gets A Stylist (see sidebar), Nightflight sees the Brisbane singer-songwriter strip her musical identity back to its foundations. Less concerned with covering up or amplifying her personality, she seems willing to simply let her music speak for itself.

“I feel like, as I get older, I just want to be myself a bit more, to be honest,” she says. “You know, I still love doing work with the theatre – getting to work with the English National Opera, for example, was absolutely amazing, a dream come true – but that's all the escapism I think I really need in my life. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with just doing what I've been doing.

“I do think Nightflight, as an album, came out of that sense of maturity, of turning thirty. Like I said, turning thirty felt like a huge milestone for me. I've found myself quite liking growing older. It's equal parts terrifying and liberating.” she laughs. “It's a much more mature album. You know, I hope young people like it as well – I hope everyone likes it, really – but it's an album for adults.”

It's reflected in her career as well. Whereas at one point, Miller-Heidke made a concentrated effort to navigate herself away from classical singing and into popular music, she has started to flit between the two realms quite comfortably. The coming months, for example, will see her complete her own national tour in support of Nightflight, tour the United States with Ben Folds Five, before heading over to London to again perform with the English National Opera.

“I am surprised to still be doing classical singing, actually. I don't do everything. You know, I'm not singing Mozart. This latest opera is written by David Mitchell, who is my favourite author, and they were looking for an opera singer with a pop sensibility so I just had to do it. I think I just grew up a bit,” she muses. “You know, things that used to seem really important or boundaries that used to be a big deal just don't matter as much.

“I don't know. As a musician, doing what I do, the idea of the future is absolutely terrifying for me. You know, I really enjoyed working with the English National Opera, so I'd maybe like to do one of those shows every year for the next twenty years or so. Other than that, I just desperately hope I don't get too old or too bored or whatever to not keep writing songs. Those are really my only goals.

“I mean, I don't have a back-up plan. This is it for me. There are times where I have thought of just packing it in, having six kids and moving to Mullumbimby,” she laughs. “But, thankfully, I didn't follow up on that...”