How Sia See's It

© siamusic.com

Sia's got her bags packed and is ready to go on tour.

Aussie songstress Sia is the type of girl you just want to hug. She opened our interview with an apology for being four minutes late, then proceeded to call me darlin’ and tell me a story about her dogs. By the time she started laughing with her contagious, bubbly laugh, I had already decided we should be best friends.

First garnering fame during her stint with Zero Seven, Sia then moved out on her own with her billboard topping album Some People Have Real Problems. She toured the US and UK, makng a scene with her glow-in-the-dark outfits and storng, clear vocals. Now the singer is getting ready to release and tour her new album We Are Born, due out in Spring 2010.

So you release your new album and then kick off your “We Meaning You Tour” next month, tell me a little bit about whats in store.

Oh I’m excited. It’s nice to do something different! (Laughs) Frankly, it will just be awesome to have a whole new thing going on. We are yarn bombing the stage so it will be a whole new set and all new outfits and some fun outfits that an engineer is making for me and they all do something. It’s going to be fun. It’s still going to be a geek fest! But it will be more fun. And, you know, this album is a bit more up tempo- there are still some weepies for the old fans- but it’s a lot more fun and up-tempo. It’s still a bit big-singy, I still get to do my big-singies, but we are retiring the Zero 7 stuff finally, and so I’m really making it my show and I guess.

So it’s more of a club beat-dancey sort of thing?

Well, “Buttons” from the last record and “We’ve Changed” from the new one sort of give you a sense of where the music is headed, and we have Nick (Valensi) from The Strokes to play guitar on the whole thing, and I’m a big fan of The Strokes and have often fantasized about working with them so having him come work with me is like a dream come true! He’s my guitar hero, and my band is crazy amazing, so actually we scheduled the recording to be four weeks and it only took us two and a half and we came in way under budget. We were really excited about it! Greg Kurstin produced the album and he is like one of my favorite people, and he brings a quiet magic to the whole thing. We are also retiring the neon outfits; I think we are going to auction those off to a charity, maybe Animal Haven my favorite dog charity. 

So you are really moving on from what you were before.

Yeah, well you want to keep it interesting for yourself. Its like a dog – if you take it around the same block their whole lives its not very interesting or stimulating, it’s the same for us- we need it to be different for us as well otherwise the monotony of any kind of repetition will make you crazy. It’s exciting to be doing new material in a new environment and hopefully have some old fans come along and maybe some new ones too! The only thing that really changes from show to show is the audience. Which is good because I encourage heckling.

What?

Yes, I encourage heckling and if people shout banana peel during the show I’ll get them on stage so that they can propose to their wife! I like to keep it inclusive. That’s how I roll. Keeps it fun for me and the fans, I like to have audience participation.

You are hitting up the festival circuit as well.

Yeah I am doing Lilith Fair and Coachella. I love it. Its fun, I'm going to live on the bus, I don’t like hotel rooms and I am really over the changing of my environment, so I’m going to be an RV lady. I am taking my dogs and I’m going to live on the bus with them- all the bands are going to get the hotels and what they think is luxury but really luxury for me is staying in one place.

Actually I have a friend who is visiting from Toronto, she is in a band called Dance Yourself To Death and they are going to open for me in Toronto and poor thing, she’s come to New York and I never leave the house! When I’m home I never want to leave I hate touring. So I’m trying a new technique where I never leave the tour bus except for shows and promo and we’ll see how it goes. Maybe I’ll find a new passion for it.

You are originally from Australia and have spent time living in London but are now based in New York now. Are you planning on sticking around?

Well really I share my time now between Australia, New York and LA. I would like to call New York home, but at the same time I went back to Australia this past Christmas and it was so nice. It was so relaxing, and I find that the more successful I get the more anxious I become and the more pressure I feel and the more anxiety and…I’m just realizing that maybe this really isn’t for me. This whole singing lark. It’s really affecting me. So when I was in Australia I was thinking well maybe I’ll just do this record and hopefully it will be great and successful and you know, I was writing with Christina Aguilera and everything, so it was great, but then maybe after all this I could just write pop songs for other people, and go back to Adelaide and live a very peaceful life with my dogs.

So I’m just hoping and thinking that if I try touring this way it may convince me to continue, bringing my dogs along and stuff to make it better. It appeals to me because I, I don’t know, it’s weird. When I was a ten year old I was excited at the idea of being a famous singer because you know, my parents were very creative. My mum was an oil painter and an artist, and my dad was a guitarist…actually they were like hipsters, they would be so hip right now. Anyway I was a creature born from these passions- I don’t know if I was born this way or created. And this sort of tap dancing monkey bit is tired. (Laughs) I’m 34 now! I kind of feel like maybe I just want to be in the background.

Well no matter what you do next you’ll always have that you’ve done this amazing thing and had this experience.

You are right! Thank you, that’s true. I have done my best. For sure. Little things like trying to stay thin, and botox, trying to stay real- it’s a hard industry there is so much pressure. I just want to be a big old fat lesbian with five children.

Well you have chosen two places that are high pressure, New York and LA. Do you ever just perform at little spots or anything to take a break from the larger scale pressure?

I really don’t I performed the other day with Chilly Gonzales, he produced the Feist record, he’s very big in France, anyway he played here at Joe’s Pub and he asked me to sing with him and that was fun. But I don’t normally do that because I really just don’t want any attention right now. (Laughs.) As a child I was desperate for attention, I guess I figured that if everyone was clapping at me I would feel loved or something. But now as an adult I realize that that’s not what happens! (Laughs) The only person who can fill that void is you and not tens of thousands of screaming fans. And I think that that’s how most performers are born, some sort of original dysfunction.

You may feel like you don’t want people to look at you but at the same time you are very visual on stage and in your videos, very avaunt guard and artsy.

For me its like a movie, where someone is so nervous to go on stage and so someone just pushes them, and the spotlight is on them so they just start tap dancing manically and they end up in some sort of (makes jumbled fast forward noises), that’s kind of how it is for me, except that that person pushing me is me. This is the only job I have and I’ve grown accustomed to having a nice place! And paying my rent! It’s an evil version of myself that is shoving me on stage every night, and the response is (makes noises again). No one is forcing me to do this, I’m just being a whiner really, it is one of the best jobs anyone can ever have.

I bet most people would agree with that.

Yeah, maybe what the solution may be is that I keep doing it but I do it a little less. But hey maybe this record will be crazy bananas and will sell a million trillion records and I will be able to fly on private jets and take my dog wherever I want and take my family and that will change the way I feel about it entirely. But, I guess that’s what happens right? People retire and change their minds.

So despite your hesitancy with the actual touring, you are still going for a very upbeat mood for the show and new album.

Yeah! Oh yeah, for sure. There are still a few weepies, but it’s just a much more bouncy album. That’s what I would call it, bouncy. Even the ballads have kind of a bounce to it. I don’t know…I really like it so I hope you do too.