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Perth MusicGabriella Cilmi Interview
Up until a few years back, Gabriella Cilmi was just your average school girl growing up in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, with little ambition of a career in music. Her distinct vocal style saw her get knocked back for roles in school musicals, while her piano teacher told her at age eight that she lacked the discipline to go anywhere in music. Gabriella didn’t care. She was already starting to discover her own alternative musical path. She was soon besotted by the music of some of Australia’s biggest rockers – Silverchair, Grinspoon and Jet and she also fell in love with Led Zeppelin and Kings Of Leon. Around this time, her mum organised for Gabriella to record some rudimentary demos with a friend which led to her being flown to the UK and being signed to Island Records. Gabriella’s debut album Lessons To Be Learned has just been released in Australia and she chatted to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.
Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (14:23 - 1.6Mb)
I asked Gabriella to describe the creation of her album and how it was recording in the UK. “It’s nice the way it has all come together now because I have been recording it for three years and it’s nice to see it all packaged and really there. Before I got signed I went on this trip to LA, New York and London and I got to play these acoustic sets for different record companies and we ended up signing with Island Records which is when it all started for me in the UK. I recorded most of the album in Kent which is about 45 minutes away from London, a very country area. It was this little town where I think I was the youngest in the village and it was all really tea and scones and that kind of thing. The house I recorded in was Alice Liddell’s house who was the Alice that the story Alice In Wonderland was based on. It was this really beautiful, massive, old house that I think was first built in the medieval days and they just kept building on top of it. There was one part of the house where the ceilings are really, really low and you can hardly walk.”
“Normal studios have this smell and they make you feel claustrophobic but because this was a homely feel I could relax. Like, there was a couch in the room where I would record so I think I could take it easy. I was living in a house opposite the Alice In Wonderland house which was like 800 years old. It was a good environment for me to collect my thoughts and stuff.”
I also asked what Gabriella uses as inspiration for her songs. “I used to have this book where I would write lots of lyrics and stuff like that and they were all used. We used to jam with guitars or write over samples, this old psychedelic music from the 60’s, maybe early 50’s. We went on this writing trip to France and went to these really obscure record stores and bought all these old records for inspiration. That’s kind of how Sweet About Me came about.”
The album was written and recorded with the hit production team Xenomania who have also worked with Sugarbabes, Girls Aloud, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Kylie Minogue. I asked Gabriella how it was working with such a strong production team. “It was funny because when I used to play music at home I’d just jam music with my mates in the garage and we’d play Jet covers and Kings Of Leon covers, a bit of Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin was my hero. So it was funny working with a team of really pop producers but I think I brought something to the table and they brought something to the table. I think we came up with something good in between and something better than I imagined. We might have disagreed sometimes but we ended up coming to a happy medium. ”
At only 16 Gabriella is quite young to be writing about love and loss and life experiences. “I don’t think you need to write about love and loss, you can write about the things that you do know about. I write a lot about things that aren’t experiences but observations and stuff like that. There’s one track, Einstein, on the record where one day I didn’t know what to write and I had a mental blank. Someone said to me why I always ask why this happens or why that happens so I kind of put that into a song. You find ways to get around it. Sometimes it just happens and other times you tell a story. Century is about a time I was really comfortable with one of my friends but we aren’t friends anymore.”
Gabriella’s debut single Sweet About Me reached number 1 on the Australian charts so I asked her how she felt when she first found out. “It was really cool. When I got off the plane when we were going home I heard it on the radio coming back from Melbourne airport and it was really weird. I don’t listen to the radio much because I ride public transport a lot and I’ve just got my IPod. I was just really excited when I found out. I have my old demos (on my IPod) but I haven’t uploaded my album yet but it’s like when your song comes on the radio do you listen to it or change the station. You can’t be caught bopping to your own tracks.”
Lessons To Be Learned is out now. For more info on Gabriella Cilmi visit www.gabriellacilmi.com
