Rocky ride for Amorosi

IT is not easy growing up in the public spotlight – just ask Vanessa Amorosi.

Ten years ago as a fresh-faced 18-year-old, the Melbourne singer-songwriter burst onto the Australian music scene with her anthemic dance song Absolutely Everybody and went on to notch up eight ARIA Award nominations and sell more than two million albums over the course of the decade.

But it wasn’t always a smooth ride.

“I’d be lying if I said ‘no, it was really easy’,” she said.

“It was difficult, because I was still learning who I was.

“It was hard especially when you have people telling you who you are as an artist so yes, there were definitely a lot of learning curves.”

Now, however, is Amorosi’s time, having claimed full ownership of her life and music, an attitude reflected in her recently released fifth album, Hazardous, and highlighted by the first single This Is Who I Am, which debuted at number one on the ARIA Singles Chart late last year.

Combined with her re-worked rockier image (she is also an avid motorbike collector and rider), Hazardous is Amorosi’s most expressive album to date.

“It is very, very out there from what people would expect from me,” she said.

“But I’ve been raised in the rock ’n roll industry and there’s been a lot of stuff that has never come out in the public and kept squeaky clean because I was so young.”

Among those things kept covered up was her heavily tattooed body, which was finally exposed on the cover art of This Is Who I Am.

What may come as a surprise to many, Amorosi has had her tatts – most of which are tribal American-Indian symbols – since her Absolutely Everybody days.

“I’ve always kept them covered because that was another thing that people weren’t allowed to know about,” she said.

“It’s only now that I’ve been able to get away with doing the front cover of my single baring some of them, because it would never have happened before, even three years ago.

“It was a call that my whole team had made because I was young and singing pop songs and it just wasn’t something that pop artists did 10 years ago.”

Having reached a stage where she can finally be true to herself, this really does seem like Amorosi’s time to shine.

“Now, being an adult, I get to make some decisions and I take a lot of risks as an artist, and if they don’t work, I take the blame of that,” she said.

“I’m just rapt that I’ve had that second chance in Australia to be able to prove myself as an artist.”

Vanessa Amorosi is supporting Rob Thomas at A Day on the Green at Sandalford Wines in the Swan Valley on February 21.

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Friday 18 May 2012

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