Wednesday, 29 July, 1998
Former soap star now a rookie singer
By DAVID BAUDER -- Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Wandering down the hallway of a Manhattan record company, Natalie Imbruglia barely blinks when she glances into an office and sees her face staring back.
It's not her reflection in a mirror, just another magazine cover that has succumbed to this 24-year-old's pouty good looks.
The former teen-age star of an Australian television soap opera is used to such attention. What's new is that this is a music magazine. In the United States, where nobody saw her acting in "Neighbours," she's just another rookie singer.
That's fine by Imbruglia. Her heart was in music, not acting, when she quit the soap opera five years ago and moved to London to try and make it as a singer.
She succeeded on her first effort, "Torn," an ode to a disintegrating relationship sweetened with one of the hardest-to-shake musical hooks of the year. While it goes down easy enough for young fans of the Spice Girls, it's more than just a guilty pleasure for older fans.
Imbruglia's television presence was put to good use in the song's video, a soap opera in itself that shows the star trying to work around an annoying boyfriend. It doesn't hurt that most viewers, particularly men, just want to scoop her up and comfort her.
The experience of being a teen-age star -- even if at a lesser magnitude -- is also apparent in her businesslike attitude toward interviews. She's not cynical, not quite yet, but already has that practiced distance that other musicians take years to develop.
1. What made you decide to leave acting for music?
Imbruglia: I started singing when I was 13 years old, so I always wanted to do it. Basically, when I was in high school, I got an acting agent and that started taking off. I got called into a lot of auditions. I guess I sort of got sidetracked and I wasn't thinking of a career plan. The kind of music I liked was very mature and I was 14, so it wouldn't have worked, anyway.
2. Who were the musicians that you admired?
Imbruglia: The first artist that I really connected with was Joni Mitchell. That was later on. As a kid I was really into whatever was in the Top 40. I really loved The Carpenters. I didn't have any one particular person that was my role model. When I was a teen-ager, it was the Violent Femmes, because I was going through a rebellious stage. But I never really got passionate about anything until Joni Mitchell.
3. As somebody who writes songs, is it difficult to have the first song that people associate with you be not written by you? ("Torn" was written by Phil Thornalley, Anne Preven and Scott Cutler.)
Imbruglia: I think I dealt with that before I chose it, because I could have chosen one of mine. I love that song, and I made it my own. I'm so grateful to Anne Preven and Phil Thornalley for having written that song, which fell into my hands. I would only do somebody's song if I loved it that much, and then when you feel that way about a song, it doesn't really matter if you didn't write it.
4. What do you think it is about "Torn" that has made it so appealing to people?
Imbruglia: It's instant. You never tire of hearing it. Well, I haven't yet. I think the fact that it's a really sweet melody and then you realize the words and content is really quite heavy. I like that bittersweet thing.
5. Do you think fans want to know more about you as a person than you are willing to tell?
Imbruglia: Definitely. I think that it's nice to have a bit of a distance there. The people that I love and admire, I don't know exactly what went on in their songs. I can guess. I can guess their experiences but what is most important is how it relates to my life.
