An Interview with Missy Higgins Missy Higgins, a 23-year-old Australian singer-songwriter, has been performing on stage since the age of 13, when she began doing club gigs around Melbourne with her older brother’s jazz band. In 2001, while still in high school, she won a national songwriting competition, and chose to celebrate by taking some time off, packing up and heading across Europe.
When she came back, Missy released a self-titled EP in 2003 that topped Aussie indie charts, followed by a second EP the following year, Scar, which hit the charts at number one. Her first full-length album, The Sound of White, contained cuts off both EPs plus new material, and became Australia’s best-selling album of 200
While touring for The Sound of White, Missy wrote a lot of the music that found its way onto her newest album, On a Clear Night, produced by Mitchell Froom (Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Crowded House). The album’s first single, “Where I Stood,” has been featured on the TV shows Smallville and Grey’s Anatomy. Missy also performs her single “Steer” on the Live Earth: The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis DVD. U.S. release for On a Clear Night is slated for February 12. (See accompanying review.)
Music-Reviewer.com recently caught up with Missy to chat about her music, travels and inspiration. Music-Reviewer.com: How did you first get interested in music?
Missy Higgins: “I guess I got interested in music when I was in primary school, and we did this school musical called Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I got cast as one of the brothers, and that was the first time I really had experience singing to an audience and performing with a microphone in my hand. I remember just being in my absolute element, I remember loving it so much. And that was the first time my family ever heard me sing as well. My brother came up to me afterward and said, ‘Missy, I had no idea that you could sing. Why don’t you come sing in my band on the weekends?’ He had a jazz band that played around Melbourne, and I started singing in his band when I came home from school on the weekends.”
M-R.com: What was that like?
MH: “It was really, really fun, I mean that was how I got my start really performing, and then trying to win over a crowd of talkative, drunk bargoers. (Laughing.) So it was a really good experience for me. And you know, I got to sing all those old, beautiful jazz songs like “Misty” and “Cry Me a River.” Ella Fitzgerald-esque music, which I grew to really love.”
M-R.com: How has your relationship with music changed? Or has it over the years?
MH: “I guess it has changed over the years. I think in the beginning music was a real refuge for me, when I was a kid going through all those difficult emotions that you find yourself immersed in during adolescence, trying to figure out who you are and where you’re going. So it was a really amazing means of expressing myself at that age. And now I think I’m more able to process the world around me, and where I stand in it. I think now I’m standing in a much more self-assured position. I think I have a little bit better understanding of where I’m coming from.”
M-R.com: Tell me about your experiences backpacking around Europe after high school.
MH: “Europe was amazing…. I just had the most beautiful time, it was so inspirational. I remember thinking, ‘When I get back home I’m going to start writing for my album.’ I almost couldn’t wait, I was just too full of stories and inspiration and potential songs that I just wanted to get back and start writing straight away, but at the same time I was just loving it over there. I wrote a lot of poetry, I wrote a song or two, but I ended up leaving my guitar on the baggage shelf on a train in Spain – I think it was on the way from Italy to Spain. So I only got out about one song, and then I lost my guitar.”
M-R.com: Any particular memory that stands out from that trip?
MH: “In a place called San Sebastian, in Spain, we made friends with a few of the locals, and we got invited to a full moon festival which was going on in this little town up in the Basque country. The locals were so shocked to see us, because they never ever got tourists up into their little town. And the whole town was just out on the streets, doing donkey rides up and down the main street. There was a bonfire in the town square and people were jumping over it for good luck. And there was a local band playing, and people were dancing around in a circle. And then it started raining this really thick, hot rain, and everyone just kind of went a little bit crazy, out in the street, dancing and drinking and laughing, and it was just the most amazing experience. We got treated like royalty, because they never had visitors to their town. So that was a really amazing night. I’ll remember it forever.”
M-R.com: You’re very committed to fighting global climate change. How did you start getting involved personally in that?
MH: “When I was in America awhile ago I saw An Inconvenient Truth. And that really kind of shook my world, as I’m sure it did most people who saw it. It really made me look at my own life, what I was doing, what I had been doing so long to contribute to climate change. And I thought, this is something that we’re all contributing to in our daily lives. A lot of things that go on in the world, we often feel really helpless and not able to make a real difference, because we’re far away or we don’t have the power. But this is something that we can all do right now if we want to. You know, we can go home and we can look at our house and how we get to work and we can really start fighting this straight away. So I just wanted to do my part, I guess. And being someone in the public eye, I wanted to set a good example and help spread the word on climate change. So I decided to make all my tours climate neutral and do everything I could in my personal life.”
M-R.com: How easy is that to carry off, to make your tours climate neutral?
MH: “It’s not hard at all. It’s mainly just a financial difference that it makes, which in the big scheme of things isn’t much either, and is obviously worth every penny anyway. We power all the music venues with green power, you know, electricity from renewable energy sources. And we hire hybrid cars wherever possible. And the rest of the emissions we offset through a carbon credit fund called “climatefriendly.com,” which on our behalf neutralizes our tour emissions by supporting renewable energy projects like wind farms and solar power stations.”
M-R.com: Let’s talk about the new album for a minute. You’ve said that On a Clear Night reflects where you’re at right now. A lot of the songs seem to deal with loneliness, separation or, like on “Steer,” maybe overcoming something and coming into your own. What were the direct influences or inspirations for you in writing the album?
MH: “There were a few direct influences, I think. You know, going through a big break-up during the writing of a lot of these songs. I also went and spent a lot of time in a place in northern Australia called Droone, which is where I wrote a lot of these songs. And it was the first time I’d really stopped since I began the whole train ride of my music career, since I came back from Europe. So it was the first time I kind of let everything catch up to me, and I think that it allowed me to really come to peace with where my life was at. I think that for awhile I didn’t fit comfortably with success, you know, it felt like an outfit that didn’t fit properly. And so going away and spending some time getting to know myself, and trying to understand my position on things – who I really am at the heart of everything – was the best thing I could have done, really. It kind of put everything into perspective. I think there are a few songs that come from a much more comfortable, confident, self-assured place, while at the same time ever-questioning, which I think I always will be. But there’s a certain sense of, I guess, underlying confidence in a few of the songs.”
M-R.com: What’s your favorite song off the new album, and why?
MH: “I don’t know; it kind of changes all the time. I think I really like “Warm Whispers.” “Warm Whispers” was a song that I had for years, but I hadn’t been able to do anything with it. It wasn’t a finished song. I had verse-chorus, verse-chorus, or some sort of odd form, but I wasn’t able to make the whole, complete-sounding song. I brought it into the studio, and I told Mitchell [producer Mitchell Froom] about it, and he said maybe we’ll work on it toward the end of the album. And then he heard me one day playing this piano piece that I’d made up, that I was trying to make into a song. And he said, ‘Why don’t you attach that to “Warm Whispers”?’ I was a bit reluctant, but we tried it and it completely worked. “Warm Whispers” is a melding of two completely different songs. I just love the way that it worked out. It was kind of an in-studio work in progress.”
M-R.com: The songs, especially from what you’ve described and your experiences, seem intensely personal. With your interest in the environment and climate change, have you had any thoughts of penning songs more environmentally or socially oriented?
MH: “I have, but it’s kind of one of those things that most people can’t really decide what to write songs about. Maybe not most people, but definitely me. I find it really hard to choose what I’m about to write a song about, and then go and do it. It kind of comes or it doesn’t. And if you really try and force something, especially something with a social conscience, it can a lot of the time end up sounding cheesy and preachy if it doesn’t come naturally. So we’ll see. If it comes it will be just one of those things that accidentally happens one day.”
M-R.com: Tell me about your last tour through the US?
MH: “I did it with my guitar player then, and we did a whole lot of little clubs across the US. And that was really, really great. I loved it actually. It’s a big contrast for me, because I just did a tour in Australia with venues that are a lot larger than that. So it’s very humbling going over there and only having a very small fan base to play for. But I really love it. It’s a challenge for me, and there’s also something I really love about small, intimate venues, because there’s a much closer connection that you have with the audience. So I had a really, really lovely time. And American audiences for me have always been really, really great to play for, really just respectful and responsive and very lively and great.”
M-R.com: What do you do to nurture your creative side and stay inspired while touring and promoting?
MH: “Well, I love rock climbing. I think I do that in all my spare time. There’s something that’s really meditative about being on the rock, and being 20 feet up in the air, and having to be completely in the moment, and have nothing really to think about other than balance and defying gravity. I guess that really helps me step back from life and calm down.”
M-R.com: What’s the most memorable climb you’ve done?
MH: “Recently when I was in the US, I went to Joshua Tree. And I did this climb – because I only started a year ago, and I’m not nearly as good as I hope to be one day – but I did this climb called “Loose Lady.” (Laughing.) And it was really, really hot, so the rock was just burning my shoes, and the bolts were really run out, so it felt extremely treacherous the higher and higher I got. I was looking down thinking, oh my god, I can’t believe I’m doing this. And somehow I finished it, in absolute agony, but I was completely exhilarated at the top as well. It was an amazing feeling. That was just recently.”
M-R.com: You’ve said that after your upcoming tour, you might want to take it easy for awhile. Any thoughts on your next steps?
MH: “Yeah, my next priority is just dedicating some time to America and watching the album over there and giving that a really honest go. And then I guess I’ll reassess what direction I want to go in. I think as far as the Australian market goes, though, I’m going to take it easy there for awhile. Because I’ve toured pretty hard for the last four years. So I imagine it’ll be awhile before I tour there again, or at least before I release anything there again.”
M-R.com: And any other plans after the tour is wrapped up?
MH: “In the long run I think I want to study something. I’m not quite sure what. Maybe environmental studies, or Australian indigenous studies. I’m really fascinated by the Australian indigenous culture. But I’d also like to go and live in another country, and maybe learn the language, immerse myself in another culture. I have trouble staying still. It’s in my family; we’re all gypsies at heart. So I don’t think I’ll be settling down for a little while.”
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