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Interview With Missy Higgins

Now halfway through her American tour, openly bisexual Australian singer-songwriter Missy Higgins is selling out venues. Her new album, On a Clear Night, has become a top album on the Billboard Heatseekers chart, where it peaked at 29, and her single “Where I Stood” was featured last fall on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy.

Higgins remains somewhat under the radar in the United States, but she’s been well-known in her home down under since she was 18. She has released three full-length albums and won several ARIAS (the Australian equivalent to Grammys), which led her to sign a major label deal with Warner Brothers.

Whether you heard about her through that Grey’s Anatomy episode or you read about her coming out last year as “not so straight” in the Australian lesbian magazine Cherie, Higgins deserves your attention. She recently talked with AfterEllen.com about coming out, moving to the West Coast, and her song “Secret,” that references a same-sex relationship.

AfterEllen.com: You actually recorded this album in 2006 right? Missy Higgins: Yeah. I mean, some of the songs are quite old, relatively old. I wrote the song “100 Round the Bends” a while ago when I was recording my first album. That’s very old, that song.

I guess the rest was kind of written while I was on tour for the first album, and the second half was written when I went to … this little country town in Western Australia by the beach. So I wrote about half the album there.

AE: Is it weird now to be playing these songs like they are new material for people who haven’t heard it before? MH: Yeah, it’s cool though. When people are hearing your songs for the first time, you can’t help but see it as refreshing, hearing it through their ears, which is great.

AE: You had a different single here than you did in Australia. Was that your decision? MH: It wasn’t really my decision. The record label thought “Where I Stood” would be good for American radio. I guess “Where I Stood” is more cinematic [than “Steer”] too, and so they probably were thinking that they could get it in TV shows, films and stuff. Over here [in the United States] that’s such a massive way of entering the market.

AE: I recently interviewed Sia and she was talking about how she had been on Grey’s Anatomy and how much that helped her popularity. I’m sure you’re feeling that same effect right now – like it can only be a positive thing, whereas some people used to look at it as not so positive, attaching yourself to something like that. MH: I think there used to be – definitely in Australia – a stigma for having your songs on any TV show or attached to a product. But I think now the industry has changed so much that it’s just one way you can get exposed. There are a lot of record labels sort of shelling all this money into mindless music and getting that on the radio and that kind of thing, so to be able to get noticed, you have to try other things like getting on TV shows.

AE: Well, it’s nice because you know someone is watching Grey’s Anatomy, and they hear your song and they think, “I gotta know what this song is!” MH: Yeah, it’s not like they’d look it up if they didn’t like it! A lot of them go to the website after.

AE: Are there any shows that you think you wouldn’t want to be associated with? MH: I just don’t like reality TV shows much. I just think that would be a little bit demeaning to be on one of those things.

AE: Do you have the same television in Australia that we do here? MH: We have our own little Australian versions of what you guys have here – our little island version, like Australian Idol and all of that.

AE: Have any of your songs been chosen to be performed on Australian Idol? MH: A few songs – mostly for the auditions. I don’t know why. I guess they thought they’d get in with an emotional song.

AE: Isn’t it weird to be watching it and see people performing your songs on there? Like, have you ever been to a karaoke bar and your songs are on the list? MH: My sister actually went to a karaoke bar last year. We used to live together, and our local pub had karaoke every Thursday night, and we had this Backstreet Boys song we used to do – we worked out the harmonies and everything. But when I was away, she got up and did this song of mine called “Ten Days,” and she did it with my Australian accent, totally made fun of me.

AE: That’s cool though – that has to be something like when you hear yourself on the radio and you see yourself on a karaoke list, where you say to yourself, “I’ve made it!” MH: I actually saw myself in a crossword in Australia, and I thought that’s amazing – it doesn’t get any better.

AE: Do you have paparazzi follow you around in Australia? MH: No, I’m not that famous. You have to be pretty damn famous to get paparazzi in Australia, and there are not that many musicians that are that huge.

AE: Well, it’s crazy here, I’m sure you’ve realized, with celebrities. MH: I feel like a lot of the time they kind of ask for it. I mean, if you go to all these premieres and these openings and you flash your face around and wear designer gowns and make [yourself] get noticed and all that kind of stuff, I feel like they ask for it, and then it gets out of hand. I made sure from the beginning that I never go to any of those kinds of things, and I don’t get any more photographs taken of me than I need to.

AE: Do you ever feel pressure from your record label to do any sort of thing like that? MH: No, I kind of laid down the law with the beginning, and they know I’m pretty headstrong about what I do, what I will and won’t do. It’s pretty obvious that it’s not me.

AE: As far as you coming out, did it ever have anything to do with your label or was it a non-issue? MH: My label is really supportive of everything, every decision that I make. I’d been speaking about it with my manager for a while, and I was saying I feel like a real dickhead not talking about it in interviews, because it’s a big part of my life.

In the beginning it was just that I didn’t want to talk about my personal life. And then it got to the point where I was obviously – like it sounded like I was denying something, like I was just avoiding the topic. I’m not ashamed of it. Eventually it just kind of happened.

AE: Obviously it was very highly publicized, and you wrote on your MySpace addressing how your words got twisted. Was there ever a part of you that thought, “I shouldn’t have talked about that”? MH: No, actually my initial thought was maybe I should have spoken about it sooner and in my own words, rather than have someone else kind of take a few words and make them into whatever they wanted to. The thing that I felt was misrepresented was the fact that I came out as a lesbian, whereas I don’t consider myself a lesbian.

AE: That happened with Sia, too. Perez Hilton picked the story up and wrote that she came out as a lesbian, and obviously he hadn’t read further than the title. MH: He did that to me as well actually! [laughs] I actually read that interview because I know Sia and I didn’t know that she was seeing a girl, and someone forwarded it to me and I was like, “Oh my God! She’s seeing a girl?”

AE: She’s rumored to be dating J.D. Samson of Le Tigre. MH: I know, I’ve heard that too! She just moved to New York.

AE: Is that something you would ever consider doing, living here? Or do you think you’re Australian for life? MH: Well I have – I’ve moved to L.A.

AE: Oh, you have? MH: I’m renting a little apartment in Silver Lake. L.A.’s kind of weird – it’s got a really barren feel to it sometimes. I love it when it rains. It’s like L.A.’s got life all of a sudden. It comes alive when it rains.

AE: How long have you lived there now? MH: Just about a month.

AE: Are you adjusting pretty well? MH: I think so. I’ve got a lot of friends in L.A. I live in Silver Lake and go out with my friends in West Hollywood, and it’s a half hour’s drive, so it’s kind of annoying.

AE: Oh God, the traffic! MH: Yeah, I hate traffic so much! I just bought myself this book the other day, How to Stay Calm Even When You’re Totally and Completely Nuts. It has all these things to do while you’re stuck in traffic like relaxing your breath and letting it all go.

AE: So my favorite song on this album is “Secret,” but I just want to know the story – is it autobiographical? MH: Yeah, it was about – I don’t like saying exactly what it was about.

AE: The pronouns? MH: I don’t like saying exactly what my songs are about, but it was about a relationship I had and – well, it was about a she. Sometimes it gets really hard to explain things without saying. I like people to put their own story into a song, so I don’t like saying.

AE: But you do have a song that says “boy.” MH: Yeah, and I have a song that says “girl.” But when we first started our relationship, she was not comfortable with bringing it out into the open, and I was so head over heels in love with her I kind of wanted to shout it out to the world, so it was just a song about keeping something under the covers and not being comfortable sharing something with the world, keeping it away locked in a little room.

AE: It’s funny because I was listening to it and I thought it could either be interpreted as you seeing someone who wasn’t comfortable being out, or you seeing someone of either gender and being the woman on the side. MH: I know it sounds like that, actually! I played that song for my friends and I asked, “Do you think it’s really obvious that it’s about a lesbian relationship?” And my lesbian friends were like, “Totally!” But straight people think it’s about infidelity.

AE: Do you think there are any misconceptions about you? MH: I think for a while there I felt misrepresented, and that was a misconception that I had come out as a lesbian. But I don’t think things are that black and white, but I guess that’s kind of whatever now. I’ve cleared that up and don’t really care about that anymore.

I think a lot of people think I’m actually a lot more polite. In Australia especially they think I’m just really nice and polite, but I guess it’s hard sometimes to show the not so – I don’t know what I’m trying to say.

I feel like sometimes I come across a bit bland, and maybe that’s because I’ve been a bit careful. Since I started at such a young age, I’ve been so cautious at my words being taken from my mouth and misconstrued.

AE: That has to be a scary thought, to have people be able to talk to you and then write whatever they want, and then you can’t respond except for on MySpace. Thank God for MySpace, because what would you have done before? MH: Send out a telegraph!

AE: Like, “Not a lesbian – me!” MH: It’s funny because when I wrote the thing on MySpace, this paper had this tiny story on it whereas when the magazine [article I discussed my bisexuality in] came out, it was a front-page story.

AE: But how would you have even brought it up before? It’s not like you would be talking about your music and you would say, “Well, I’m bisexual so …” MH: [laughs] “Just so you know, just get that in there. And put an asterisk right next to it!”

AE: So you have an all-male band. Is that something you wanted to do? MH: No, there are just not that many female musicians out there. I would love to have another female because if nothing else, I’d love to have female backing vocals. I think female drummers are hot! There’s not enough out there.

For more on Missy Higgins, visit her official site or her MySpace page.

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