From the sultry opening notes of the debut single 'Sweet
About Me', the world will quickly come to know it's uncovered a major
new vocal talent in Gabriella Cilmi.
Featuring a voice that sounds like it fell from the heavens straight
into the petite and pretty form of this young vocal powerhouse, Gabriella
Cilmi's debut long player is entitled 'Lessons To Be Learned'.
Three years in the making and recorded across three continents, 'Lessons
To Be Learned' is a dynamic and diverse collection of songs, traversing
all manner of genre from blues, pop, punk, glam, rock and beautiful
balladry. It's all glued together by Gabriella's brilliant and unique
vocal talent, and a worldliness and carefreeness that's musically
manifested into an infectious, emotive swagger.
Which is so extraordinary when you come to learn that Gabriella Cilmi
[pronounced "chill-me"] is all of 16 years old.
Up until a few years back, Gabriella was just your average school
girl growing up in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, with
little ambition of a career in music. Bred on her parents' record
collection which featured the likes of Janis Joplin, Nina Simone,
Suzi Quatro, Blondie and Joan Jett, Gabriella's earliest forays into
music weren't very promising. 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. Even by that very early stage, 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. She also fell in love with Led Zeppelin. Once in
high school, she took up jamming with some friends in a garage band
on the weekends, covering the songs of her favourite bands like Kings
of Leon. Around this time, her mum organised for Gabriella to record
some rudimentary demos with a friend.
But music was still very much just a hobby rather than an ambition.
Then everything changed one afternoon at an Italian festa in her hometown
of Melbourne. It was at this street party that one of her uncles insisted
she jump on stage and do a song. Gabriella was reluctant but finally
agreed, got up and belted out a version of The Rolling Stones' "Jumpin'
Jack Flash". Most of the elderly Italian audience didn't know
what the hell to make of it, but unbeknownst to Gabriella, also in
the crowd was one of Australia's foremost record company execs, who
just happened to be out for a day with his family.
And so was set in motion a most excellent adventure. Remember, Gabriella
was still only 13 at this stage, but she was soon being flown around
the world, exhibiting her talent to international record company execs
in Europe and the US. The famous Island Records soon signed on as
her international label.
Next, Gabriella travelled to Los Angeles where she began working
and writing with Brian Higgins and Miranda Cooper from the famed British
production team, Xenomania, the people behind hits for everyone from
Sugababes, Girls Aloud, Kylie Minogue and currently Franz Ferdinand.
Gabriella laughs that those first sessions in LA weren't quite what
she was expecting. "It was a really new experience for me,"
she says. "I remember going in and kind of being overwhelmed
by it all. It was interesting but it was also bit weird. We actually
recorded everything in a house. We were recording in the toilet. That's
the room that produced the best sound in the house. There was foam
all over the toilet walls and it was like, 'Oh yeah - this is good.
Recording in a toilet. How glamorous!' Hilarious!!"
Nothing from those first sessions in LA would survive to make it
onto 'Lessons To Be Learned', but it was a chance for Gabriella to
get to know Brian and Miranda and for the trio to experiment with
different styles and slowly start shaping Gabriella's own distinctive
sound. "They taught me so much because I'd never done this before,"
she says. "I learnt so many new things." The real work for
the album would begin about five months later on the other side of
the world, in a famous house in the town of Kent in England.
By now, Gabriella was 14 and could only work on her music during
school holidays. Still a bit uncomfortable with the idea that she
was now on the path to being a serious, professional musical artist,
Gabriella would lie to school mates about what she was doing on her
increasingly frequent trips away from home - visiting relatives in
Italy, family vacations to Queensland.
Meanwhile, over in Kent, Gabriella and Brian and Miranda holed themselves
up in a magnificent house cum studio, famous for once being the home
of Alice Liddell, the real-life Alice In Wonderland. It was a million
miles away from the toilet in LA. "It was this huge house with
a beautiful garden with a stream running through it and all these
trees," says Gabriella. "Henry the 8th used to ride his
horse around there, Winston Churchill's house is across the road."
They spent almost three months writing and recording. Those sessions
were followed by more work together in Australia, then early last
year, Gabriella moved to the UK to complete the album [keeping up
her schooling by correspondence] and the team went back to the house
in Kent for another month of work.
With 'Lessons To Be Learned' finished but still months away from
release, word started to get out that something very special was in
the offing and things started happening quickly for Gabriella. There
were gigs around London and she was asked to record a cover version
of the Martha & The Muffins' classic "Echo Beach" as
the theme song of a new British TV drama of the same name. Then, at
the end of last year, the producers of Later With Jools Holland, one
of the most popular and distinguished music shows on British TV, got
to hear an advance copy of "Sweet About Me" and insisted
that Gabriella appear on their end of year show, despite the fact
that the single was still ages away from release.
"That was awesome," beams Gabriella. "I've always
watched the show and thought I want to go on it one day. It's the
coolest music show around because it's only about the music. It was
so funny walking in there because it felt like I'd walked into my
television set. It was really fun. I was just smiling all day. It
was cool. I met Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones. He shook my hand
and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I nearly died."
A taste of many extraordinary things to come, no doubt. Rest assured,
"Sweet About Me" will shortly blow away everyone, everywhere.
But it's just a sampler from an extraordinary debut album from a gifted
new artist.
'Lessons To Be Learned' is the album that will make Gabriella Cilmi
one of the most talked about new artists of 2008.
TRACK BY TRACK
Gabriella Cilmi talks about the songs on her debut album, 'Lessons
To Be Learned'.
Save the Lies
"Before it had a name, we used to call it 'Rod Stewart', because
the music just reminded me of him. The song is kind of about people
undermining what you've done, where you're really happy with something
and people look at it and think what they've done is better. That
was the inspiration."
Sweet About Me
"It's really hypnotic. You could tell it was something special
as soon as we wrote it. It always reminds me of something like a rocking
boat. It's a bit of fun but it's kind of saying that we all make mistakes,
so we may as well just have fun with it."
Sanctuary
"I met someone who I felt really comfortable with and all those
feelings that come with feeling comfortable with someone. The song
is kind of about that, although I'm not even friends with that person
any more."
Einstein
"It's a lot of questions. I'm always asking why do I have to
do this or why is that like that? So Miranda [Cooper] and I just worked
on that idea and I remember we demolished so much chocolate. So good!"
Don't Want To Go To Bed Now
"I guess it's about having such a good time that you don't want
it to end, but I was actually reading a catalogue that had pyjamas
in it and that's what triggered the bed thing."
Cigarettes and Lies
"It's this weird mix of jazz and country. It's a bit of fun
about when you have your eye on something and you want to go and get
it. I don't smoke but it kind of reminds me of an old man sitting
there with a cigarette, tapping his foot."
Messy
"That one is also a bit of fun. It's kind of silly, but sounds
cool. When we started out the riff, it was really bluesy, then it
became sort of punky."
Awkward Game
"It's one of my favourites. It's one of those songs that just
comes to you. It's about when something looks really tempting, or
when you're stuck in a really bad habit. It's always there tempting
you but you have to say no sometimes."
Safer
"It's about not knowing what's going to happen. You always want
to know - people tell you everything is going to be fine - but everything
is a gamble and you never have the piece of mind of knowing how something
is going to turn out."
Terrifying
"I wrote that the day after I went to the Big Day Out festival.
Someone kept ignoring me and I didn't want them to ignore me."
Sad, Sad World
"The verses are a story and the chorus is about watching the
news. I don't like watching the news. It makes me angry. And you think,
'Well, I haven't done anything to make anything better.'"
Sit in the Blues
"It's the story about someone getting used. I was reading this
story about Janis Joplin and how she really loved this one guy and
how he didn't love her back. So I wrote about that. Because I really
like her. She's really cool."
'Lessons To Be Learned' is out now.
