Fraser spreads her wings

By REBECCA BARRY

Two years ago Brooke Fraser was so taken with her Auckland hotel room, she bought a disposable camera and took pictures of it. For the girl from Naenae, the inside of the Metropolis was the "flashest" thing she'd seen.

"I was such an idiot back then," she says, rolling her eyes. This time it's a smaller room - "I've been down-graded."

Not that she's indoors much this week, anyway. Fraser has returned to Auckland from her new home in Sydney for five days, just enough time for a few pre-tour interviews, a stint on Top of the Pops and the honourable task of co-judging the Play It Strange high school song-writing competition. It reminds her of an instrumental piece she wrote while she was in the fifth form, a wee number she called Lamentations of a Frog. It also reminds her how fast she's grown up.

"I got my first wrinkles a few months ago," she says, despairingly. "I woke up in the weekend and I was like, 'Wow, it's all downhill from here'. I was freaking out. I feel like my mortality's hit me, like I don't have much time."

Well, a lot has happened. At 18 she moved to Auckland, signed with a major label and released her debut album What to Do With Daylight, which spawned a run of hit singles - Better, Lifeline, Saving the World - and sold four times platinum. She has performed with Bic Runga, David Bowie, John Mayer, recorded with Opshop and joined the bills at the Parachute Festival and the Summer Beach Tour with the likes of Scribe and Goldenhorse.

Now, at 20, she's potentially on the brink of a similar breakthrough in Australia, her home for the past two months. In New Zealand her album has rebounded to No 1 and she has six nominations in the New Zealand Music Awards. Yet Fraser says she doesn't plan to return home until she retires.

"I was finding it quite hard. I've always considered myself a people-person but it's really hard to maintain that faith in the goodness of people when people stop seeing you as a person. One of my pet hates is rudeness. It just bugs me and I started to not want to go out and not wanting to go to the supermarket and that's just stupid."

She looks genuinely worried when asked what she would do should her profile became as big across the ditch, where she lives 45 minutes out of the city with three others in their late 20s, including a married couple.

"Sydney city is very fast and busy and, because my life is fast and busy, I wanted to feel at home."

She relishes the fact she can go shopping in Oz - especially bargain hunting at the markets - without interruption. Most of the new friends she's made are "oblivious" to her success back home. Fame, she says, is something she could do without.

"There's nothing I've encountered that I've gone, 'Oh, I didn't think that would happen'. I think I've tried to deal with it [the way] I've always planned to which is to just ignore it as much as possible and use my influence well. I don't think I milk it. It's never been an attractive thing to me.

"I think it will get harder as my life progresses. I suppose the things I'm passionate about will draw me to that kind of place that my life will never be normal or easy. But that's okay."

As for the recent accolades, she is most proud to be nominated in the songwriter of the year category because it is the thing she agonises over the most.

"It's such a mysterious, strange art and it's very subjective to opinion. All the artists I respect and love are songwriters, so just to be acknowledged like that is really cool."

Even so, she is going to practise her "gracious defeat face", like they do at the Grammys.

"I feel like the kind of music that I make, it's not considered cool. I'm not doing electronica or hip-hop or garage rock. I am making popular music and I do often feel overlooked.

"I mean, in terms of the public, they've completely embraced this record and continue to. It continues to just amaze me. Every single we've released has been a radio No 1. It's crazy. And the latest is a piano song with strings. Like, what's that about?

"In that respect, it's really wonderful. But I suppose in music, you really respect the opinion of your peers."

The night she arrived back in Auckland she watched a music awards special on one of the music channels, in which she says they played a video by every nominee - except Fraser.

"I know it sounds really stupid but I still find that does get to me a little bit. Just because the type of music I write doesn't fit your definition of cool doesn't mean I'm crap."

The only time she's ever disliked playing live was in Taupo on the Summer Beach Tour.

"It was the first time when I was playing and singing music that I thought, I can't wait to get through this song. I don't even really know what it was, it just wasn't happening. I wasn't feeling it. I'd never ever want to have that feeling again.

"I'm really excited about the tour. I feel like I've finally found a group of musicians who are all on the same wavelength. In New Zealand there's such a limited number of people that it's tough to get that right dynamic happening. I'm just besotted with my band. I feel like I'm making the music that I've always wanted to make."

Still, it will be difficult to top her first gig in Australia, supporting John Mayer in Brisbane, in front of 40,000.

"At the beginning of the tour they were just trying to be good big brothers and they said, 'Just be prepared because you're a support act and no one knows you, no one's ever heard of you, so don't worry if people just keep talking through it and you just get a few claps at the end'. We started with Better and all these people just started pouring in and by the end of the second song the crowd was just going crazy.

"Between the songs the crowd were completely quiet and at the end we went off and it was just like, crazy. And the band turned to me and they were like, 'What was that?' They were completely shocked. That's when I knew that the music is good enough to stand on its own. Without marketing, without anyone knowing anything. The songs are enough."

LOWDOWN

WHO: Brooke Fraser BORN: Wellington, 1984

ALBUM: What to Do with Daylight (Sony, 2003)

2004 NZ MUSIC AWARDS NOMINATIONS: Album of the Year, Single of the Year (Lifeline), Breakthrough Artist, Best Female Solo Artist, Songwriter of the Year, People's Choice Award. Awards presented on September 22.

TOUR DATES: Holy Trinity Tauranga, Fri Oct 15; Auckland Town Hall, Sat Oct 16; Capitaine Bouganville, Whangarei Sun Oct 17; St Paul's Collegiate, Hamilton, Mon Oct 18; Rotorua Civic Theatre, Tue Oct 19; Great Lake Centre, Taupo, Thu Oct 21; Hastings Opera House, Fri Oct 22; Regent, Palmerston North, Sat Oct 23; Opera House, Wellington, Sun Oct 24; Marlborough Centre, Blenheim, Tue Oct 26; Theatre Royal, Nelson, Wed Oct 27; Christchurch Theatre Royal, Thu Oct 28; Theatre Royal, Timaru, Fri Oct 29; Glenroy, Dunedin, Sat Oct 30; Memorial Hall, Queenstown, Sun Oct 31