On a wing and a prayer

By REBECCA BARRY

About this time last week, Brooke Fraser was admiring the golden spires of Phnom Penh's Royal Palace and singing Eternal Flame by the Bangles at the top of her voice.

The 19-year-old singer-songwriter was in Cambodia with World Vision to visit the child she sponsors, and was sightseeing when a Buddhist monk approached.

"He said to me, 'You always sing and you dance. You always very happy. It makes me happy, too. I have to ask you, what are you so happy about?"'

Quite a lot, in fact. Her first single, Better, has already made the number three spot on the New Zealand music charts - actor Temuera Morrison liked it so much he agreed to appear in the music video. Next week she will release her debut album, What To Do With Daylight, which her record label says will make her the next Bic Runga.

Fraser won't disclose the real reason she was a box of birds that day in Cambodia, except to impart that monks are forbidden from speaking to females and "he must have really wanted to know what crazy drugs I was on".

Instead, she peeks sheepishly through a curtain of long black hair and giggles to her record company minder, "I think I'll have to run this past you first".

The minder blinks, bemused.

Fraser shrugs. "Well you never know what I'm going to say!"

Unlike her articulate and polite nature, Fraser writes in an "ungracious and random" manner. Words spill from her consciousness as she plays around with piano chords, an annoying habit, she says, because it means the best songs come of their own accord, not when she chooses. A number of songs on the album are pensive ballads, her smoky voice lingering with the depth of emotion invoked by Sarah McLachlan or Norah Jones, piano shimmering as though Tori Amos is at the keys.

Occasionally she captures a funkier, earthier vibe, thanks in part to the album producer/drummer Brady Blade, keyboardist Godfrey de Grut and Spearhead bass player Carl Young.

Lyrically, however, the songs are solely Fraser's creation, the tales of kissing in the rain, falling in love and suffering an estranged beau marking a recurring theme.

"I've been single for three-and-a-half years so who knows where they came from?" she says. "I think I am singing about myself but I'm singing about things that I haven't experienced yet. I don't feel that when I sing the love songs they're not mine, they're just not real yet. I'm living in a fantasy world or something."

Fraser can't remember when she wasn't fantasising about being a musician. She fell in love with James Taylor after hearing him on a car radio as her best friend's mother drove them across town.

As a young teen, she developed a passion for Nat King Cole, Marvin Gaye, Sarah McLachlan, Paula Cole and Sheryl Crow.

She had taken piano lessons since she was 7 and began writing songs at 12, performing regularly at school assemblies and later forming a band with her school mates. In her last year at high school, legally under age, they competed in the Battle of the Bands. Later, a support slot with Australian band the Paul Coleman Trio changed everything.

"[Paul] said, 'Brooke, you've got a great voice and you've got great songs, but you need to get rid of the band and teach yourself the guitar'."

She followed his advice, hooked up with a manager and recorded a rough demo in her high school classroom, which pricked up the ears of A&R managers at five record companies. Eventually she signed to Sony Music - "possibly I'm delusional but they are like my family" - and moved from Lower Hutt to Auckland last year.

Fraser recently performed with Bic Runga, accompanied by the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. If all goes to plan, she will support Goldenhorse on their summer tour. Her second single, Lifeline, has just been released to radio.

De Grut, a respected session musician who spent three weeks in the recording studio with Fraser, says she will go far.

"Radio loves her music. It's middle-of-the-road, not left-of-field, it's not going to intimidate or ostracise anyone. It's just nice to listen to."

Fraser agrees her music could be deemed "safe" and that it's a surefire way to earn commercial success. "But if it's not affecting anyone," she says, "what's the point?"

She takes solace in the fact that Better was one of the most requested songs on the radio, that several people have approached her to discuss how her music has touched them. She needs to hear those encouraging words - despite dancing through the Cambodian palace "without caring what anyone thought", self-doubt is her biggest obstacle.

"There's always a part of me going, 'Should I really be doing this?' even though every part of me is screaming out to do it. Am I really good enough? Do people really want to listen to this?"

She gets plenty of affirmation from her rugby-mad family - her father is the much loved former All Black winger Bernie Fraser.

"It was good for me. It meant I was doing music because I wanted to, not because of something my family had always done. It taught me to really value the opportunity to do it. Where I grew up, the neighbourhood was relatively poor and a lot of kids I went to school with wouldn't have the opportunity to do things like piano lessons or dance lessons. But my parents made sacrifices so my brothers and I could do that stuff."

Having a former All Black for a father is an advantage, she says, although she hopes it won't get too much attention.

"I still remember quite vividly going to matches and having people stop him in the streets. He never actually talked about it with me, but I just kind of saw how it was with him. He emailed me a few weeks ago and told me some stuff that happened that he wouldn't have told me when I was younger, like how his words were twisted in the press and how that affected his career. He has taught me a lot about what that means and what it doesn't mean, what it does do for you and what it doesn't do for you."

Fraser is already playing her part - she joined World Vision's Artist Associate Programme two years ago, which is also supported by Kiwi bands Zed and Wash and aims to draw attention to the charity through their profile.

Songwriting and charity work are not the only outlets for life's hardships. At 15 Fraser became a Christian, and after finishing high school became editor of the Christian magazine Soul Purpose.

As it turns out, it was this intrinsic fact about herself that made her cagey about repeating her reply to the monk.

"This is a very cheesy Christian thing," she relents, "but I said, 'I like Jesus and he makes me quite happy'."

She blushes through that long, black hair, a contradictory picture of mature musical confidence and youthful modesty.

This afternoon she has a photo shoot for the album. She is open to how she will be marketed.

"Whenever we're about to have some kind of photo shoot I'll sit down and say, 'Okay guys, what's my image? How do you want to portray me? And it's really annoying because they'll be like, 'Just be yourself'. But like, what is that? It's very difficult to answer. How am I supposed to know?"

* What to Do with Daylight is released on November 3.