The carnival's not over

The Seekers, the 1960s Australian group, begin a two-date New Zealand tour tonight. GREG DIXON spoke to Judith Durham who left the group in 1968 to go solo but rejoined 25 years later.

Q. How's the voice?

A. Very good, I'm glad to say. I did a solo tour last year of Britain and completed 34 dates successfully. I'm assuming, once I've had a bit of a warm-up, I'll be fine. I also go in with the expectation that if it's the right thing to do I'll be given the ammunition.

Q. Do you fear it will some day disappear forever?

A. Of course the time will come when I open my mouth and it won't be there. So as time goes on I'm appreciating that more - and not just me, the three boys as well. We are all still in good enough nick and still sound as we did back in the 60s and can recreate that harmonious thing.

But I wouldn't say fear. It's just that every day I appreciate more and more that it's still there. There are a lot of things I enjoy in life and it's not like I'm singing every day. So I wouldn't be totally lost without it. I can only assume that I'm fulfilling a role I'm meant to fill and, against all the odds, the voice is still there.

Q. Were you surprised how popular the group became?

A. It's a funny one. What surprised me was that a song like I'll Never Find Another You, when I first heard it, I thought it was a nice song and I'd sung lots of nice songs, but it wasn't a folk song. So it was obviously a change of direction slightly for us at the time.

But I never dreamed a song like that would become a No 1 hit around the world. It was such a revelation to find you could become a pop star and not really change that much. I thought you'd have to set out to become a pop star and change your style of dressing and singing.

And it has surprised me how the songs have survived. It's something I feel no responsibility for. If someone had asked me to choose them back then I would have made the wrong choices.

Q. What did fame mean in those days?

A. For me, I was totally maladjusted. It came too soon for me. I felt I was going to be famous as a child but I didn't think it was going to happen quite that soon. I wanted to have lost weight before I got into the public eye. So I was very self-conscious. I was battling away with how to dress, be on television, and be photographed. It was a worry at the time.

Q. It didn't make you happy?

A. No, it didn't. It's a shame in a way. I was concerned about whether I was supposed to stay with the group or not. I hadn't really set out to do that.

So all of a sudden I was caught up in something that was an absolute juggernaut and wanting to be successful and wanting to be the best we could be, but realising at the same time it was becoming my identity and struggling with what a pop star's appearance should be.

I didn't realise I was a pop star, as I was. I thought I had to change to really play the role properly. People liked the way I looked, but I had no perspective on that. I didn't understand how people viewed me. I always thought I had to be better or different.

Q. I suppose million-selling singles become a cross to bear because that's all people want to hear?

A. Yes, but what a money-spinner. You could keep going out there and churning out those things and everybody would be happy. But I wanted to meet other challenges - that's the kind of person I am.

But having the album out right now is rather nice (the new Ultimate Collection CD) - the fact that the four of us had the chance to choose the tracks we like. They weren't necessarily the favourite songs of our whole repertoire. But putting them all together as a collection we felt would be nice because it represents our style, energy and our uniqueness as well as our songs.

Q. You originally left The Seekers in 1968. With the passage of time, was that the right decision?

A. I didn't know at the time that people wouldn't understand why I would. That was the shock for me, that I had to defend the decision. I regret not foreseeing the level of grief it caused.

If I'd stayed it was whether I would find my own fulfilment.

I met Ron [Edgeworth, her late husband] soon after I made my decision. I embraced a spiritual life, I became an alternative thinker, followed a natural foods regime and had all these different musical experiences, developed my writing and shows. There were all those things, would you take them away?

It's a bit hard. I may not have had superstar thrust on me as a solo artist but what I was given was a degree of getting to know myself and giving audiences another side of me. It's broadened me as a person and it's given me a chance to see The Seekers from a distance. That's why I enjoy the reunion concerts so much, whereas in the 60s I was thinking: 'I'm doing this, I could be doing that'.

Q. Nostalgia, surely, plays a major part in the group's eternal popularity. Is it nostalgia for you?

A. For me it was going down memory lane. I didn't anticipate that we'd have new musical experiences together and I didn't anticipate that it would go on. It's definitely mushroomed and I started thinking like I did in the 60s, that it would take over. But I've been fortunate I've had the energy to also do other things.

Q. So does it make you happier now than it did back in the 60s?

A. Yeah. I'm lucky to have a level of fame that's very, very down home. I don't get mobbed, I don't get the paparazzi. It's a very pleasant level. I can't always be sure that people know who I am, and it sometimes comes as a shock that people do and sometimes it comes as a shock that they don't.

Performance

* What: The Seekers

* Where and when: Civic Theatre, tonight 8pm