Feature: What fame & legacy means to Kate Ceberano
She may have been recruiting and subverting the expectations of pop music fans since her formative years with I’m Talking, but Kate Ceberano is no ordinary artist.
Today (May 6), Ceberano releases Anthology, a three-disc, 53-song collection spanning her 35 years in the entertainment industry. It’s also the 30 year anniversary of her first album and introduction to the global stage, Bear Witness, recorded with art-pop wild hearts I’m Talking.
As one of the most consistently enthralling players in Australia’s arts sector – let’s not forget her proliferation across the television, film, fashion and theatre industries – Ceberano’s career was built on the dial of her moral compass: if she worked hard enough and followed her passion, the commercial and critical success would follow.
It did. Included in her lengthy list of accolades is one which re-wrote history; in 2014 she was inducted into the Australian Songwriters’ Association Hall of Fame, becoming the first woman to receive the honour.
“I thought ‘Well that’s quite a responsibility isn’t it?’ The first and only female in the country that they’re celebrating as a female and a writer.”
While her trademark effervescence shines throughout the interview, she’s cognisant of what that responsibility means for women to come.
“We’ve only got as many women [musicians] as you can count on two hands that have been allowed to survive really,” she points out. “In my generation there’s less than a handful.
“When you get to a certain point I think you just have to be really prolific and you have to keep on truckin’,” she adds. “Then eventually you get to an age where you forever are who you are – you can’t unmake what you did. That’s really quite a wonderful place to lie back.”
It’s a full-circle moment for Ceberano and the industry which loves her. 30 years since she burst onto our MTV working up an ‘effortlessly cool’ mythology for herself, Ceberano is now known as a non-stop artist with an intrinsic adeptness for all of arts culture’s avenues.
“30 years in music and the many different people I feel I’ve been in that time…” she pauses. “It’s nice to look back at who I was. I don’t have that kind of flinch anymore listening to the back catalogue,” she laughs.
Ceberano’s background is a testament to who she is today. Ceberano was a suburban girl obsessed with the storytelling nature of music. Naturally, that comes across with an almost cinematic reveal in Anthology. Continuing Ceberano’s family affair career (her mother managed her for the first decade and her stepdad has been her tour manager for the past eight years) Anthology’s tracklist was compiled by manager Ralph Carr and the team at RCM, her mother, stepdad and husband/director Lee Rogers. It includes a cover of David Bowie’s Heroes, which she recorded with the person who introduced her to the Starman himself, her older brother Phil Ceberano.
Amidst the trips down memory lane with tracks like the Gold-certified Pash, Platinum-selling single Bedroom Eyes and 1992’s ARIA #6 cover from Jesus Christ Superstar (Everything’s Alright with John Farnham & Jon Stevens), she’s snuck in two never-before-released songs: Ceberano secured the rights to The Castle soundtrack to cover The Carpenters’ single We’ve Only Just Begun, and she’s included her collaboration with Paul Kelly, You’re Gonna Lose Her.
Don’t let the homages to career highlights or time transcendent covers fool you though, Ceberano is still very much focused on music’s future realms.
“I know a lot of artists of my ilk are asked to do a lot of covers records at this stage and I’m not sure if that’s necessarily what I want to do as a singer-songwriter,” she says gently.
While her current projects are in their embryonic stages, she does hint that they are music related passion projects involving live performance: “In the next few years and with the next few projects I really want to find the place where I can make records sound like it’s a live performance,” she offers.
True to the life story of all music icons, Ceberano railed against the mainstream very early in her career; cue her decision to compose jazz and soul songs in the late ‘80s when the world was discovering Nirvana and Alanis Morissette. But she’s been rejecting the mainstream, and perhaps inadvertently defining it ever since – remember her self-released collection of Lullaby songs last year?
Granted Anthology is a celebration of Ceberano’s work to date, but it shouldn’t be filed under any pigeon-hole sized classifications. Anthology is the past, the present and the future all wrapped into one.
“Those songs are the framework of my whole existence,” she assures. “They are what enabled me to be able to work and have a career in song today, which is all I’ve ever wanted.”
Anthology is out now through ABC Music / Universal Music Australia
Get your copy of ANTHOLOGY here
www.instagram.com/therealkateceberano
www.vevo.com/artist/kate-ceberano
Kate is part of the APIA ‘Good Times’ 2016 concert series: http://apiagoodtimes.com.au/
Kate Ceberano managed by Ralph Carr for RCM International
www.ralphcarr.com