Armed with a the power of a bold, brand-new single Vanessa Amorosi launches herself back into the musical fray after nearly ten years.
Vanessa released her new single 'Heavy Lies The Head' in April, taken from a forthcoming album that will be her first full-length release since 'Hazardous' in 2009. “It's been amazing, the comeback,” Vanessa says.
“It was the riskiest choice I had there too, so I'm impressed with the fact I just bit the bullet and did it. So I'm excited about it. It really has been wonderful coming home.”
The past ten years have seen Vanessa working overseas in various background songwriting roles outside of pop music. “In 2011, I had the opportunity to go to the States and work making gospel arrangements and counter-melodies, and I was only meant to be doing that for a little while but that took on a world of its own and I got pretty heavily involved in creating that sort of stuff,” she recounts.
“Then I started working with Dave Stewart from Eurythmics and travelled with him around the world doing stuff. I've always been writing pop music, but it's only been recently that I found a team and I started really making pop music that made me excited again, and that's what's kind of led me home.”
That brings us to 'Heavy Lies The Head' and Vanessa's new album, which she says embraces a very different style of production than her previous records.
“The whole record is very out there and it's very different because I used to go back and rewrite a lot of lyrics when I was a kid and the production used to be pretty over the top, and this is kind of raw for a pop album but I love it.”
As well as leaning more toward her rock tendencies on her new material, Vanessa says the album is a risky choice for her comeback release because the songs don't adhere to accepted conventions of pop music production. “Just from a writer's perspective, normally when I write pop songs I don't ever use my low register,” she explains.
“If I'm doing stuff for other types of music or other people I will hit into a few octaves below, but not for myself. So that was a risk in itself because it's not the desirable pop sound, so to speak.
"When people talk about what is an ideal pop formula song, it's usually between the two-range kind of thing and you don't head out of that pocket.
“There's a real method to writing pop music that works on radio and this is pushing the boundaries of that. It is extremely low and extremely high, lyrically it's very edgy, very to the point – it's not where you can take it five different ways, there's only one way to take it.
"It's just not over-grammatised [sic] with production; I love production but this is more about what I'm saying versus how I dress it.”
With the new album slated for release later in the year, close to two decades on from her 2000 debut album 'The Power', Vanessa is setting herself up for the next phase of her incredible career. “I'm really looking forward to it and it's been amazing to be able to jump back on the stage and reconnect with everybody,” Vanessa says.
“It's really lit a fire for me going back to the older stuff and having that journey; it's pretty remarkable that it's 20 years – it's blowing my mind, but it really is a journey. I feel like I go on a real journey within the hour of being onstage and being back home. Just incredible energy.”
'Heavy Lies The Head' is available now. Vanessa has also been confirmed on the One Electric Day national tour headlined by John Farnham.
One Electric Day Tour Dates
Sat Nov 2 - Country Club Lawns (Launceston)Sat Nov 9 - The Domain (Sydney)
Sat Nov 16 - The Riverstage (Brisbane)
Sat Nov 24 - Werribee Park on the Great Lawn (Melbourne)
Sat Dec 7 - Seppeltsfield (Barossa, SA)
