Natalie Imbruglia on returning to music – and friendship with Kylie

After a six-year musical hiatus, Natalie Imbruglia is back with that rarest of gems: A covers album that doesn’t, y’know, suck. A gorgeous collection of stripped back renditions of songs by male songwriters, Male blends the well-worn (Neil Young’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart) with lesser-heard gems (The Summer, a stunner penned by fellow Aussie Josh Pyke) and a few left-field choices (Daft Punk’s Instant Crush, anyone?)

The one constant throughout: Imbruglia’s stunning voice. Always an underrated artist, here Natalie chats to Attitude’s Nick Bond about her return to music after a period mired in record company politics, making covers her own – and holidaying with BFF Kylie Minogue (we know, we’re jealous too).

In the press notes accompanying Male you describe making the album as ‘cathartic’. That’s not a word one might usually associate with a covers album. 

Well music for me is a form of expressing yourself, and if you haven’t made music for as long as I have – it’s been almost seven years – it feels like getting things off your chest and expressing yourself. Every single one of my albums has one or two covers on them, and the process is the same: I’m trying to connect to what the song’s about. When you find that, and it’s truthful, that’s when it’s cathartic.

What was the selection process like? Was it as simple as choosing songs you love? 

It started out with lists of favourite songs. I started out, actually, thinking I might sing songs by some of my favourite female artists, and to be honest with you, I didn’t want to touch them. It felt too scary. Something about the male artists wasn’t intimidating – it felt more exciting and fun, because I could really give things a different interpretation.

But there are hundreds of thousands of songs that I love that I could cover, so it was about narrowing it down to a mood: I knew I wanted to do something quite broken down and acousticy, so it was about songs that lent themselves to that well.

Who was on the hit list, had you made ‘Female’ instead?

Acts like the Cocteau Twins, who you can’t really cover. Bonnie Raitt, Karen Carpenter, Tori Amos, Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones – all artists that have had a huge influence on me in my teenage years. You know when you first discover music for yourself and it’s not just what your parents listened to or what’s trendy? When you discover your own tastes. They were those artists.

There are certainly some unusual choices on the record – no one could’ve predicted your comeback single would be a Daft Punk cover!

Random, right? That’s my favourite on the record, because it sounds like a ‘me’ song, but the original’s so different that you couldn’t imagine me singing it. I was adamant that I wanted to try that song.

Some people might not realise your very first hit, Torn, was a cover. Does it feel as much ‘yours’ as other songs you’ve penned yourself?

Absolutely. I’ve had songs that I didn’t write, but I’ve got to make them my own. Even with this covers album, I feel like the songs are my own now – I think you have to have that attitude towards them.

Our recent Insta-stalking tells us that you and Kylie Minogue have been holidaying in Europe together. We’re not going to beat around the bush here: we demand some juicy holiday gossip. 

https://instagram.com/p/4uqKuMq3zg/

I’m not gonna tell you! We’re really good friends; just two girls having a holiday, that’s all there is to tell. Obviously we have performing in common, and doing the same job over the years has brought us closer. It’s nice to have that friendship – I’m her biggest fan as well.

Yes, but are margaritas involved on a Kylie n’ Natalie getaway? Karaoke? Holiday flings? Natalie, give us SOMETHING. 

https://instagram.com/p/4yxaCXq31b/

Zip. Schtum. I’m saying nothiiiiiing. [Laughs] I gave enough away on my Instagram!

You mentioned the long gap you’ve had between albums – back in ’05 Counting Down the Days debuted in number one in the UK charts, then four years later your last recent album, Come To Life, wasn’t even released here. Did you feel a bit burned by that experience? 

There was a lot of politics going on, and I could’ve put that album out but it was my choice not to in the end. I was not enjoying myself, so I went and did X Factor and studied acting, which was the best decision I’ve ever made. Yeah, I was jaded. The music industry had gone through so much change and I’d been inherited by so many different record labels with all the mergers… there was a lot going on. It was the right choice to step away, because I wasn’t enjoying it. I still think that’s an amazing album, but I just wasn’t in the headspace to really get behind it at the time.

It sounds like you’re in the headspace now… 

Absolutely! I’m so grateful that I still have an audience and people still want to listen to my voice. I just played to 80,000 people in Vienna [Natalie has been supporting Simply Red on tour] and had this big on-stage epiphany where I thought to myself ‘This feels really normal!’ That in itself is not normal, I know. 80,000 people and I was like, ‘Yep, bring it on!’ I felt like I was in my element.

Natalie Imbruglia’s new album, Male, is released on August 21 on Portrait / Sony Music Masterworks.