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Vanessa Amorosi answers the questions absolutely everybody wants to know.<\/span><\/p>\n Does Absolutely Everybody<\/em> still pay your rent?<\/strong> It was on the first season of RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race Down Under<\/em>, getting lip-synced for your life.<\/strong> It must feel nice seeing RuPaul bounce along to your track.<\/strong> It\u2019s been almost 25 years since that song was released and it\u2019s still ever present here. What are your feelings on it?<\/strong> I went through a YouTube wormhole watching so many performances of Absolutely Everybody<\/em>. I didn\u2019t know you did it on Top of the Pops<\/em>. I know they famously liked their performances lip-synced; did you have to fight to do it live?<\/strong> What do you remember of that experience?<\/strong> Looking over your discography, it does seem like you stepped out of the limelight between 2009 and 2019. What were you doing?<\/strong> What\u2019s the wildest collaboration you\u2019ve done?<\/strong> [laughs].<\/strong> Vanessa Amorosi performs at Grapevine festival this month, with her new album Memphis Love due in November.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Perou<\/cite><\/p>\n Amazing. What year was that?<\/strong> Were there any opportunities over the 25-odd years of your career that you regret not taking?<\/strong> Damn. I guess babies take priority.<\/strong> Vanessa Amorosi with Olivia Newton-John and Tina Arena before the Sydney 2000 Olympics.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Darrin Braybrook\/ALLSPORT<\/cite><\/p>\n That whole Y2K-era you emerged from is fascinating. Did you ever have relationships with Delta Goodrem, the Veronicas, Bardot?<\/strong> Are you still in touch with [ex-manager and ex-Australian Idol<\/em> judge] Mark Holden?<\/strong> I don\u2019t know why but I read his autobiography once. He seems like a true hustler, the kind of spaces he managed to get himself into. I was shocked when I read that he discovered Milla Jovovich, the singer.<\/strong> What\u2019s he doing? Is he still in music?<\/strong> I was surprised to learn that you\u2019ve never won an ARIA Award.<\/strong> One of the great vocalists this country has produced, and they haven\u2019t given you a trophy?<\/strong> One of the moments everyone remembers is the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony in 2000. I was reading an article from back then that said, after he saw your performance, Andrea Bocelli called to do a duet. Did that happen?<\/strong> The YouTube comments on your Olympics performance are great. \u201cShe held the final note for more than 20 seconds in one breath, how!\u201d What do you remember about that performance?<\/strong> Were you nervous?<\/strong> Brisbane has the Olympics in 2032. Do you think they\u2019ll invite you back?<\/strong> You mentioned you\u2019ve been performing since 12. I read you were discovered in a Russian cabaret restaurant. What does that mean?<\/strong>
I mean, that\u2019s just one of those songs I love to celebrate with everybody. I feel like we all go back to childhood with it. Whether it still pays the bills\u2026 Look, I\u2019m lucky enough to have survived 25 years of making records since that, so I\u2019m pretty happy.<\/p>\n
Such a moment for me. I love that show.<\/p>\n
It was, it really was.<\/p>\n
I appreciate all my songs that have worked. It\u2019s blood, sweat and tears, and it\u2019s always hit-and-miss. So when you have songs that resonate and people still want to hear them \u2013 even with, like, Shine<\/em> and This Is Who I Am<\/em>, and stuff like that \u2013 I\u2019m super appreciative that people care.<\/p>\n
Yeah, that was never a scenario for me. I was very headstrong as a kid. [Singing] was the one thing I felt confident doing.<\/p>\n
Well, I had a lot of success through Europe. I toured with Joe Cocker. I was constantly on the road. Instagram is pretty amazing for that kind of stuff now because you can show everybody what you\u2019re doing, and it\u2019s not like you just disappear.<\/p>\n
Touring Europe. I think for most musicians, it\u2019s the bug, you\u2019re forever travelling. And when you stay home for a certain amount of time, you get that bug again. The great thing is there are studios all over the world so you get to make records with a whole bunch of different people that you wouldn\u2019t normally cross paths with.<\/p>\n
I did a collaboration with Hoobastank.<\/p>\n
They were amazing guys. I did a collaboration with Mary J. Blige, and she is the freaking bomb.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Ha, you\u2019re asking the wrong person. There\u2019s been plenty of collaborations. Right now, I\u2019m releasing a record produced with Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics.<\/p>\n
Not really. I mean, when I was about to have my son, I got offered to go on the road with the Rolling Stones and their first show was in Brazil. But I was having my son. So there you go, that was an opportunity.<\/p>\n
Yes, I had a very wonderful little boy who is the greatest thing ever. He\u2019s seven now. He\u2019s not into music at all. He\u2019s got the talent to do it, but he ain\u2019t doing it. I\u2019ve just got to let that be. He\u2019s got it, but who knows?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I mean, we\u2019re all in the same industry and it was very, very small. So yeah, but I mean, I\u2019ve been living in the States for a while now. I can\u2019t really sit here and go, \u201cOkay, who started when I started?\u201d It\u2019s been a bit of a whirlwind.<\/p>\n
Yeah, of course.<\/p>\n
Mark\u2019s amazing. I mean, I spoke to him last week.<\/p>\n
Um, no. Actually, you know what, that\u2019s a good question. I don\u2019t think my conversation with him last week was about music. It\u2019s always random. I love it.<\/p>\n
No, never won one.<\/p>\n
Look, I\u2019m just blessed that people still connect with my music, that I\u2019m still able to go on the road, that I\u2019m still able to rewind the clock to the 2000s to some of those hits and have songs that resonate with everybody. I can\u2019t complain, really.<\/p>\n
No, I\u2019m so bummed. It was the talk for quite some time and our teams went back and forth for a bit too. I don\u2019t know what happened with that.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s one of the most special memories for me out of my whole career. There was something about it, where I just felt everything made sense. My journey up until that point \u2013 I know I\u2019d only just started but, you know, I had been singing and working as a singer from 12 and I felt like I\u2019d been doing it for a really long time \u2013 and then when that happened and I got that moment to sing that song and take those chances \u2013 because those are some big risks to take on TV, with the key changes in the notes and just stepping up again into another key change \u2013 I look back at that and I\u2019m really proud of that moment. For me, it\u2019s the ultimate.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t nervous at all because I was young and dumb. Like now, I would be double-thinking some of those little things there. But back then as a kid, it was just like, \u201cYeah, I\u2019m gonna sing, I do it all the time.\u201d I could\u2019ve stumbled on a note, it could\u2019ve ended up a disaster. As years pass, you go whoa okay, now that you understand that moment so much more than when you\u2019re a kid.<\/p>\n
That would be amazing. I would do it.<\/p>\n
I was singing top 40 songs, but from all around the world: Germany, Australia, America. I feel it helped me as a songwriter because it gave me a wide palette when it came to melodies and instrumentation and arrangements because everything was so different.<\/p>\n