Hayley Westenra (8 page)

One of my early discoveries was the Tube. We don't have an underground system in Christchurch, so it was a real novelty. I was amazed by how easy it is to use and the fact that it will take you anywhere you want to go in London, once you have mastered the art of reading the map. It gave us the independence to go where we pleased around London, although we didn't have to use it twice a day, every day, in the rush hour. So I can appreciate that familiarity might breed contempt after a time.

I'm lucky enough to keep 'showbiz' hours, which tend to mean later starts and much later finishes than most workers, and, whenever I do have to join the commuters on their way to the office, I realise why so many people are not as enamoured with it as I had initially been.

Soon after I'd arrived in London, I was told about an important morning meeting. It was all very sudden and
nobody had been talking about it. It just appeared out of the blue in my diary. For some reason, I didn't think that I needed to be there. Mum told me that I absolutely did have to attend. I rushed into the shower and was still getting dressed when one of the guys from the record company knocked on the door. I didn't quite understand why there was this sudden urgent need to get me to Decca's office, but all became clear when I walked through the door.

It was my birthday and everyone had gathered together in one room ready to surprise me with a party. I was so embarrassed because my hair was still wet and I was not looking in the least bit glamorous. It was very sweet of them, especially as I was so far away from home, although I've discovered since that, once you've been around for a while, record companies tend not to care quite so much about your birthday. When they are attempting to make a good impression at the beginning, they tend to try a bit harder.

The main reason for my having flown halfway around the world was, of course, for me to make my first album for Decca. Although London remained our base, the record company decided that I would make the album in Dublin with the producer
Chris Neil and the Irish composer
Ronan Hardiman. It was a wonderful creative process and I enjoyed working with both of them enormously. Working in the middle of the Irish countryside has its good and bad points. On the positive side, it's a beautiful country, with the friendliest people you could ever imagine. I also discovered the joys of Irish soda bread and, whenever I'm in
Ireland now, I always have the most heavenly breakfast ever: Irish soda bread, a little butter and strawberry jam – it's the perfect way to start the day.

I also had my first experience of Guinness after both Chris and Ronan managed to persuade Mum and me how good it was for us. He told us that it used to be prescribed to pregnant women because it was high in iron. Anyway, we
were easily convinced, so, at the end of each day's recording, I would drink half a pint of Guinness – purely for medicinal reasons, you understand. I still have the occasional half now, but I drink it with blackcurrant these days.

Working on the album was a real family effort and it was a lovely relaxed atmosphere. Ronan had two young children,
Ellie and
Sam, who were great to have around.

The downside was more due to location than anything else. We were stuck in a hotel in the middle of nowhere and the room service was very expensive. There was no supermarket, so we were totally reliant on the hotel kitchens. The menus didn't change that much and living there for two months meant that things became a little monotonous on the culinary front – especially since both Mum and I are not big meat eaters. We would have much preferred to have been put in a little flat where we could have cooked meals for ourselves. It would have been much more our style. It really was not ideal and we felt completely cut off, with a long walk before the nearest stop for a bus to take us into town.

One of Chris Neil's greatest strengths was in picking songs. He found some really wonderful tracks such as
'River of Dreams' and
'Dark Waltz'. Over those two months in Ireland, we made an album, which I loved at the time. I was so excited about the whole concept of having my own new songs to work with. Another one of my favourites was
'Who Painted the Moon Black?', which was written by
Sonia Aletta Nel, who comes from Namibia. I was really pleased with the album that we handed over to the record company. I had played some of the tracks to my friends back in New Zealand and they had thought that the album had a very cool, New Age vibe to it.

But the bosses didn't like it. It was a little bit too synthesised for the record company's tastes and it was not the classical-crossover album that they had imagined. There were a few more beats on the record than they might have
expected and it was quite electronic-sounding in places. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I understand completely why they made that decision and I agree totally with what they were saying. But, at the time, I was really disappointed because I had been psyching myself up for the album release. I had poured my heart and soul into everything that we had recorded and it was very hard to find that they had pulled the plug on it. It had been a real team effort for Chris, Ronan and me – so that made the whole thing that much more difficult to bear. They were perfect gentlemen throughout and there was no great falling out, but people who run record companies are paid to make tough decisions and the Decca bosses decided that I would completely remake the album with a new producer.

When I heard the news, I never reached the stage in my mind where I thought that it had all been in vain and that nothing would ever be released. However, I was impatient for people to hear what we had done. In reality, things moved on quite quickly, especially compared with how long some artists have to wait to have their albums released. But, at the time, I was so disappointed. There were no tears – just an immense feeling of frustration.

I did have faith that we would get there in the end.

After a lot of thought, Decca decided that
Giles Martin should be the producer of my first album for them. Mum and I met him for the first time in a cafe in the very trendy Notting Hill area of London. He was much younger, better-looking and more stylish than I had expected and I didn't quite know what to make of him at first. I gave him a Maori bone carving, designed to be worn around the neck as a pendant, which probably resulted in his not quite knowing what to make of me either. I explained to him what it was, but he seemed slightly bemused by it.

We stayed in London working for quite a few more months on
Pure –
this was the version of the album that would finally be released. Mum and Dad took it in turns to fly over to spend time looking after me. The album was recorded in two different London locations: Eastcote Studios in Ladbroke Grove and
Air Studios in Hampstead. When I was going to Ladbroke Grove, I used to catch a No. 52 bus each morning. So, if you are reading this and you think that recording albums is all about glitzy locations, spacious limousines and flunkies to fulfil your every need, then you should think again. That scenario couldn't be further from the truth. I used to wear clothes designed for comfort rather than style: khaki army pants, white sneakers, a cap – all bought at a bargain price at a Kensington charity shop.

I liked those journeys to and from the studio on the bus because it meant that I could look at myself in the mirror each morning and honestly say that I was keeping it real. I was very conscious of not becoming too starry before I had actually done anything. Even though I was very young, I realised that there was a lot of hype around the music business and I promised myself that I would do everything I could not to become caught up in it. I was more than happy to walk to the bus stop and catch the bus to the studios with my little packed lunch under my arm each day. On the first day, my food included a hard-boiled egg, which stank out the studio. Giles told me how much he hated them. But he was a great joker and so I brought in a hard-boiled egg every single day, just to wind him up. Luckily, he saw the funny side!

On our days off, Mum and I would wander around Covent Garden market and discover London. But, on the days when I was recording, I followed a pretty set routine. After getting up and eating breakfast, I would set off for the studio and would always stay there through the day, until
about six o'clock, when it was time to come home, eat some dinner and watch some television, before going to bed. I never thought of it as work, though, and I'm not convinced that I really think of what I do now as work, either, although I'm trying to force myself to develop a better sense of compartmentalisation for my work and my personal life. But this is a funny job and it does take over your life. If you want to do well, you can't just say, 'No, it's my weekend, so I'm not going to do that.'

London was a very different sort of place from Christ-church, principally because of the scale. I loved the energy of the city. But I did miss the people back home. I didn't really know anybody in London who was not connected to making the album. I had Mum with me and, luckily, she's more like a friend than a mother. Even so, if you are a teenager and you have to spend an unnaturally large amount of your time with your parents, it can have its difficulties. Because of the nature of what I was doing, I needed to have at least one parent with me, so I guess that I'm very fortunate that Mum and I get on so well. When we go shopping, we fight over clothes; we enjoy watching the same television programmes and we like the same food, so we can hang out like friends. But, at the end of the day, she's my Mum and she's not in my age group.

At times, I did miss gossiping with my friends about clothes, or bands, or boys. I suppose it has made me quite an independent person and I enjoy having my own space. I love walking around London, just taking it all in and people-watching. I find doing chores such as going to the supermarket can give me a breather from music and performing, giving me time to think instead.

Giles Martin has a fantastic sense of humour and working in a studio with him was a very relaxed process with many laughs along the way. In fact, sometimes the laughing got in the way of recording, with many false starts, thanks to
Giles's legendary throwaway joking comments, which resulted in my being unable to contain my giggles just before I was meant to be doing a vocal take.

Eastcote Studios, where we made half the album, were the opposite of flashy, although they did have a real aura of rock'n'roll about them, which I found appealing. Air Studios, on the other hand, were very smart indeed. On the first day I walked in, I looked up at the whiteboard on the wall. My name was next to the sign for Studio 2. My eyes drifted along to the other names beside mine and I was shocked to discover that
Cecilia Bartoli was in Studio 1 and
George Michael was in Studio 3. They were locked away working and I didn't see either of them all day.

I've been back to Air Studios many times since and I often bump into all sorts of major recording stars. Just a few days before writing this, I saw
Chris Martin from Coldplay eating his lunch in the cafeteria. Despite its being the sort of place where lots of different stars hang out, they keep themselves to themselves and wander around with their people in their own little worlds. Everyone is quite cool and, although people acknowledge each other, they don't tend to hang around and chat. I wonder sometimes if it would be different if all the artists were Kiwis. We are far less reserved as a nation than people tend to be in England.

I first met Giles's father,
Sir George Martin, in the cafe at Air Studios. Hanging out over lunch with him was so cool – and there are not that many people who are in their eighties whom you can say that about. When it was first mentioned to me that he would be working with me on a couple of tracks on the album, I realised quickly just how big a thing it was by gauging the reaction of people of my parents' generation.

He wrote
'Beat of Your Heart' and arranged 'Amazing Grace' for me. By that stage, I was well aware of his status, experience and background. He was a real gentleman: very
kind with his comments and generous with his time. He worked especially well with Giles. It was like having a comedy duo sitting behind the glass in the studio control room, each trying to give the other a hard time in a very good-natured way. They make an excellent team.

Sarah Class was another very important member of the
Pure
team. She added a real feminine touch to the album with her orchestral arrangements. She's very clever at making songs sound slightly lighter than a man would have done. To my mind, the song that she wrote for the album,
'Across the Universe of Time', is almost fairylike, with sparkling, glittery touches that add a magical quality to the music.

One of the highlights of making
Pure
was when it came to recording
'In Trutina' from Carl Orff's
Carmina Burana.
It was the only song that I actually recorded with the orchestra, rather than laying down my vocals after the instrumentation had been committed to tape. Each method of recording has its pros and cons, but there's something very special about standing next to an orchestra and singing with them. I find that I tend to sync my voice into the orchestral sound and the resulting track can sound more 'together'. If there are eighty or so players sitting next to you, then you realise that there will not be the opportunity to record take after take after take, so the track is often a little bit more live-sounding. Occasionally, slight idiosyncrasies in a live recording can really make a track special. That said, if you are doing a difficult piece, then it does take the pressure off if you can record separately from the orchestra. You don't have to worry about getting it right in one take to avoid paying the orchestra overtime!

I was also very excited to be singing the
'Benedictus' from
The
Armed Man: A Mass for Peace
by the leading Welsh composer Karl Jenkins. He is one of the most popular and accessible contemporary classical composers around. It's a huge number and requires a big chorus. We recorded it in
Studio 1 at Air Studios, which couldn't have been more appropriate, as the whole building is a converted church, complete with stained-glass windows. There are great acoustics in Studio 1 because it has such a large area and the 'Benedictus' really filled the whole room with sound. It was the perfect setting for the piece and the atmosphere helped me a lot. It's one of the few pieces from my albums that I've never performed live and it's still something that I would love to do.

One morning, I arrived at the studios to find Giles waiting excitedly for me. He had managed to locate a Maori cultural group in London to sing on a couple of the tracks. I was a little taken aback to discover that this group existed only a few miles down the road from where I had been living, so many miles from home in New Zealand. I was very keen to have a Maori element to
Pure,
but I was not sure that we would manage to pull it off. When they came into the studio, they brought lots of New Zealand food with them to share and it became quite a party.

We also had a British choir with them in the studio at the same time. The members of the Maori cultural group were very nervous about performing in front of the choir because, although they performed professionally, they were unused to performing in the classical-music style. It was quite funny because the members of the British choir turned out to be completely in awe of the Maori cultural group and spent the whole time they were there working up the courage to ask them to perform the
haka.

As soon as the Brits finally asked, the Maori choir did the business and it was a huge hit, really breaking down any barriers that had existed between the two groups. For me, it was so exciting to have such an authentic Kiwi atmosphere in a studio in Hampstead, North London. When the two choirs sing together on 'Pokarekare Ana', they create a magnificent sound – one of the real peaks of the whole
album. Audiences outside New Zealand constantly ask me what the words to 'Pokarekare Ana' actually mean. So here is the translation.

Stormy are the waters

Of restless Waiapu;
If you cross them, girl,
They will be calmed.

Oh, girl,
Come back to me;
I could die
Of love for you.

I write you my letter;
I send you my ring,
So your people can see
How troubled I am.

Oh, girl,
Come back to me;
I could die
Of love for you.

It's the story of two lovers who are separated and is a very tragic song, although you would have been hard-pressed to realise through the buzz of excitement as we recorded it for
Pure.
It was so special to be creating this seminal New Zealand track over in London and to have a studio full of Kiwis there for support.

During the time when I was working on
Pure,
I was starting to sing in a series of live concerts around the UK with
Russell Watson, who is also signed to Decca. I had already sung with him once in New Zealand in a special outdoor concert for the American television channel
PBS. I opened the show for him and then we performed a duet on 'Pokarekare Ana'. It went down well with the crowd, so he invited me to join him on his tour of the UK.

This was a time when I was completely unknown, so it was a big opportunity for me. As I travelled around the UK, I began to get some sort of sense of the country as a whole, rather than just London. Russell was riding the crest of a huge number of record sales and was performing sell-out concerts in the big arenas usually reserved for pop acts, so it was a real baptism of fire for me.

The record company bought me my stage outfit: a little denim miniskirt and a sparkly top from Top Shop. It was all very girly, but it was the right look for me at that stage, although I wouldn't be seen dead wearing that sort of thing on stage now. 'You'll Never Walk Alone' was one of the songs that I performed as part of my set. It always went down well, although, just before I walked on stage in Newcastle, I had a quick lesson in English football teams and their songs from
Perry Hughes, Russell's manager at the time.

'You do realise that this song is Liverpool's and you're in Newcastle – a rival?' he asked me, with a big grin on his face.

'Good to know,' I gulped, as I walked on stage. I apologised for what I was about to sing and got a huge round of applause from the very friendly (and forgiving) Newcastle crowd.

Russell's tour was the one and only occasion when Mum has appeared on stage with me at one of my professional engagements. Russell decided that he wanted to sing 'Mustang Sally' and they needed to draft in some emergency backing singers. So Mum was volunteered alongside the hair and makeup artist. It was her moment of stardom and she loved it.

I'm only glad that Dad was not there, or else he, too, might have been enrolled. Love him as I do, he really can't sing or dance. Sophie, Isaac and I are still haunted by the sight of him dressed up as Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer at the Coca-Cola Christmas in the Park concert back in
Christchurch one year when we were small. We thought that Dad would make an excellent Rudolph, but it turned out that his dancing was not quite up to scratch; and, I'm afraid to say (sorry, Dad!), his singing is not much better, either. But that is the worst thing that I can say about him – other than his singing and dancing, he's the best Dad anyone could ever have.

In June 2002, I made my debut at
Carnegie Hall in New York at a concert that Russell was performing there. Once again, I performed 'Pokarekare Ana' as a duet with him, but there were technical problems halfway through my solo song. I could suddenly hear the high-pitched whistling sound of feedback. The level of the sound was starting to get bigger and bigger and I knew that at any moment it could blow into an ear-splitting screech. It's really not something that any artist would want to happen to them during their Carnegie Hall debut.

I just battled on. In a setting that prestigious, it's simply not a problem that I had expected. After all, this was not a little village hall somewhere in the country, but rather America's foremost classical-music venue. As I stood on stage, I could feel a sense of frustration welling up inside me. So much emphasis had been placed on this concert, as all the big shots from the American arm of Decca were there. A great deal of time and care had been taken over my hair, makeup and wardrobe. It was a huge deal and everything went smoothly apart from the sound – something that you would have thought they would have double- and triple-checked. People were very complimentary about my willingness to keep on going on the stage, but for me it spoiled what should have been a very special night.