Karise Eden on bikini shoots, wanting to quit singing, naming her son Blayden and being a Belieber

KARISE Eden, the first winner of The Voice, has downsized to intimate venues. And that’s not the only thing she’s cut down and there’s more to come.

KARISE Eden has made her career more comfortable by downsizing to intimate venues. And that’s not the only thing she’s downsized.

Here she talks about airbrushing, dreaming the name of her son Blayden and why she wanted to give up singing after winning the first series of Channel Nine’s The Voice in 2012.

You’ve just done a bikini photo shoot for Woman’s Day magazine, which surprised some fans. How did that come about?

My manager called me and said ‘OK this is odd, do you want to do it?’ and I went ‘Whatevs, yeah, I’ll get in a bikini’. It didn’t really hit me until I got to the photoshoot and I was standing there in a bikini. The photographer and a few other people were looking at me and I suddenly felt like I wanted a big cloak over me. I felt really awkward. I’d been so carefree about it until it actually happened. But I was pretty lucky to be on the cover with a royal!

Women’s magazines are always being accused of airbrushing females, were you digitally altered at all?

I’ll be honest. There was a bruise on my thigh, I asked them to get rid of that. I had a scar under my rib and they took that off too. That’s it. Otherwise it’s all natural.

There seemed to be a lot of comments on your Facebook page about the shoot.

They were shocked. Some of them were saying they care about my voice and not my body. I wrote to someone on Facebook saying ‘I didn’t ask to do this, they asked me and I said yes’. It wasn’t like I was trying to show off how much weight I’d lost. I’m just doing some fun stuff.

Karise Eden shares Woman's Day magazine cover with Royality.

Presumably it’s one of those things where the money they offer is hard to ignore?

Exactly. But it was as simple as they asked and I said yes and it went well and I’m stoked with the photos. I still feel like I’d like a bit more to go in regards to the weight and the muscle tone but hey, I’m still doing pretty good considering how much fast food is out there and all the crap we eat. I’m still looking pretty good.

You’ve said you cringe when you see yourself back on The Voice four years ago.

That was the biggest I’d ever been in my whole life. I look back at me on The Voice and I weighed the same then as I did when I was full tilt pregnant. I was 86 kilograms when I was pregnant and I was about that on The Voice. That’d be right, the fattest I’ve ever been was all over national telly! I’ve been branded the token fatty. Awesome! Not that weight matters.

What’s your relationship with Facebook like?

I’m a face-to-face person. I’m sporadic on Facebook, I don’t like the keyboard warriors. I don’t need to be sitting in my lounge room at 5pm wanting to share a piece of me with strangers who love me, well, that’s their words, and then I give them a piece of me and they shoot me down. Well, there might be one or two comments that shoot you down but it’s like treading on a piece of your heart. I went out of my way to share something with you I didn’t really have to and you abuse me? Even if it’s one (bad) comment out of 300 beautiful comments that one will always hit me and that’s what keeps me off social media. I’m very sporadic with my usage. But I do love to upload stuff, reply to comments, put up baby pics. They go down better than bloody photos about my music! And I think, hang on, isn’t my music why you’re here? Nup, they just want pics of my kid!

“Lady” Karise with old mate Seal.

Karise and son Blayden — via Instagram.

Your son is named Blayden. Where did that name come from?

This sounds really hippy but I actually dreamt it. I dreamt I had two boys, we were at this stadium gig and the crew were walking around setting up this huge stage. I was yelling out to these two boys, one of the names began with a K and I can’t remember it, but I remember yelling out ‘Blayden! Blayden! Come here Blayden!’ I woke up and said to my partner ‘His name is Blayden’. We liked the name and we Googled it and there’s like eight Blaydens in Australia. I’d never heard the name before in my life.

So there’ll possibly be another son in the future?

Maybe. The only thing that trips me out was the other boy was older and I’ve never been pregnant before so ...

Karise shows off her new body and says there’s work still to do. Picture: David Hahn

What did you think when you heard the song Seal said was inspired by you — Let Yourself?

I feel really honoured and privileged to think he’d write a song for me. But my initial reaction was ’Oh you cheeky bastard!’ I love it, it’s a great novelty to show my mates, how many people can say Seal wrote a song about them?

He even calls you ‘Lady Karise’ in it ...

I said to my friends ‘You shall now call me Lady Karise’. No more of this just Karise business, it’s Lady Karise.

Are you still in contact with Seal?

We haven’t spoken for a while. We kept in contact a lot after the show but four years is a long time, we drifted off, but I’m sure if I called him tomorrow we’d be fine. He’s a really great man

Seal.

Seal said he hopes you tour more. That seems to be something you’re doing.

Touring’s my favourite thing. That’s the bit I like to do. I hate public speaking and all the other bullcrap that comes with this job. But I want to do more and more touring, it’s great having a good working relationship with my partner. On this tour we have to do every alternate weekend, Blayden’s at that age where he is crawling around and trying to put everything in his mouth. That’s not great in band rooms and back stage, it doesn’t suit him where he’s at in his life at the moment. You definitely have to get in new routines touring with a kid. Instead of just getting up and going onto the plane you have to get up three hours earlier, feed the baby, clean all the bottles, pack everything. It’s definitely a different routine. But for the future I’ll always be touring, I just love singing.

Chair turner: Karise Eden says she no longer watches The Voice — on TV anyway. Picture: Adam Yip

Do you still watch The Voice?

I don’t really watch it. I lived on my property with no TV for two years. I’m not some crazy hippy who totally lives off the land. I still eat Maccas and Hungry Jacks all the time. We had a thunderstorm, it blew the antenna off the top of our roof and I thought ‘Hey I kinda like having no TV. More family time’. So I didn't really follow The Voice. I catch up with it online. There’s been some good singers on there. I really enjoyed Ms Murphy and Steve Clisby on the second series, I bought some of their songs so I guess I technically voted for them.

Does The Voice seem like a lifetime ago?

Definitely a different life. These days I’m on a farm in Queensland, I’m originally from the Central Coast. I’ve definitely lived a different life since then, I’m now a mum, I’ve travelled the world, I own my own property and cars. It’s four years ago, that’s long enough ago.

Your touring schedule seems to be in intimate venues, I presume that’s deliberate?

I’d much rather sing to a small audience, chill out, no stress. I came into the industry guns a’blazing, the whole TV side of things is very stressful. It was full on. It’s nice to learn now how to do this sort of work carefree. I’ve formed relations with musicians and people in the industry now where it’s a relaxing experience. That’s what music’s supposed to be.

You went through a bad patch after the show, being thrust into fame and the music industry overnight as a teenager.

I kind of lost direction for a while, I didn’t want to sing any more. I didn’t want to use my body and what’s in my stomach and my throat for someone else just because they told me to sing on that day. I’d be like ‘No, I don’t want to just because you told me to’. That was just because it was so stressful. Now it’s nice to be more intimate in my gigs, have more of a smoky bar vibe. I can chill out and actually get to converse with people in the audience.

What changed?

My attitude. A year after the show everything erupted like a bloody volcano. For me my normal routines is to avoid confrontation. Which means I’m like a Coke bottle, you shake me shake me shake me and then I pop. The moment I popped I realised I had to stop having the attitude I had. It was a case of sitting down and saying ‘OK, now can we talk about what I really want to do as a singer? Thank you for the great opportunity, I’m blessed to have this voice and it’s amazing to have fans and to make an income but I really want to do it a different way because this way isn’t working’.

Old school Karise in The Voice mode.

Eden on The Voice finale in 2012.

You still don’t seem cut out for the celebrity side of the music industry.

I live out on 13 acres, two hours drive from Brisbane airport. I kinda like to keep it that way. I might be moving up to Bundaberg soon, on about 100 acres. I just want to go home to acreage and not a lot of people, breed and kill my meat and grow my own veggies with that simple family life. Every now and again mum has to go to work. And of course I don’t just work down the street and drive 30 minutes. I get in my car, drive two hours to the airport, fly for an hour or two, get there and live that on the road life. It’s nice to be able to retreat after it’s done.

How are you with interviews now?

I’m cool with interviews, it’s just more public speaking. It’s just confidence, age, maturity that’ll get me through.

But you’re not nervous on stage?

For me on stage it’s totally turn your nerves into excitement and then it just happens naturally. Then I just get impatient, come on, I want to get on stage.

Intimate: Eden now prefers to play smaller venues and get closer to fans.

There’s a perception that all you listen to is Janis Joplin and Led Zeppelin. What new music is on your iTunes that would surprise people?

I love The Rubens, The Black Keys, Sia, Beyonce. I was raised on Destiny’s Child, Jagged Edge’s Let’s Get Married. Mariah Carey’s We Belong Together. I love all that. Zara Larrson, I bought that track. I’m loving the new Justin Bieber songs, Love Yourself, I love that song, I downloaded that.

What about Adele?

For me personally she’s always been an artist where I haven’t necessarily bought her album but when she comes on the radio I know all the words and I turn it up. I saw her on that Graham Norton special and she was bloody brilliant, listening to her talk, I thought I’d go and have a bourbon with her, I felt like we’d get along.

SEE: KARISE EDEN, Bribie Island RSL, tomorrow. Kedron Wavell Services Club, Saturday. Wynnum RSL Sunday. Cambridge Hotel Newcastle, Feb. 18. The Basement Sydney November 19. Central Hotel Shellharbour Feb. 20. Flying Saucer Melbourne Feb. 26. Melbourne Zoo Feb. 27. Caravan Music Club Melbourne Feb. 28. Tickets kariseeden.com.au/tour

EMAIL: [e-mail]

JOIN CAM’S FOLLOWERS ON TWITTER: @cameron_adams

Originally published as Karise Eden on bikini shoots, wanting to quit singing, naming her son Blayden and being a Belieber