Kate DeAraugo makes a comeback after hard times. Plus: Where Australia’s pop stars are now
Some of Australia’s biggest singers including Kate DeAraugo have undergone complete life changes since being a musician. See where they are.
Music
Don't miss out on the headlines from Music. Followed categories will be added to My News.
It’s a long way from sitting on top of the chart to appearing in court on drug charges, or swapping the Australian Idol stage for the skies with a job as a pilot. Some of our biggest singers have now gone behind the scenes or into a totally different business. Here’s an update on where some big names are in 2021.
KATE DEARAUGO
Kate DeAraugo isn’t calling it a comeback, but doesn’t mind if you do.
The Melbourne singer won Australian Idol in 2005, then joined spin-off girl band Young Divas and enjoyed more success.
However by 2012 her music career was struggling, with DeAraugo taking part in celebrity weight-loss reality show Excess Baggage after previously signing a deal to be a Jenny Craig ambassador.
In 2015 DeAraugo returned with an independent single, Shut Your Mouth, and had a second album and even an autobiography in the works.
Then nothing. DeAraugo had fallen into a serious ice addiction, which became public when she was arrested in 2017 in Shepparton for possession of crystal meth, carrying a knife and tomahawk and allegedly driving with drugs in her system.
She pleaded guilty to the charges in November 2017, and was put on a community corrections order instead of being sent to jail. Her lawyer told the court she’d started using drugs at the height of her fame, and had spiralled into an addiction.
That was then. In 2021 DeAraugo has been clean for three years and after dabbling in small gigs in her hometown of Bendigo, she’s living “a normal, vanilla life” loved up in Melbourne.
DeAraugo will join Tania Doko, Prinnie Stevens and Mark Williams to sing Fleetwood Mac classics with an orchestra at shows in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and the Gold Coast from August to October.
The 35 year old said she realised she was ready to return to music a year ago.
“My heart just told me it was time. I thought I was done with music, that it was something in my past, but when I just did music for myself I remembered how much I love it and how much joy it brings me. I left it up to the universe and this is what landed in my lap.
“I’m going into this with no expectations and I’ll take what comes. If it doesn’t come I’m OK with that too. My main concern in my life is my happiness and my wellbeing and that of the people I love around me.”
DeAraugo said she hopes the narrative around her career can be turned around.
“I just want people to remember me as Kate the singer instead of all the other stuff. My past is my past. It got a bit hairy there for a while but it’d be nice to not be known for that life or losing weight or the court case, I just like to sing songs. I’m a really different person these days. In the past I was really caught up in a lot of other things and unable to enjoy music.”
DeAraugo said she wants to get around to finishing her autobiography and maybe salvage songs from the album she never got to release.
“I’ve got some pretty interesting stories to share. (What happened) wasn’t ideal, it’d be nicer if no one knew but that’s not the way it was. I knew I was in the public eye, it still didn’t stop me, but it hurt my family and the people close to me, which was more painful than what it did to me.
“I am super grateful to be here. Not many people get out of where I ended up, it was a very hard time. I know that I’m one of the lucky ones that got out and got to have another shot at life.
“But I have a story that should be shared. If my story can help that would mean the world to me and make it not all for nothing. But I won’t do that until when the time is right, and when I’m ready.”
As well as prepping her musical return, DeAraugo has just finished studying and has a certificate in civil construction.
“It’s a lot of fun, working with excavators, bobcats, forklifts, front end loaders. You learn how to build stuff, build a road. It gives me the opportunity to go and work in the construction industry, it’s important to have other options especially in the music industry now during Covid. I can go out onto a job site and get my hands dirty and still earn money and be OK.
“I like getting dressed up and that life, but I’m most comfortable in comfy clothes and work boots.”
Seven Wonders – The Music of Fleetwood Mac Orchestrated, Her Majesty’s Theatre Adelaide August 20, Palais Theatre Melbourne August 26, The Star Gold Coast September 17, State Theatre Sydney October 15
MERRIL BAINBRIDGE
She’s the unlikely pop star who wound up with one of the 90s most unlikely No. 1 hits.
In 1995, Melbourne musician Merril Bainbridge’s self-penned Mouth finally reached the top of the ARIA charts, sending six weeks in pole position. Belatedly released in the US a year later, it’d soar to No. 4 and went top 5 in markets from Japan to Hong Kong and has sold over a million copies.
Bainbridge’s follow-up Under the Water (featuring late blues musician Chris Wilson, typical of her quirky choices) reached No. 4 and despite more releases (including a cover of I Got You Babe with Shaggy) she’d never enjoy the same level of success. When record company politics saw a third album shelved in 2003, Bainbridge stepped away from the music industry.
“I felt that (unreleased album) was my best body of work. I got to release one single from it, and around that time I’d just had my son. I went on a little promo tour, it was the first time I’d been away from my son who was about six months. By the time I got back home I had a lot of separation anxiety and he had it from me being away, he didn’t make eye contact with me for 24 hours. I thought ‘OK, it’s time for me to concentrate on being a mum’ so I had a break. And that break just continued.
“I had a taste of it, having success in the States, I could see what a big career would be like. It’s very demanding. As much as I love singing and performing and songwriting I didn’t want it to consume every part of my life. And at that level it does. It’s all you do. It felt so out of balance for me. I loved the journey of it, that I got to that point, but to sustain that is extremely difficult. I’d find it unbearable to live that way.
“The spontaneity, that creativity in music was gone for me when I left the business. It was tortured by the record companies and the pressure of trying to follow up a big song. I’ve always been a bit outside the box, I don’t like to conform too much, I found that draining. So I didn’t really play ball like I was supposed to I guess. But you have to be true to yourself.”
That year she launched Peachymama, an global online retail outlet selling functional clothes for women who are breastfeeding – tapping back into her pre-music career in the fashion industry.
“I was passionate about empowering women at the time of their lives they’ve just had their baby. I wanted to do something creative, something I could do from home while I’m raising my kids. It just happened to be when I was pregnant my sister and sister in law were also pregnant. We all had different needs clothing-wise for breastfeeding. I made their clothes so I realised there’s a hole in the market.
“Our goal is to make it look as fashionable and current as any other piece of clothing, but it has a function to it that no one can notice it. Entrepreneur is a trendy label now, but it’s something I’ve always done in my career.”
With her son now 18 and her daughter almost 15, Bainbridge is still writing songs and a few years ago returned to the stage doing backing vocals for a friend.
“I just wanted to feel what it’s like to perform again without that pressure of being someone people know. I loved it. It got me into maybe feeling I could get out there and perform again, but it’s a lot of effort, a lot of work. I was going to go out and Covid hit, so it felt I wasn’t meant to be doing it right now.
“I’m always writing songs, I don’t think I’ll ever stop. I’m sure I’ll put music out there again when the time is right for me.”
NIKKI WEBSTER
Last year was two decades since Nikki Webster’s career-launching moment at the Sydney Olympics. This year marks the 20th anniversary of her pop career starting with Strawberry Kisses, which spent weeks at No. 2 on the ARIA chart – stuck behind Shaggy’s Angel.
However Webster almost lost her signature hit to fellow US teen pop star of the era Aaron Carter, who’d she met when he toured Australia at the time.
“We hung out a bit. My label gave me Strawberry Kisses to listen to, I fell in love with it, told them I needed it. But Aaron Carter wanted it as well, there was some backwards and forwards, but I pleaded with him to let me have it and he did.
“It reminds me of a great time in my life. I remember being 14 recording it, I’d do my school work while they mixed it, then I’d jump back in the recording booth and sing a bit more. I think I’ll be 100 and still singing Strawberry Kisses. It doesn’t bother me, it brings a lot of joy and memories to a lot of people. Whether people are taking the piss out of it or singing along to it, it doesn’t matter, people still have memories attached to it.”
The 34 year old now runs Dance @ Nikki Webster, with three studios across Sydney.
“Kids walk in and go ‘I want to meet Nikki Webster’ and I say ‘that’s me’. And because they’ve only seen me on You Tube from when I was 14 I have to say ‘No, yep, that’s me, 20 years on’. It’s nice when my daughter points out the old poster and says ‘That's you mum’. When I was wearing those crazy outfits I never thought I’d have a little girl that looked up to me.”
Webster released a new album, Girls, online last year, and while she still enjoys making music she makes a point of showing her students how much social media has changed the industry.
“I show them how hard the industry is now, what they have to do to maintain success and how the world has changed. Anyone can put up a You Tube clip and become a star now, it’s a matter of having longevity, that’s what I install in the kids.
GOTYE
This month marks 10 years since Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know was released in Australia; it’d go on to top our chart, sell a million copies and was only recently overlapped by Tones And I’s Dance Monkey as the highest-selling Australian single in ARIA history. Recorded in a shed in the Mornington Peninsula, the song would go on to top the UK and US chart. Justin Bieber recently gave Gotye a co-writing credit for his song Hold On, for its musical nod to Somebody That I Used to Know. Last month Somebody was accredited 14 times platinum in the US, for 14 million sales, tying with Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road as the most certified song in the history of the Recording Industry Association of America.
Throw in 1.7 billion views on You Tube and it’s afforded Gotye, aka Wally deBacker, the luxury of time. He’s now based in New York, just turned 41, and has become a father. He’s worked on film, niche record labels and with his other band The Basics. “The success of the last (Gotye) record makes all the projects for me possible,” Gotye told News Corp in 2017. “It’s one of the things I’m most grateful for, from the success of that song in particular.” Gotye has only recently changed his mind to allow ads on his You Tube page (a major source of income for artists in the billion views club, like Tones And I) telling US site Stereogum this month “The paradigm has changed. I decided to use the income I’d make from that to fund the other projects I’ve been working on.” He still has no rush to release a follow-up album. “I want to allow myself to be guided by other principles other than ‘This is a reasonable amount of time before you have to put out another record’.”
SISTER2SISTER
Singing Sydney siblings Sharon and Christine Muscat were spotted by Tina Arena when she saw them performing as kids at an awards event. By 1997, after Arena’s backing, they’d signed a record deal and after years of workshopping released their debut single Sister in 1999, in the era of Britney Spears. It reached No. 3 in Australia and No. 18 in the UK. The follow up, What’s A Girl To Do, reached No.5. After opening for Spears on her US tour, the would later turn to a career as MTV hosts. They opened the Sister2Sister School of Singing in Sydney in 2004 and are Delta Goodrem’s backing vocalists of choice, joining her on tour as well as social media and TV performances.
MELISSA
It’s now 30 years since E Street actor Melissa Tkautz turned pop star, hitting No. 1 with her debut single Read My Lips. Last month she told music site Chart Beats she was unaware as a teenager singing “if you want to wait ‘til later, hands off my detonator” had sexual overtones. “I’m in that film clip looking all sexy, but I had no frickin’ idea I was selling sex,” she said. “I put two and two together years later. I was a young girl. What were they thinking?” Now married with kids, 47 year olds Melissa’s last single was out in 2017 and she appeared in the first series of The Real Housewives of Sydney.
GABRIELLA CILMI
The Melbourne singer was 17 when Sweet About Me turned her into a global star overnight in 2008, winning six ARIA awards. Her record label pushed her from Amy Winehouse-lite to Kylie Minogue-lite for a second album, which tanked her career. An EP called The Water was released independently in 2019. Still based in the UK, Cilmi, now 29, recently recorded a song with UK band The Dark Flowers and has been running chats about everything from spiritual awakening to astrology on her Instagram under the banner Chillin’ with Cilmi.
CARL RISELEY
He was the jazz singer on the fifth season of Australian Idol, going on to sign a five album deal with major label Mercury and scored two jazz cover albums, the first reaching No. 5 in 2008. He’d joined Idol after losing a bet with his navy bandmates. With the music industry getting tougher, he has now reverted to his other major love, aviation. He took flying lessons with the money he made in music, and after the Global Financial Crisis hit he became a pilot to provide financial security for his family. He started learning to become a commercial pilot in 2011 and now flies for Qantas. He now has an original band, West Juliet, away from his jazz roots.
cameron.adams@news.com.au
Join the conversation
Diddy’s ‘famous friends’ could be dragged into scandal
Big names such as Jay-Z and Justin Bieber are said to be distancing themselves from longtime friend Sean “Diddy” Combs as he faces serious charges in the US.
Read more
One night only: Kylie adds Tension for Brisbane fans, with fleeting visit
Australia’s pop princess Kylie Minogue will hit Queensland for one night only when her tour touches down next year, with Brisbane scoring a single performance.
Read more