October 16 2004

Kiwi singer Brooke Fraser tells Nui Te Koha that chart success is not the highest power.

As victory speeches go. It was off the rails. Brooke Fraser, basking in the glow of a New Zealand Music Awards win, thanked her mother for "a determined push". Most interpreted that as: stage mother snowballs daughter into the industry. But Fraser meant the ultimate push: childbirth. "There was a really long labour and they had to induce me early because I almost died in the womb," Fraser says later. "Then my mum got really sick and almost died." Fraser says though the awards-night acknowledgment was unplanned, and slightly unhinged, it was from the heart. "I remember looking at my mother as this speech came blurting out," Fraser says. "She had this look that said: 'Oh my God, Brooke, what are you going to say next?' I saw the fear in her eyes."

From the podium, Fraser, 19 gained some perspective on a year in which she became an incredible success story. She has had five No.1 singles in New Zealand. Her album, What to Do With Daylight, is an astonishing debut, sparkling in its simplicity, maturity and wit. There will be, inevitably, comparisons to Delta Goodrem. But Fraser's attack is refreshing and organic, less calculated and stylised. "I needed the essence of who I am and what I am to be communicated and preserved in the songs," Fraser says. "I wanted to be honest and without pretence."

That said, Daylight, is a precocious and assured record. "Assured?" Fraser asks. "I'm not sure. I'm a Christian and in the past few years since becoming a Christian, it has been a total process of being at peace and finding that assuredness, I suppose." "I don't find my value and worth in what other people say about me. I value the ability to create. And I believe I'm doing what I'm supposed to in life." Fraser grew up in the Hutt Valley, near Wellington. She became a multi-instrumentalist by age seven. "I kept my aspirations to myself," Fraser says. "I wasn't the person going around saying: 'So, I'm going to be this, this and this." "But there was something in me that just knew. Not in a cocky way. I didn't think I was remarkably talented or anything, but I believed God." "I believed what he called me to do." She is the daughter of Bernie Fraser, a hugely charismatic and former superstar All Black. In Wellington, Bernie Fraser is a cult figure. One end of the city's premier rugby ground, Athletic Park, is named Bernie's Corner. Fraser scored many dynamic and devastating tries there.

But Fraser's glory days were before rugby turned professional. "I remember a friend in my neighbourhood found out where we were living and that Bernie Fraser was my dad," Brooke says. "And my friend's father said: 'No way! Bernie Fraser wouldn't live in a place like that!'" "That was the attitude. People think if you are a face, or have a profile, you're rich, which isn't true at all." "We were living mainly on mum's pay, a school teacher's salary. My dad drove trucks in the off-season." "But it was only my friend's parents who made a fuss about my dad. None of my friends had a clue," Fraser says growing up with a revered All Black father gave her life lessons. "Whenever dad took me to rugby games, I loved that he never made a big deal about it. He never made it out to be more than it was. He treated people with grace and respect. He was good to people." "And that really stood me in good stead because I didn't have time for rock star attitude," Fraser says. "That doesn't benefit anybody." In the fuss over Bernie, Fraser's mother was unfairly overlooked in the equation. "I feel sorry for my mum," Fraser says, "She was always Bernie Fraser's wife and now she's Brooke Fraser's mum,"

In September, Brooke got a truer sense of herself. She left New Zealand, where she is regularly mobbed by fans, and moved to Sydney. Her first mission is radio airplay. If that doesn't happen, Brooke will tour to build her profile. "I'm up for the challenge," she says. "I wasn't expecting things to happen quickly." Culturally, Fraser is still adjusting. "In New Zealand, I might be biased - no, I am biased, let's be fair - there seems to be more of a community feel. There is two degrees of separation." "In Australia." Fraser hesitates, sensing a risky path. "I don't want to say bad things." When she left New Zealand. Fraser tasted for the first time, a backlash. A conservative broadsheet newspaper said she had forsaken her homeland. "Exit Stage Left," a headline sneered. "The whole sentiment was that I'd used New Zealand for my purposes and now I was moving on," Fraser says. "It was awful and I was gutted. And I'm still trying to combat the fallout of that." Meanwhile Brooke Fraser is ready for the next phase. "The plan is to keep taking the music to more people and giving more people access to it," Fraser says. "I have no grand ambitions to take over the world, but I believe I've got something worth sharing."

First single, Lifeline, and album, What to Do With Daylight (Sony) is out now.

- Thanks Memtree for typing it out!