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Diana Anaid:
A Singer Who Beat the Odds
By David Chiu
Australian singer/songwriter Diana Anaid's
feisty rock songs about relationships weren't penned because
everyone else was doing it or because she thought it was cool.
Her autobiographical songs came from having a hard knock life,
one that included the death of her mother when Anaid was a child,
living in near poverty, and an itinerant absent father.
"He just kept on traveling,"
she remembers about her father. "A lot of the time welfare
agencies would clamor after him; he would keep moving to get
away from them. A couple of times I managed to find him and that's
when we ended up in foster homes and he ended up in jail."
Anaid has come a long way from those rough
times to where she is now-a singer and songwriter with two albums,
several hit singles, and an ARIA (Australia's Grammys) nomination.
Her latest release Beautiful Obscene is her first U.S.
album and she has recently been on the road here in support of
her record.
Speaking on the phone from a hotel room
in New York, Anaid says that the record's theme is 'I can get
though this,' partly due to her own earlier personal troubles.
"It made me the person I am," she says, "and it
gave a depth to my songwriting. I write more about the strengths
within that we all need to find. It made me grow up quicker and
more mature for my age."
The songs on Beautiful Obscene are
driven and direct-sounding thanks to Anaid's aggressive strumming
on her acoustic guitar. "It means a lot to me to have it
acoustic and to have it up loud," Anaid explains. "It
makes it a little bit easy for girls to listen because they don't
like it to be hard sometimes. At the same time I really rely
on my electric guitar player and he really knows how to complement
my acoustic sound so they could blend in an individual way."
A couple of her songs deal with the trials
and tribulations of relationships starting off with "Last
Thing." She says the song is about reevaluating your life:
"It's lovely when you are in a relationship [because] you
think that's all there is in your life is this man. And then
when it all goes wrong, and after you get over the heartbreak,
you start reliving your dreams."
The sense of contradiction evoked on the record as it is on the
title track, a commentary of the dual nature of life. "Most
relationships are lovely but there's a time when some relationships
are obscene-when you are being put down, being hurt physically,
or you are not loving up to your potential. Everything I can
think about has an element of both beauty and not so beautiful."
The songs do not entirely verge on Alanis
Morrissette territory with the angry rock chick mode. For example
a song like "Addiction" could be considered upbeat.
"That's a real love song," she says, "about being
addicted to somebody and you want more of them and you can't
get enough of them; and they become like a drug to you. There
is a little bit of an element of angst in that it's kind of saying
like I already broken up with the guy, 'Can I please get back
with you?''I wanna wake up with you again' kind of thing."
The singer from Newcastle (home of Natalie
Imbruglia and Silverchair) wanted to be a singer since she was
a little girl. While all the hard times were happening around
her, music was always present in her life; she wrote songs when
she was nine, and listened to Whitney Houston and Fleetwood Mac.
Her father offered his encouragement. "Even though my dad
was kind of crazy, he once said to me that if I wanted to be
a singer, there was nothing stopping me. I should go out and
do it."
After the period of following her nomadic
father all overAustralia and struggling to make ends meet, Anaid
began her career in earnest. She played in the local dives and
events and needed the money to put out a record. Luckily, a person
from Greenpeace saw her perform and gave her the money to make
a demo disc. "That really lifted my spirits and gave me
a lot of hope," she says of that defining moment. An Australian
national radio station played one of her songs, and was flooded
with 150 calls a day requesting Anaid's tune. Soon record companies
and managers were knocking at her door. "That was when I
was really pinching myself going, 'Oh my God. I can't believe
this,'" she remembers. "This is my dream come true."
Diana Anaid is now focused on making a
name for herself in America as she did back home down under.
"I'm just gonna do the best I can and I'm stay here in America
until everyone knows who I am. I feel really lucky to even have
the chance to do a record over here. It is really the beginnings
of my dreams coming true."
Anaid's faith has helped her overcome her
personal obstacles; now with her music career, she's found some
stability in her life. "It's amazing," she says, "I
had dreams of walking side by side with people like Kylie Minogue
and Natalie Imbruglia [at the ARIAs]. It's a real honor to get
those nominations. It's even more special when people tell you
the songs help them get through a difficult break up or if their
mums died. It's really touching. That's to me the biggest honor;
that people really connect with the songs."
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