Vanessa looking hazardous

Vanessa looking hazardous

Sydney Star Observer arrived for its interview with Vanessa Amorosi to find the singer clad in a tight leather dress, rock-chick tattoos bared and newly-red hair shining in the afternoon sun as she straddled a Harley Davidson for a photo shoot.

If there was any lingering doubt that Amorosi is no longer the perky teen who perfected the ‘dance awkwardly in front of an el cheapo green screen’ move in the Absolutely Everybody video a decade ago, it should be gone by now.

We met the day after Amorosi learned she’d landed her first-ever number one single, This Is Who I Am. She was in a jubilant mood.
“I’m friggin’ rapt — it’s taken years!” she enthused. The rocking track is the first taste of her new album, Hazardous, which marks a solid progression from last year’s good-but-not-great Somewhere In the Real World, with a feistier rock vibe running throughout that’s reminiscent of Pink at her most snarly.

“This album is so raw and edgy and out-there… it might scare people who’ve bought my albums in the past,” Amorosi said. “The whole album is all the stuff I’ve never wanted to talk about, and I’ve only now had the courage to put it out there.”

It also has some unlikely collaborations — as well as a guest rap from Seany B (of Flaunt It infamy), there’s an unlikely turn by the delicious Vince Colosimo on the song Snitch. What on earth does Vince Colosimo do on a Vanessa Amorosi album?

“Does what Vince does best: be hot, and talk hot,” she giggled. “Anything he says, I’d buy, no worries.”

The album is the product of an uncharacteristically quick 18-month turnaround for the singer, her previous eight-year gap between studio albums marred by pointless compilations and the David Hasselhoff-esque indignity of Germany-only releases.

“I had a lot to say with this album, that’s why it came so quickly. I think a lot of people thought I’d take my time again, which I was nervous about. We were going to head to Europe with the last album, but then it would’ve been another two years, and people would’ve thought ‘I’m tired of buying her records, she pisses off after each one’. ”

During her time in the pop wilderness, Amorosi was no stranger to a juicy rumour or two: was she installing fences in rural Victoria, as one paper had reported? Was she interred at some sort of a halfway house for Aussie ex-pop stars? Since her return to the spotlight, the rumours haven’t abated — in fact, they’ve only gotten juicier.

“The one I love is that I apparently pashed Ruby Rose. I thought that was great. But then someone else went and confirmed that it wasn’t me, it was someone who looked like me. I thought, don’t tell on me — I was enjoying that rumour, it makes me sound interesting!”

info: Hazardous is out November 6 through Universal.

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