Kate Miller-Heidke has conquered both the pop chart and opera stage, earning awards in the classical sphere as well as eight Aria nominations, but she can’t be accused of taking herself too seriously. Ask her about her famous vocal range and she’ll estimate that she has “about three octaves” before offering with a laugh: “I kind of think that whole thing is bullshit. It doesn’t matter.”
For the Brisbane native, it’s more important how you use your voice than how high or low you can go. In fact, on the title track of her fifth album, 2013’s O Vertigo!, she bounces along on a run of trilling harmonies before cracking up with laughter at the end, as if such bravura showmanship is a mere lark. As for her upcoming reprised role in John Adams’s opera The Death of Klinghoffer, this time at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, that side of her career takes a backseat to pop.
“Oh, they’re completely different worlds,” she confirms. “The pop thing, that’s my life. That’s my day-to-day existence and my bread and butter. The opera thing, at the moment, feels like a very extravagant hobby. Something that I studied many years ago. I love being able to dabble in it, but it’s a sideline at this point.”
For all the acclaim for her opera work, Miller-Heidke’s enthusiasm for pop is unmistakable on her records. Starting with 2007’s breakout debut Little Eve, each has grown more hell-bent on innovation, spiking pop mechanics with a manic verve. O Vertigo! manages to evoke Kate Bush (Yours Was the Body, Ghost) and the Cranberries (Share Your Air) as well as borrowing hip-hop production and themes on Jimmy (“I have a soul full of guns”), the haters-mocking anthem of empowerment Offer it Up and Drama, a team-up with the rapper Drapht. Even the sparkling ballad Lose My Shit hinges on a defiantly modern turn of phrase and doesn’t shy away from curse words from there.
When it comes to the rap braggadocio of Jimmy and Drama, she credits the influence of her husband and longtime collaborator Kier Nuttall, who wrote the latter: “He loves hip-hop and playing around with words.” She also notes that in both songs she’s playing a character. “In fact, in both I’m stepping into the shoes of a man,” she says. “As a person myself – what did you say? Braggadocio? – I don’t have that. I think I’m more shy and reflective. But it’s fun getting to play characters within the context of a pop song.”
Miller-Heidke has just announced a national tour for August, but first she’s gearing up for a performance at the Sydney Opera House for the annual Vivid Live festival. She’ll perform several songs from O Vertigo! for the first time, recreating the intricate vocal arrangements with local guests Elana Stone, Georgia Mooney and Kate Wighton. She promises a degree of reinvention, with the title track becoming a call-and-response duet between vocals and violin.
Having crowdfunded her latest album – which involved singing Happy Birthday to some lucky fans by phone – Miller-Heidke is keeping up with a changing music industry. She also casts a wide net when it comes to influences. She cites Queen and Beyonce in the same breath when discussing harmonies, and fondly recalls the novelty songs she heard as a child attending the Woodford folk festival.
Divinyls singer Chrissy Amphlett, who died last year, “loomed pretty large” for her too. “Just so powerful and scary and gutsy and cool,” she gushes. “The spiking pop songs and the ‘ooh-ooh’ [vocal] thing.” When told she has a similar volatility in her own delivery, Miller-Heidke responds humbly: “Well, thanks. I hope so.”
