- Title: UK: AMERICAN MUSICIAN MEREDITH BROOKS TALKS ABOUT HER FAST-TRACK RISE TO SUCCESS
- Date: 17th November 1997
- Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (NOVEMBER 17, 1997) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) (SOUNDBITE ENGLISH) BROOKS SAYING, "IT SEEMS LIKE THAT'S JUST THE TREND RIGHT NOW, IT SEEMS LIKE EVERYBODY IS TALKING ABOUT THEIR TRAUMA. IT'S NOT THAT I DON'T WANT TO SHARE MY STORY, I DON'T WANT TO SOUND LIKE A VICTIM. AND YOU KNOW I SPENT MY LIFE TRYING NOT TO BE A VICTIM AND HEALING FROM EVERYTH
- Embargoed: 2nd December 1997 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA37LAZGGP5D474M40EFOVASQK6
- Story Text: American Singer Meredith Brooks was in London on Monday (November 17) in time for the UK release of her new single "I Need" - the follow up to the hit single "Bitch".
The singer's album "Blurring The Edges" has gone gold in the UK and has sold over one million copies in the United States (U.S.).
Brooks is an artist who ponders life's questions through her music, whether in the track "Bitch" - exploring the many facets of a personality, or in "What Would Happen" - which describes the frisson of a possible sexual encounter.
Quick to open up and share her feelings..the singer meditates on a daily basis and has strong views about personal politics, refusing to drink or smoke.
Brooks said her new single "I Want" is about feeling uncomfortable with a situation and having the courage to face facts and make change.
Brooks said the inspiration for the song came through the idea of finding out what you really want out of life.
"I wrote seventeen pages of the things I thought I needed and put it into that song. But the truth is I still couldn't just sit there with that uncomfortable feeling and I don't think we're ever taught to do that. But if we do do that we find out what has to change within us." Graduating from school at age 15 after teaching herself guitar, Brooks said she always knew what she wanted to do - taking to the road to start her music career.
She moved to Los Angeles where she joined ex-Go Go Charlotte Caffey in the late 1980's in a band called The Graces, which she said proved creatively unfulfilling. The group disbanded after one album.
Brooks then spent years trying to sell herself to record companies and released several independent albums.
It wasn't until recently that Brooks found success through her down-home rock style - most of it riding on her single "Bitch".
The singer said she wasn't looking so much for fame but for the progression of her career.
"I just didn't know it would happen so late in my life. I mean I thought when I was nineteen I would have been Alanis Morrisette or Fiona Apple. I didn't know it would be ten years later that things would happen for me." Ever since Brooks came to the world's attention with "Bitch" she's had to live with comparisons to Morrisette. The confessional tone of her album and soul baring lyrics do little to dispel the view, but Brooks is bored of the subject.
"It's like nobody's listening if they're comparring, that's for sure," she said.
For her album "Blurring The Edges", Brooks wrote the music, sang and played every pluck of guitar. With great energy she enthuses that total involvement in production, for her, was the only way to make the record.
"I wanted to keep it very raw and I knew my style of playing was the rawness it needed" Complying with the the current theme of "girl-power" Brooks appears to champion the role of women in her chosen career. "I would like to sit with a girl and jam. It would be a really fun thing to do and I really only jam with guys." Brooks has worked with women's groups and teenage runaways - discovering that she enjoyed communicating her ideas to people.
These people may have inspired Brooks, but she in turn, through her music, appears to be inspiring people too.
One troubled teen in particular, who wrote to Brooks after listening to "Bitch" has left an impression. "I was that thirteen year old girl, without a doubt. That letter made me cry and that letter still gets me up out of bed every single day," she said.
Song writing helped her rid herself of some personal demons - memories of her elder sister running away from home and her battle with depression which culminated in a breakdown.
Now focussed on the lighter side of life, Brooks has had enough of singers whose music imparts doom and gloom. "I spent my life trying not to be a victim and healing from everything." "If you cry you're not going to die. I may crack but I'll never shatter. That's the world...we're not in Armeggedon now," she said.
Following a few live concert dates in Europe, Brooks plans a series of concerts in the U.S. throughout December before leaving for a tour of Japan. Next summer she will appear at summer festival venues in the U.K. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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