Ingrid Michaelson
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Ingrid Michaelson

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As a little girl growing up on Staten Island, New York, Ingrid Michaelson just wanted to make people laugh and cry.  Naturally, she picked acting as a career path early on.

As a little girl growing up on Staten Island, New York, Ingrid Michaelson just wanted to make people laugh and cry. Naturally, she picked acting as a career path early on, often fantasizing about being a famous comedienne, but it was a brief brush with a piano in her teenage years that made her realise her true creative calling.

“I was a part of a theatre group that went on a Christmas carol tour,” she recalls. “The whole time I’d actually been writing and playing little songs but nobody ever knew. I always considered myself more of a performer so I was more comfortable singing someone else’s songs and I never wanted to sing my own. During this Christmas tour I found a piano in the venue and I played my little songs quietly as the actors were moving around and eating lunch and trying on their costumes… And one of them said, ‘Hey, you’re pretty good, you should play music’ but I said ‘No, I want to be an actor’.” However, it didn’t take Michaelson long to figure out that while acting allowed her to perform, music allowed her to pour her heart out and fully express herself – the only problem was nerves…“I was really scared performing in front of a lot of people, especially something that came so personally from within me,” Michaelson confesses. “When you’re an actor, you’re not really doing your own thing, you’re acting out a part and usually there is a script involved. Acting is also very competitive – there’s always someone prettier and skinnier than you. I focused everything on my music because I realised that I was better at it than at acting. But I still wanted to make people laugh and cry and impact them in some way.”

When her debut album Everybody reached the number one spot as the most downloaded album on iTunes last year, Michaelson knew she’d made the right choice. Hand-picked by the likes of Jason Mraz, Keane and Dave Matthews for national support slots across the US, Even Jay Leno and Ellen Degeneres wanted a piece of the singer/songwriter as her reputation for theatrics and soul-stirring lyrics grew exponentially.

“Some people tell me that they’re easily fooled by my music,” she laughs. “The songs can sound really happy and upbeat, but if you listen to the lyrics, they’re actually pretty sad. The album is a year old now so by the time you put out a record, to an extent you’re already ready for your next one.

“Certainly,” she adds, “there are some songs you don’t care about anymore after it’s been a while but there are some that continue to grow with you throughout the years. You start to appreciate and over them even more than when you first wrote them. For me, Girls And Boys is one of them. The whole record is pretty autobiographical. It forms an arch almost, because it goes from starting a new relationship, then all the things that happen throughout it, and it talks about how it never really hits you when you want it to hit you until it falls apart. Some of the songs are actually really hard for me to play at this stage because I remember all the bad feelings.”

Nevertheless, Michaelson is trekking over to Australia to share them with her Aussie fanbase, which she still genuinely seems shocked about even having.

“I didn’t even know anybody knew about me there!” she laughs. “My mother’s cousin’s daughter lives there and we were pen pals for a while so that’s the only Australian that I know about. She sent me this leaf from one of your gum trees, so I’m looking forward to actually seeing what the tree looks like. Hopefully there will be a koala on it,” she smiles. “I’m kind of like an 80-year-old in a 30-year-old’s body; I like knitting and cooking,” she adds with a chuckle. “I like the idea of making music like you would bake a cake. When you’re baking, you’re using different ingredients and when you’re making music you’re using different herbs and spices and sauces in terms of melodies. You’re putting a song together like you would a nice meal. Sometimes it can be frustrating because there are so many possibilities that you can work with. It’s not a bad complaint to have.”

According to Michaelson, Aussie audiences are sure to leave her show in one of two ways – in tears of laughter or sadness… Recalling a recent performance in New York, Michaelson says that she never knew how much her music could touch complete strangers.

“One of the very best gigs I did was one of the smallest gigs I did,” she says. “I was just sitting there playing my songs to about 70 people, and they were strangers too because I’d been mostly used to playing for my friends and family. The amazing thing was that these strange people were singing along with us. I just remember feeling this overwhelming sense of joy that not only other people were listening to my music but that they were actually touched enough to memorise the lyrics.

“A couple of months ago at a show in New York there was a girl I saw in the audience who was singing along to all the words and she was crying her eyes out the whole time! She was singing and bawling at the same time – it was so weird! People have their own lives and their own experiences, and I like the idea that she took my words but applied them to her own situation obviously.”

INGRID MICHAELSON plays The Corner Hotel Saturday November 13. Tickets from The Corner box office, 9427 9198 or cornerhotel.com. Her album Everybody is out now.