ANNIE CRUMMER

Rip It Up, Issue 185, 1 December 1992, Page 4

ANNIE CRUMMER

’PRACTISING WITH MY MARIE OSMOND AND OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN ALBUMS WAS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HOMEWORK"

"Annie says she's sorry to hear about your son being ill, she's such a sweetie like that," said Jeremy from Warners. He's trying to convince me Annie Crummer's a sweetie? Why's he bothering? One glance, one word, and you can tell she's a major sweetheart. Crummer is small and fun and even says later: "I can make you laugh, I'm a very, very funny person". She runs around waving a set of immaculate nails and apparently has a ton of energy, despite shooting a video earlier that day. Professionalism, I guess, after all, she's been in showbiz all her life. Now, at 26, she has released her first album, Language, a pop-soul luurve thang that doesn't really do much wrong. It's taken years, but better now, according to Crummer, than before she was really ready. "Had I said yes to actually recording a whole bunch of songs five or six years ago when I was approached by Warners it would have been a totally different album, I was a different person then. Me, now, I'm

just a lot more confident, I can look at you and say 'no, I don't like that', whereas back then it was 'you know what you're doing, you're the professional around here'." It must be a personal growth thing, because the new, mature, confident Annie Crummer is ready to stop singing all those backing vocals for the likes of Jimmy Barnes and step out for her share of the spotlight. "Doing backing vocals is quite lazy as well. And convenient. Being able to sit back. If I make a mistake it comes across as Jimmy's mistake, visually it looks like his responsibility to have his band hot. I still have responsibility to get things right, but I love singing with other people, that's why I've done it. When The Cat's Away — I've always sung with other people, Dave Dobbyn. Even jingles, anything that left me back here, very comfortable, very easy. So it's a big step for me now, to be going out there as a solo artist." Crummer has now had the task of searching for her own musical identity.

"Yeah, I did jingles for many, many years, like seven years and in doing them you lose your identity. I started thinking 'what kind of singer am I?' because for jingles you're allowed to act, you don't have to be yourself, you're allowed to sing like a nun or a man or a shopkeeper or whatever. I was very lazy and the money is very good in jingles as well. "But I thought 'wow, I better stop doing these', so I stopped about three years ago, leads that is. I still do backing vocals, because I love doing

them and I can get away with doing that. But I thought 'come on cuz, you better find which one's you'. When people listen to the album, there are actually many sides to me. 'Seven Waters', that's my rock song, my white song, then I've got these little bleeders like 'Make Up', you know, 1 get depressed." For Language Crummer was sent all over the world producer and song hunting, even meeting big names like Quincy Jones, but ironically it was home which provided the right producer in Nigel Stone. "I thought, 'l've seen what's going on over there and it's just as good here as it is anywhere else'. And I know the musicians here and they know me, and Nigel and 1 have worked together for many years and we know each other inside out so it just seemed so obvious and I felt like such a fool leaving it that long." Crummer saw about five or six producers, but describes the process as a "two-way thing". "They had to like me. The interest is if they like me, rather

than the other way round. I adore everyone out there, I got to meet some amazing people. Just to have the pleasure to meet them, when I met them I said, 'you guys have been feeding me for years and years and years' and it's just such a pleasure to be allowed to have a meeting with them, it's not very easy to get through there. Because I'm with Warners it's a little bit easier, it really is a case of who you know, but once you know them you better be damn good at what you do, because then it's what you know." And

what Crummer knows is singing, having had a father who was "the Pat Boon of the Cook Islands" and who made her practice every day when she came home from school.

"Practising with my Marie Osmond and Olivia Newton John albums was more important than homework. And my brothers had to leave me alone with our Three-in-One Majestic stereo. True, man, that was what I had to do, come home, have a big feed and practice, just sing along with them. That definitely came before homework. That's all I've done since I left school.” Fans will be delighted at the inclusion of Dave Dobbyn's 'Guilty' on the album, a song Crummer's been doing live for some time. Amazingly, the recording is the original demo. She and Stone tried to re-record the song with a new band but "nah — stink. You shouldn't mess with something that has magic already. 1 get so proud to say it's a demo."

Also on the album is Dobbyn's 'Oughta Be In Love', and 'Make Up' a Mahina Tocker original. 'Provocative' and 'Sur-

render' are written by Keith Reid (who wrote 'A Whiter Shade of Pale') and Maggie Ryder. Crummer laughs about

covering Boston's 'More Than A Feeling', calling it camp, but then corrects herself, "I'd better not say that —Jimmy's on that one!" But the exciting thing for her is co-writing two songs ('Language' and 'See Forever') with American professional songwriters Don Freeman and David Batteau. She's never written anything before and says it's a big test. "I'm looking forward to exploring the songwriting side of me. 'Language' just came about driving from Wellington to Auckland and I was quite ex-

cited, thinking 'wow, is that what happens to songwriters?' I couldn't wait to get back to my friend Barbara Griffin who plays all the keyboards on my album, she's amazing, I just say 'can you get this out of my head?' She just knows me, so thank God I have her otherwise it's going to be stuck in there for ages. And to actually have it all come back to you, everything that you've heard, is a wonderful feeling. "I'm just going to go to my limit really, I'm not going to say 'wow, for the next album I'm going to write all the songs', because I'm not stupid, you know. I want good songs and if you give me a good song, I'll sing the hell out of it." This sounds like the blossoming of Annie Crummer. "Oooobh, scary!"

Crummer takes her eightpiece band on the road from the end of December, with Herbs supporting in the North Island. Look out for her in the resort towns - she could well define the sound of the summer.

FIONA RAE