The Imbruglia imbroglio

There's a storm gathering around Natalie Imbruglia. The twenty-three-year-old Australian singer's first single, "Torn," a slice of acoustic-guitar-driven genius, has topped the pop charts throughout Europe. In Britain, where "Tom" spent three months at the top of the charts and was the most played song of 1997, she is a bona fide musical sensation. Now comes Imbruglia's chance to crack America with her debut album, Left of the Middle (RCA), a collection of stylish pep and rock songs. One of these, "intuition," contains the following lyric: "Intuition tells me / How to live my day / Intuition tells me / When to walk away . . . 'Cause intuition tells me that I'm doin' fine / Intuition tells me when to draw the line." It could be Imbruglia's mission statement.

TRACEY PEPPER: What was it like where you grew up in Australia?

NATALIE IMBRUGLIA: I grew up in a beach town. My parents are working-class; I don't come from a showbiz family.

TP: What do your parents do?

NI: My father's not working at the moment, but he's owned businesses, fixed them up, and sold them. He owned a plant nursery and a news agency, but originally he was a screen printer. My mum is a schoolteacher. I have three sisters.

TP: Have you been singing since you were a little girl?

NI: I danced from the age of two to sixteen, taking ballet, jazz. and tap six days a week. At thirteen I started with singing and acting lessons, which is when I realized I didn't want to be a ballerina anymore. So I started branching out. I dropped out of school. did four commercials within a six month period. then got a part in Neighbours [the long-running Australian soap] when I was seventeen. It changed my life overnight. It was security and it was exciting. and I didn't have time for singing. But up until that point, I was heavily into it and always planned to make a record.

TP: Before I'd heard your music, I only knew you were a former Australian soap star. Automatically, I suspected your image would be that of a manufactured pop starlet. Then I heard "Torn" and realized you were anything but that.

NI: That's the assumption people make. People don't expect you to be good if you come from a soap. They expect you to make a dance record, wear a miniskirt, and be cheesy.

TP: Was there ever any temptation for you to go that route?

NI: No way. I mean, I couldn't pull it off. I'm so scared of being see-through that I won't do any thing that's not me. I would hate for people to think I'm trying to be something I'm not, that I'm trying to ride a wave or using my profile to make a buck. The only way to avoid that is to be yourself, 100 percent all the way.

TP: But you always wanted to be a singer.

NI: Yes.

TP: What did you do after you left Neighbours?

NI: I went to London and got caught up in the whole party scene. I thought I was pretty cool because the show was popular. But I couldn't get any acting jobs because I didn't have a work permit. So I was stuck in London thinking, I don't want to go home, because I'm too proud.

TP: Why didn't you start singing then?

NI: Singing was just not an option. I was completely terrified. I had brainwashed myself into thinking that making a record if you were on TV was a bit of a joke. I didn't want to be a joke.

TP: But Kylie Minogue came out of Neighbours and she did OK for herself. I mean, no one compares her to Aretha Franklin, but she's not ridiculous.

NI: Kylie's done very well, but she's one of the few who succeeded.

TP: Didn't anyone close to you encourage you to give it a try, knowing that's what you really wanted?

NI: My family always said, "When are you going to sing?" and I would get frustrated and scream because it touched a nerve. But I was scared of failing.

TP: Did you ever feel depressed about not being able to do what you wanted?

NI: Absolutely. That's when I started writing songs. I had no money left. I had no work. People I thought were my friends turned out not to be. So it was a turning point in my life.

TP: Obviously, your record company had the faith to hook you up with serious songwriters and producers rather than try to turn you into an Aussie pop puppet.

NI: My record company lets me wear what I want. I'm involved in all the decisions. They don't tell me what music to make. Maybe if I hadn't come up trumps, things would've been different. But if RCA had said to me, "We love your look. We love your voice. But we want you to sing different music," l would have said no. I'd rather not do it at all.

TP: Had you been offered record deals before?

NI: My first offer came when I was fourteen, for a slot in a girlie band. When I auditioned, they said, "We would have signed you solo." But I had the feeling those guys were just trying to cash in on young girls.

TP: Well, that's how the Spice Girls started They were hooked up by a couple of Svengali types who wanted to engineer a girl group.

NI: That's exactly what these guys were trying to do, but it just was not me. l could never conform to a group situation. So when they offered to sign me as a solo artist, I was like, "Can I think about it?" They couldn't believe it.