Ex Pat Files: Carla Werner: Poised To Take Off

When Carla Werner played Auckland as support for The Pretenders here in February, it was the first time she had played her original jazz tinged-pop songs in her home country.

"I nearly blubbered my eyes out on the stage at the Aotea Centre in Auckland," says Carla. "I had my family there, it was very emotional."

Currently based in Sydney, Carla was mainly here to promote her debut album 'Departure', recorded for Columbia Records in the US, and released there last August. Musically speaking, it has been a long journey back to NZ for the Northland born songwriter.

In 1989, the then 15 year old left Kaitaia with her mother, bound for Australia. After the completion of her schooling on the Gold Coast, she again left home, this time for the big city of Sydney.

"I just thought '... that's it, I want to go and make a life for myself and start writing music'," she says of the transition.

Music played a strong role in her life in NZ too - a hidden track on 'Departure' is an audio snapshot of Carla singing in the shower at age five. By 11 she was performing country songs in local singing competitions. She gave this up in Australia at 16, sick of the competitions, only to pack her guitar into the car when she headed to Sydney when barely 20.

"It was a great experience for me, a great thing to do - to bundle yourself off to somewhere where you've never lived before. It's very inspiring, and I needed that, I needed content for my music."

Carla spent the next four years playing covers with guitarist Tim Cooper, ex-of Mt Maunganui, who also joined her for the Pretenders tour this year. She says they made a decent living out of it, while she steadily developed her own songwriting skills.

In '99 she met the first in a string of producers who would work on her debut album - John Holbrook (producer for Natalie Merchant and Fountains of Wayne). She initially signed with Australia label Engine Room Music, and over the next two years did some recording with Carmen Rizzo (who has produced tracks for Alanis Morrissette and Paul Oakenfold), and recorded a couple of additional tracks with another long time collaborator Lucius Borich.

She had a brief moment in the spotlight, singing on a track by DJ Oakenfold which hit number one in the UK dance charts in 2002.

Carla approached record labels in the States with her heartfelt collection of material and eventually signed to Columbia Records in 2001. Final tracks were completed with Ken Nelson (Coldplay producer), who also mixed the album.

"I think in an odd way all four producers suited me. They fulfilled some need that I had in my musical mind at the time. They're all very different people and they brought something new to the project, all four of them, individually."

Despite the checkered recording timeline, the album's collection of melancholy-tinged pop songs still hold together as a strong debut. A contributing factor to this was no doubt because the project has always remained in Carla's control.

"As far as the collaborations went, the songs were already written pretty much, and it was just a matter of going into the studio and saying what we wanted. So I never felt that there was contention there about being able to sort out what it was the song needed."

She also knows what she wants to say lyrically. There are some beautiful turns of phrase on 'Departure', with that fine line tread between dreamy-eyed ballads and lonely-soul searching, like these lines from Wanderlust:

"You missed the world again for sleep/ Mistaking wolves again for sheep."