Hayley Westenra

by Hayley Westenra

  First, I was served up a bowl of rice porridge, which looks and tastes a lot different from the oat-based porridge that we are used to. The shock came when the condiments were brought to me. I sprinkled them on rather absent-mindedly and took a mouthful. There was an overpowering taste of fish. I looked more closely at the condiments and realised that I was eating little dried baby fish in their entirety, complete with heads, eyes and tails. Now I do eat a bit of fish, but never when you can see their eyes. Whitebait's a big part of many dishes in New Zealand, but I simply can't bear the thought of it. I don't like anything that watches me while I'm eating it. So that taught me a lesson about being too adventurous with food in foreign countries. Maybe I should stick to what I know. Perhaps there's nothing wrong with a piece of toast covered in Vegemite, after all.

  On my most recent trip to Japan, I was there to record a commercial for a new range of Bourbon products made from genuine New Zealand boysenberries. It was a major

  With the inspiring Ghanian girls that my Bikes for Ghana campaign is supporting

  Digging at Alfred Salter School, 2007

  Supporting the Women's Environmental Network

  With Kofi Anan at the UN building in New York . . .

  With the Dalai Lama in Derry . . .

  And with Donny Osmond at the Royal Variety Performance

  Performing with Andrea Boceili, one of my major influences growing up

  A duet with José Carreras, another musical legend

  At the New Zealand Music Awards with hip hop group Misfits of Science

  Attempting to teach Frank Skinner to sing

  Just one perk of the job: in the changing room of the all-conquering All Blacks

  With New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, as Pure went ten-times platinum

  With Steve and Giselle on my eighteenth birthday

  Signing albums at Cadogan Hall

  About to go down the tunnel in Cardiff's Millennium Stadium to sing the New Zealand national anthem

  Celebrating my eighteenth birthday with my family in London after they'd flown over to surprise me!

  Isn't my mum a brilliant photographer? She took this photo of me on holiday in New Zealand.

  launch, including biscuits, fruit juice, chewing gum and jelly. The Japanese marketplace is an important export zone for New Zealand produce, so I was thrilled when I was asked to promote the products in Japan. Contrary to what some of my friends have suggested, this didn't mean that I recorded a television commercial dressed up as a giant boysenberry, so I'm sorry to disappoint them. I did make a commercial, though, and it was a very Japanese experience.

  I arrived in a hotel room with Kathryn, my co-manager. As the door opened, I realised that there were around thirty people in this normal-sized hotel room, all waiting very quietly for my arrival. You name it – they were there: the director, producer, lighting team, cameramen, sound crew, wardrobe, makeup, advertising agency. And they all had assistants. And even some of the assistants had assistants.

  Kathryn and I looked at each other in surprise because this was not the actual shoot for the commercial, but just a meeting beforehand. The wardrobe lady presented me with the dresses that they wanted me to wear, and I needed to get changed. That meant that all thirty or so of them had to troop out of the room and into the corridor outside. Then, when I was changed, all thirty of them filed back in, looked me up and down, smiled encouragingly and voiced their approval.

  When it came to filming, there were even more people involved. The production team were very conscious that I should take breaks. These would last for one minute each while I sat in a chair with people fanning me and holding my water. It was ridiculous because in each of the breaks hordes of people were brought up to be presented to me. In the end, I had to escape to the loos just to get a breather because there were people fussing around me the whole time.

  Once everything had finished, I realised how big a deal it was for everybody there. Apparently, the commercial is on all the time and it uses my track 'Summer Rain', which I co-wrote. As you can imagine, I was quite chuffed that they had chosen a song that I had written from the dozens on my albums.

  I'm always in awe of how hard Japanese people work and I really appreciate how keen they are to maximise every opportunity for me when I'm there. They always have lots of work lined up for me, which suits me because I would much rather be out meeting and talking to people than sitting on my own in a hotel room.

  While we were in Japan making the commercial, we stayed in a different hotel from normal. Unusually, I had a day off after arriving there and I suggested to Kathryn that we go for a swim in the hotel pool. She was too tired and wanted to sleep, but I was full of energy and was determined to burn some of it off with a swim. This was going to prove to be a more difficult prospect than I had imagined.

  I walked towards the hotel spa and then discovered that I had left my goggles in my room, so I had to walk back upstairs to get them. After this false start, I went back to the health spa and finally managed to locate the swimming pool area in the huge hotel complex.

  I was a little confused about how everything worked and I had a suspicion that there would be a certain amount of etiquette, as is common in Japanese life. I was given a key and directed down a corridor by the lady behind the desk. This is going to be easy, I thought, as I walked through the door into the middle of a gym class. Flushing bright red, I backed out of the room and tried the next door along. By this stage, my stress levels were starting to rise, as I was unsure about what to expect, kind of defeating the purpose of the swim in the first place.

  I finally found the correct door. As I walked through it, I noticed a sign that read PLEASE TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES. I looked around and saw a few rows of shoes placed neatly on a mat in front of me. Next to them were rows of little slippers with the word SPA emblazoned across the front. I assumed that guests were supposed to take off their outdoor shoes and put on the slippers instead. It seemed to make sense. I put on a pair of the spa slippers and walked through the door on the other side of the changing room.

  Suddenly, a lady appeared from nowhere and screamed at me while gesticulating wildly at my feet and simultaneously shooing me back through the door. It was obvious that wearing the spa slippers in that area was not the done thing.

  I stood in the changing room and looked around. There were lockers all down one wall. I was unsure about where to go next, but I had been given a key with a number and I knew that it must match up to one of the lockers. I was already wearing my bikini underneath my gym gear, so I just needed somewhere to leave my outer garments. I walked into one area and all of the women there gave me a very strange look and pointed in another direction. So I realised that I was not supposed to be heading for those lockers.

  Nobody spoke English and I realised quite how easy life usually is for us English speakers in foreign countries. Because so many people generally do speak our language, we come to expect others to make the effort. This situation caught me by surprise and I wished I had brought along my Japanese phrase book, which I had travelled with on my first few visits.

  Eventually, I found a lady who worked in the spa. Through a mixture of signing and the odd English word, she showed me to my locker and handed me a robe and a towel. I was not too certain about anything at this stage, but I assumed that now was the time for me to get changed. I hung my gym gear up in the locker and attached the key to my wrist. Wearing the robe and carrying the towel, I set off for the water. At the same time, I hoped that I had changed in the place where I was supposed to change and that I was not supposed to be somewhere else. I was very mindful of the fact that Japanese people are quite modest, with a very definite way of doing things in their polite society.

  At this point, I did start to wonder why I was putting myself through this. Perhaps it would have been simpler to have followed Kathryn's example and to have gone for a couple of hours' sleep instead. I still had to find my way to the pool. In front of me, there were a number of differen
t doors with no signs in English. But, then again, I was probably the only crazy enough Westerner who had ever ventured this far into the spa.

  I plucked up the courage to walk out through one of the doors. Eventually, after wandering around aimlessly while trying to look as if I knew where I was going, I found the pool. Of course, I always made sure that I strode forward in a purposeful manner as if I knew where I was going, because the last thing I wanted anyone to think was that I was a tourist who didn't have a clue about what to do. One of my instincts when travelling is to avoid behaving like a tourist – I like to blend in with the locals.

  Beside the pool was a control tower with an office at the top looking down on the water beneath. A woman walked out of the office and started to make the internationally recognised sign for 'No' with her hands. I was confused. Why could I not use the pool? She pointed to a book that listed times and names. She spoke a little broken English and I managed to work out that only four people were allowed in the pool at any one time and that they were fully booked at that moment. I had to write down my name in the next available slot, which was half an hour away.

  Great! I thought. What am I going to do for half an hour? I just want to get to the pool!

  The woman told me that I could use the Jacuzzi in the meantime. As I set off, she realised that I had not showered first. This was not something that I had come across in New Zealand or the UK. She came running down the steps towards me and literally dragged me back to the showers, gesticulating wildly at them. I felt very embarrassed. It was as if my personal-hygiene regime had been called into question.

  After my shower, I was allowed into the Jacuzzi, where I sat down, thinking, Thank goodness for that! I had twenty minutes in the steaming water, getting hotter and hotter and wishing against all the odds that someone would get out of the pool early. I watched an elderly couple doing their interminable water aerobics workout in the pool where I should have been. Eventually, one of the swimmers left and it was my turn. Just as I was about to get in, the lady ran down to me again with a hair cap. She looked mortified that I would even consider getting into the pool without a hair cap. She shoved it tightly on to my head. I'm not sure which of us was more puzzled by the other's actions.

  After all of my battles to get there, I was determined to enjoy my swim. I really wanted to make the most of it, but, by this stage, my skin was starting to shrivel up because I had spent so long in the Jacuzzi.

  I climbed out of the pool, after spending a good few extra minutes watching everyone else getting out, just to see what was expected of you after you left the water. I very tentatively turned on a nearby shower, while desperately looking around me for a sign of what normal behaviour would be defined as at this point. There were more towels and more robes neatly folded nearby. With two colours to choose from, I picked the pink robe, guessing that it must be the female one.

  I walked back out through the gym area and into the changing rooms. I noticed some baths in the middle of the room, surrounded by Japanese women walking around in the nude without a care in the world. There were also seats around the edge, where other women were sitting applying moisturiser and their makeup. Everything was very neat, very precise.

  As I walked further along, I noticed a set of showering booths with stools inside. I felt that taking a bath might be an etiquette minefield and these showers seemed a much safer option. So, even though I had already showered, I took a second shower. I dried myself and changed into my gym clothes. I was probably in the wrong area, but by now, I was beyond caring. I was on the home straight.

  I rushed out of the spa and back up to my room feeling that I had achieved something that was so monumental that it was almost worth adding to my CV. A lesser girl would undoubtedly have crumbled and given up far, far earlier. When I regaled Kathryn with my tale of adventure later that evening, she found it hilarious, but must have been quietly glad that she had opted for the nap.

  Alongside Japan, America is another of the countries where I've spent a good deal of time over the past couple of years. Breaking America is the holy grail for any recording artist, and managers tend to spend a lot of their waking hours looking for opportunities to perform in front of American audiences.

  I first saw the group Celtic Woman on the PBS television channel while I was touring the States with Il Divo. With four attractive female singers and one attractive female fiddle player all aged between eighteen and thirty, they were quickly becoming a huge phenomenon. If you like, they were doing for voice what the musical Lord of the Dance did for Irish dance.

  A few months later, the team behind the group approached my management and asked whether I would perform as a guest on another PBS television special that they were recording and then join them on their tour of America. I leaped at the opportunity, which sounded fantastic. It felt as if it would be a good springboard for me in the USA and I was excited about the idea of joining a group and having a different experience. I'm always keen to try out new ways of working and, as somebody who has always performed as a solo artist, I was intrigued about the dynamics of working in a group.

  I met the Celtic Woman girls for the first time at a lunch in Dublin. I was worried that they might feel that I was muscling in on them after they had done all of the hard work, but I needn't have been concerned, since they were all lovely – very friendly and welcoming, as I've always found Irish people to be. Our lunch was scheduled for the rather strange time of four o'clock in the afternoon. Each of the girls had steak and chips, but, not really being a meat eater, I opted for the fish and chips instead. I hit it off with them instantly and they obviously had a great rapport with each other. We talked about the television show and the plans for the American tour. I left Dublin very excited about working with them.

  Soon afterwards, I was back in Dublin for the rehearsals. I quickly realised that, when you're working with a group of other people, you need to know exactly what everyone else is going to do, sing and say at all times, so that you can respond accordingly. We had lots of choreography rehearsals and, for a brief moment, I was reminded of the time when my sister, our next-door neighbours and I all dressed up as the Spice Girls. This was fun!

  Now, I don't want to exaggerate the choreography part of things because there were no dances as such. Instead, there were a lot of occasions when we move around stage, with a few skipping moves thrown in. This was all a very new experience for me in my adult career, although the work that I had done when I was very young and appearing in musicals stood me in good stead. I was very conscious of not mucking things up for the group. As they had all worked together before, I think that it all came more instinctively for them than it did for me. I was very aware that I was playing as part of a team and I wanted to make sure that everything was right so that I wouldn't ruin the show for everyone else.

  I loved the music, which is highly energetic and a big change from what I'm used to. I found that I was really in my element standing on the stage and tapping my toe to it. It was heavily amplified and, with the girls all singing, the band playing and a chorus joining in as well, it all made for an infectiously powerful sound.

  Ireland and all things Irish are very popular in the States and the television special was recorded at the beautiful Slane Castle in front of an invited audience. The castle is a great venue and has hosted some big rock and pop events in its time with concerts by everyone from U2 to Robbie Williams. The PBS concert was nerve-racking for me. At the outset it was a little strange, because all the other girls lived in Dublin and I was staying in a hotel near to the venue. So, at the end of the rehearsals, they all went home to their families and I went back on my own to the hotel. Despite their friendliness, I still felt quite the outsider.

  Everything was fairly last-minute as we prepared to record the televised concert. I started to worry about the costumes. There are only so many times that someone can be told, 'You'll be grand.' It's a nice little phrase, but it doesn't really mean much and was no comfort whatsoever.

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nbsp; There was a lot of new material for me to learn for the ensemble tracks. My solo songs were 'Lascia Ch'io Piangia' and 'Scarborough Fair', both of which appeared on Odyssey and posed no problem for me at all. But, with the group songs, I had to remember my harmonies and my lines. Unlike in a solo performance, where I sing every line of every song, I also had to remember the lines where I had to stay silent because it was somebody else's turn to sing. I also had to learn a song in Gaelic, which was a language I've never sung in before, but, after mastering the Welsh national anthem in Welsh, I felt ready for another language.

  On the day the Slane Castle concert was being recorded, our second-half costumes were still being finished off. In the first half, we all wore shades of white and blue, while in the latter part of the show we wore rather more fiery colours. My dress was gold. The set was very dramatic with lots of dry ice cascading off the front of the stage, and striking lighting effects and pyrotechnics at the end. We filmed the show over two nights, but it rained on the first night and the orchestra kept having to run off stage to ensure that their instruments stayed dry.

  The programme was broadcast in the USA ahead of our tour and I quickly realised when I got there that it had been extremely widely viewed. My first show was in Boston and then it was on to the world-famous Radio City Music Hall in New York. It was only when I arrived in America that I also realised just how major a production it all was. Ranked the seventh biggest tour in the USA during 2007, it used four tour buses that snaked their way from state to state: one for us girls, one for the choir, one for the band and one for the crew. We had a lot of consecutive shows and this made the trip demanding for everyone.

  I learned a lot on the tour and I used in-ear monitors for the first time. These are the earpieces that you might have seen singers using during concerts. It allows them to hear exactly what is going on above the background noise. I've always avoided them before, preferring to have wedges at the front of the stage. These are speakers that point in my direction so that I can hear how everything sounds. If any singer has to rely solely on the speakers that are pointing away from them towards the audience, it can be very hard for them to hear their voice and musical accompaniment clearly.