She's back with Delta force

 

DELTA Goodrem has revealed a new look and is pulling no punches with her new single In This Life, proving she's found her feet again.

 

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In between the positive affirmations of the comeback track, the 22-year-old glamazon – who loves a boxing session – aims an uppercut at the gossipmongers who have delighted in the dramas of her personal life in the past two years.

She admits she has made her own mistakes in the second verse: "I have faltered, I have stumbled, I have found my feet again.

 

"I've been angry, And I've been shaken, Found a new place to begin."

 

But then she challenges those she accuses of a constant "punch and run" assault on her private life to "fight an honest fight" in the song's chorus.

 

"There's been a lot of battles, artistic ones as well. It's hard picking a single against the will of a big (record company) machine. Everything that means so much to you as an artist is at stake because if you don't get it right, you will get run over," Goodrem says, relaxing at a friend's bar in Darlinghurst.

 

"Also I felt for a while, when I wasn't speaking out about all the issues in my life, that I wasn't getting an honest fight. I felt I was getting railroaded by the lies that were being told about me.

 

"If you're gonna fight me, fight me honestly. If you're going to give me grief or a bit of stick, do it to my face. that's how I do it, I'm open.

 

"But it was like punch and run. If you're gonna do that to me, at least explain why. Don't hide the weapon behind your back, be a man or a woman about it.

 

"People were constantly talking about Brian and his kids and my life and they had no clue what they were talking about."

 

When Goodrem stopped talking after moving to London to start her life with fellow artist Brian McFadden, she also ceased playing and songwriting for several months.

 

The piano has been her voice for as long as she can remember but the wounded composer didn't want to use it as the instrument for catharsis as she had after her treatment for Hodgkin's disease.

 

Her reticence to pour her frustrations into music was coupled with a crisis of confidence that started after writing Together We Are One with McFadden and British hitmaker Guy Chambers for last year's Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

 

Goodrem was sent on a seemingly endless round of writing sessions with all the big names in Europe and the US, amassing about 150 songs.

 

The travel was great but the results were disappointing.

 

"I kept writing with different people and felt like I was flogging a dead horse. I didn't know what I was meant to be doing, trying to write a certain song that was just not there," she says. "I didn't want to talk about anything personal (in my music). So when I did the tour of working with other people, it wasn't satisfying or fulfilling or at all special, there were no connections made."

 

She finally turned a corner last Christmas, thanks to her new album's opening track, Believe Again, and establishing a writing team with Nashville country producer Tommy Lee James, Scottish songwriter Stuart Crichton and McFadden.

 

The gang also wrote In This Life and she cites them, as well as the team led by LA-based Australian Steve Kipner, in helping her find her passion for music again.

 

"Your best stuff happens when you find the chemistry and I found it with these guys," she says.

 

While understandably hesitant to reveal too much about his involvement at first, Goodrem credits her partner of the past two years with restoring her enthusiasm for playing and writing.

 

He challenged her to dig deep to find the "Delta piano riffs" which would always point her in the right direction for a new track.

 

They talked for hours about lyrics and choruses but not in terms of their own life; just about the universal themes which have always informed hit pop songs whether love or conquering

 

adversity or learning to be yourself.

 

"Brian had a lot to do with me getting my enthusiasm back for music because he's so passionate about it," she says.

 

"He'd be playing me new songs and telling me I could do it, I knew how to write songs."

 

The new Delta – and she insists her third album is all about starting again as an artist – shares a lot in common with the wide-eyed teenager who was Born To Try.

 

Sonically, she has stretched her repertoire beyond the soaring ballads and up-tempo epics to experiment with the contemporary flavours that she is surrounded by in the pop-centric UK.

 

She becomes hugely excited when it is mentioned a couple of tracks sound very "Sugababes".

 

"I love the Sugababes and maybe I've absorbed something of what they do since moving to the UK," she says.

 

"But I didn't go into the studio to write a Sugababes song and I didn't want to to conform to what else was going on. I wasn't trying to be cool."

 

That's the thing when you're not trying to be cool; it happens anyway.

 

Mouths – most of them belonging to men – hit the floor when newspapers revealed the Australian pop star's transition to young woman in the photos from the In This Life video.

 

When the video premiered on Sunrise, the male members of that team stammered and stuttered in their praise of her defiant sass appeal.

 

"I had the best day ever on that video shoot; I probably shouldn't have had that much fun. I finally got to do what I do best and that's perform," she laughs.

 

"I knew I was ready, I want to do this now. And I've got this great album I love to back it all up."

 

In This Life will be released on Saturday. Her third album, Delta, will be released on October 20.

 

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0...5003421,00.html

Edited September 13, 200717 yr by Matthew

Oh I love this interview so much! So some sounds sound like the Sugababes? I dunno if I beileve this but I really want to, Sugababes are my second favourite act after Delta so for me that would be immense.

I'm pleased to hear she rejected songs that didn't feel right...

 

The last thing we need is an album of fillers :)

thanks for this, she looks hot

I hope we get a sugababes sounding song :o

IF Delta turns into Sugababe girl Ill be disapionted. Really. I like them, but Delta has a certain image in my head. It s nice shes trying to change and develops as an artist but I dont like what I see nowadays. I mean, the music is as great as always but she keeps "bolding" how much she wants a new life and how she found a new direction, how myuch she want to break away. If fact, I more appreciate MI than IE. I first heard IE and then MI, so I had a proper view about her developement but IE is kind of looking for herself and some of the songs are really tiring when hearing them all over. MI is the one :)

 

Well, Im really looking forward to hearing her new staff but I prefered when she was related emocionally and wrote about her life and important stuff rather than about general stuff as she now claims to do...

Well if there are some Sugababes style songs that could either be good or bad - I love some of their songs, but really don't like others. If they are like 'Too Lost In You', 'Stronger', 'Caught in a moment' style songs then that will be great :D!