Photo by Steve Ullathorne
Wilde is an appropriate name for one who has a love for adventure in the natural world and of recent years, musician, adventurer and gardener Kim has transformed her signature song ‘Kids in America’ into ‘Kids in the garden’ with her alternative career as a landscape gardener who has written books to introduce youngsters to a love of green thumbs!
Kim, away from the garden is part of another landscape, pop music’s legendary landscape. The English pop star is referenced in everything from other musician’s songs, including a heavy metal punk groups version of ‘Kids in America’ at Glastonbury (that Kim loves!), graphic novels to the name of a nurse in a BBC medical series.
I talked to the endlessly fascinating Kim, as she was preparing for a tour of Australia later this year. Kim informs me she was last in Australia in 2013 and at that time as well as singing did some suitably wild adventures. Kim recalls her time in Sydney and Queensland, including taking in Magnetic Island, the Gold Coast, The Great Barrier Reef, backpacking in Cairns and the Daintree, as well as some white water rafting. Kim also toured ‘the vastness of Australia’ in 1994 during a visit to family and friends in Perth and Sydney.
In spite of a definite affinity with the wild Kim tells me right from the beginning it was always going to be a career in music and the arts for her. Kim believes in the ‘energy and ability of music to shift thousands’ indeed music has a powerful spirituality for Kim.
She says ‘music once you send it out there no longer belongs to you but to the world, to speak a unique message to each person, to inspire and heal’.
As a songwriter Kim has always loved working with the English language and how ‘it can paint lyrics that connect with people’. Kim tells me she is harnessing some of that ability of the English language in writing a new album to be released next year that will be ‘authentic and powerful’.
While waiting for the release of the new album we are in for a treat when Kim Wilde performs with Howard Jones at the Wrest Point Entertainment Centre 10 November 2016.
Paula Xiberras
