Take40 Interview

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On what Devilicious means: “To me it just means girl power and having fun, and being a little bit cheeky but in a good way, and being a little bit devilish, and really being positive about self-image and being a girl in a nightclub, dancing away and getting rid of your fear.”

“I’m excited, I’m nervous, I’m you know worried about what’s gonna happen with it, but most of all it’s just great to finally be out and for people to be able to download it and start getting feedback.”

On the feedback: “It’s mixed and it was always gonna be mixed and I’m not gonna lie and say, ‘Oh my god it’s all positive!’ But I think we’re definitely breaking some ground. People are really listening to the track for what it is. It’s been four years since anybody’s really heard me sing and I think this track does what it’s supposed to: it showcases my vocals great and shows that I’ve progressed and I’m a pop diva, pop artist now! So it’s good fun.”

“I’m so lucky to have a huge gay following, and you know, one of my dreams is to get a float at Mardi Gras so [laughs] I think it’s great, and I think the great thing about doing pop-dance is you can get different DJ’s to remix the track and it sounds completely different. So I really wanna hit the clubs and start performing this track. I can’t wait to tour.”

Looking back on the young girl that appeared in the opening ceremony, what advice would you give to her if you could talk to her now?

“I’d probably say, ‘Surround yourself with good people.’ And… yeah, I guess I’d say that but I don’t think I’d say anything else because I think the great thing about what I did was the fact that I wasn’t media fed. It was innocent. Everything I did was innocent. There was no, I’ve said it before, there was no handbook, there was no ‘everybody knew what they were gonna do, this is stage-by-stage’. We were just flying, like we had sunglasses on, no-one knew what was coming next. ‘Okay, they called, let’s do that, let’s do that! Okay cool, that sounds fun, why don’t we do that?’ And we just went with it. If we made mistakes, we did, but I don’t live with regret, so I probably would just say, ‘Go out and have a good time and do what you do best and entertain.'”

What do you think about songs like Strawberry Kisses now, these days?

“I love it! I wish I wrote the track! [laughs] The great thing about it is it doesn’t matter how old people are, they still remember the chorus, and to me that’s a great sign of a pop song. I can be out with my friends and young guys will come up and they’ve had a few drinks and they’ll be singing Strawberry Kisses, and yeah they don’t know all the words, but they know the tune, and it amazes me! I’m like, ‘How do you know the tune? It so wouldn’t have been cool when you were 14, 15 to like Nikki Webster.’ So, I mean they’re taking the piss out of me when they’re singing it to me but I kinda get in there and sing it with them and go, ‘This is great!’ So I think it’s one of those songs that has been passed down in generations for some reason. At my dance studio I have five year olds singing it to me and they weren’t even born, so it’s obviously been passed down. It’s a good song.”

Source: Take40.com
Watch the video here!

My Favourite Thing

NIKKI WEBSTER, performer

The Sydney Olympics may have forever etched Nikki Webster into the national psyche, but for the ambitious pint-sized performer her achievement with hit single Strawberry Kisses in 2001 remains a clear personal highlight. The single went gold within 10 days of its debut on the Australian charts, and stayed at number two for an impressive eight weeks. Reminding her of this career high are the pink maybe-real-maybe-fake leather boots that she wore for the song’s video clip.

“I think they might have brought me a bit of luck,” she says, “because of how well Strawberry Kisses went. You know, I don’t think I’ll get rid of them, even if I grow out of them. It’s a memory that I’ll always hold . . .of that day doing the film clip.”

Webster is a self-confessed fashion junkie but cannot remember exactly where she bought the boots – it was somewhere in Sydney – but says she chose them because they went so well with the pink plastic outfit she had already picked out.

“I saw them and they were really different. It was a few years ago, I think a lot of the same boots are out now, in different colours and stuff, but when I saw them they were just coming out and they were really different. I went, `Wow, that’s cool!’. . . and they’re really comfy.”

She sees her success with Strawberry Kisses as one of the many “stepping stones” on her way to developing her career, getting her music overseas and, ultimately, making her country proud.

Having just released a new song and video clip, I Want To Be Like You for Disney’s The Jungle Book 2 movie soundtrack, Webster is on the publicity and promotional trail again, with interview spots and appearances on pay TV and free-to-air planned. Webster enjoys this process and is certainly not fazed by appearing on television. She feels right at home, it seems.

“I enjoy talking and – I think a lot of people see that – I enjoy my work . . . It feels like second nature to me. I mean, everybody is down to earth, it’s like having a normal chat!”

Peter Barrett

Source: The Age
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Pop princesses avoid chart battle

Pete Waterman’s latest teen pop prodigy Lauren Waterworth has avoided a chart battle after pop princess Nikki Webster changed the release date of her single.

The teen girls were meant to be battling it out in the singles chart by releasing their debut singles on the same day.

But Nikki Webster, 15, whose single Strawberry Kisses went Platinum in Australia has had the release set back a week.

Her record company said it had nothing to do with the competition. “The reason why it was changed is her availability for promotion,” said her product manager.

The pop princesses will now release their singles within a week of each other.

Talking about the chart battle Lauren, 13, said: “I’ve seen Nikki’s video and I think she’s great.

“You are going to get me into trouble but if it was a chart battle between Australia and Britain, I would say Britain!”

Lollipops at the ready girls!

Fact File: Tot of the Pops facts

• A pair of Nikki’s jeans sold for more than Russell Crowe’s in a charity auction in Oz!
• Lauren knocked the sound desk over when she was playing footie with Westlife
• Nikki has performed with Kylie and Michael Jackson
• Lauren caught Pete Waterman’s eye when she sent him her CD when she was only 11

Source: CBBC Newsround

Olympic ‘hero Girl’ Nikki ‘kisses’ The Charts

By CHRISTIE ELIEZER

It’s no surprise that an Australian label’s first marketing foray into the under-10s music market was with Nikki Webster. The elfin 14-year-old flew 98 feet into the air while playing the role of Hero Girl last September at the spectacular opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics.

Her lead-off single, “Strawberry Kisses,” debuted on the Australian Record Industry Assn. charts at No. 2 in the week ending June 23. It remained at No. 6 in the week ending Aug. 18 and has so far sold 115,000 copies, according to BMG Australia (platinum here is 70,000), setting up the Aug. 20 release of an album, Follow Your Heart.

“Doing the Olympics was fantastic, but I was just playing a character,” Webster says. Since the age of 7, she has been in such musicals as The Sound of Music and Les Miserables, and she also sang onstage with Michael Jackson on his HIStory tour. “But I’d always wanted to do a pop record,” she tells Billboard. “My heroes are Kylie Minogue and Olivia Newton-John. The best thing about the Olympics to me was that Olivia came backstage and told me she thought I had a great voice.”
Continue reading Olympic ‘hero Girl’ Nikki ‘kisses’ The Charts

Welcome Nikki Webster

Unless you were hibernating during last year’s Olympic Games, this 14-gear-old needs no introduction at all!

No-one could have missed Nikki Webster’s show-stopping performance at both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics and now, nine months on, Nikki is ready to take on the charts her first pop single, Strawberry Kisses!

However, Nikki’s position can’t be that easy. After all, being watched by billions of people around the world must be hard to beat. “I think it will be a very hard gig to top,” she laughs. “Having the whole world watch you and so many people remember it is huge. But to be there and to play a main role in something that will go down in Australia’s history is just amazing.”

Does Nikki worry that people will remember her performance at the Olympics so vividly that she’ll never be able to move on to the next step in her career? “I think it will always be with me because that was the first time that people ever saw me,” she agrees. “But I think that as I get older, people won’t go back to that so much. Who knows? Maybe they will get stuck on the Olympics – I don’t mind, cos I love talking about it!”

If anything will help Nikki move on, it’s her catchy new single and upcoming album. Strawberry Kisses is a cute and bouncy pop song – a world away from the ballad We’ll Be One or the songs Nikki has performed onstage in Les Miserables and The Sound Of Music. “It was time to change and get into pop,” Nikki smiles. “After I heard Strawberry Kisses, I was singing it all night. I thought that was a good sign.”

Meeting her idols Kylie Minogue and Olivia Newton-John at the Games, and recording her single and album by the age of 14 – what ambitions could Nikki possibly have left? “I’d love Strawberry Kisses to go to No.1!” Nikki says excitedly. “Really, I just hope everyone loves it as much as I did the first time I heard it, but it would be pretty exciting to be at No.1!”

Source: Smash Hits (via NikkiWebster.dk)

Nikki’s rise and rise

She mixes with stars like Michael Jackson and Kylie Minogue, but Nikki Webster is still just a girl next door.

Nikki Webster’s parents often wake up in the middle of the night at their modest Sydney home and pinch themselves. Mark, an electrician, and Tina, who runs two childcare centres, are still struggling to come to terms with their talented little girl’s extraordinary rise to fame.

In less than a year, flame haired Nikki, 14, has gone from being a musically gifted Aussie teenager to an international star. ‘We’ll say: “Is this really happening? Is this situation real?”‘ admits Tina, 43. ‘Nikki’s father and I aren’t musical at all and we’ve no idea where our daughter gets her talent. If I start singing, the kids tell me to shut up!’

Few Australians will forget Nikki soaring above the Olympic arena last year at the Sydney 2000 opening ceremony – in front of four billion TV viewers. From that glorious moment on, Nikki’s life changed forever. ‘Yes, she’s become very well known, but Nikki hasn’t changed,’ insists Tina. ‘She’s still the same girl she was a year ago.

‘We got a letter recently from an elderly couple who’ve known Nikki for a long time, crediting her on her modesty. They said: “Nikki, you are just the same, don’t ever change!” That meant a lot to us.

‘Anyway, Nikki’s not got a lot of chance to be a big head, I wouldn’t allow that! She performs because she wants to and there’s a certain amount of responsibility involved. We’ve always told Nikki and our son Scott, 16, that we don’t care what they do with their lives, as long as they work hard and enjoy themselves.’

Now Nikki’s launching a global assault with a slick new pop career. The tiny dynamo has also unleashed a sexy new look to go with her catchy debut song Strawberry Kisses. The accompanying video is fashioned in a Spice Girls mould. Nikki dances aboard a spaceship and sings to the object of her affections, a cosmic cartoon character called DJ.
Continue reading Nikki’s rise and rise

Nikki Webster – Fruity Flavours

She stole the hearts of millions at the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2000 Olympic Games and now 14-year-old Nikki Webster is set to do it again with her single Strawberry Kisses’.

“The Olympics was just such a fantastic thing,” she says. “I mean, the atmosphere and all the people that I met… I was so overwhelmed. I mean, even today when I walk down the street people recognise me from the Olympics, you know, it’s just amazing. I was just given the best opportunity.”

A debut that huge would surely change a person, but not this young lady. She may only be in Grade Nine, but her head is well and truly planted firmly on her shoulders.

“My life changed, but it didn’t really change me as a person. I’m still the same person, but my life changed in, as I said, with people recognising me and now I’ve got my new single out and stuff like that, so it’s pretty amazing [laughs].”
Continue reading Nikki Webster – Fruity Flavours

Nikki Webster’s debut single soars high on the ARIA Chart

Today sees former Olympic darling Nikki Webster, flying high once again. This time as her debut single “Strawberry Kisses” charts at #2 on the National ARIA singles chart.

The fourteen year-old Sydney schoolgirl joins an elite group of Australian artists such as Bardot and Scandal’us (both debuting at #1) and Madison Avenue (#3) who have also achieved a top five debut. Nikki, however, is the only solo debut artist, and definitely the youngest debut artist to do so.

Her remarkable chart debut and extensive airplay on Australian radio and television attests to Nikki’s massive appeal across a wide range of age groups.

New Managing Director of BMG Australia & NZ, Ed St John says “Everyone at BMG is thrilled with Nikki’s spectacular and historic chart debut. When our company signed this artist late last year, we did so with a vision for a chart-topping pop music career not only in Australia but all over the world. This is the first step in what promises to be a truly meteoric rise and we congratulate Nikki on her achievement.”

Ross Fraser, Managing Director of Gotham Records adds “what a great beginning to the pop career of somebody who has already done so much in her 14 years, Nikki is to be congratulated on her success, and I’m sure it’s only the start of something much, much bigger.”

“Strawberry Kisses” is available now at a record store near you.

Source: nikki.com.au