Featured Artist: Donna DeanDecember 7, 2011

New Zealand’s Donna Dean released her album What Am I Gonna Do to critical acclaim. The title track received recognition from RIANZ and APRA earlier this year and the track also serves as a feature on the Absolute Country compilation. 

Valleyarm took some time out with the lovely Donna Dean who gave us an honest insight into the painstakingly difficult time writing material for the album and dealing with the on-again, off-again relationship that can develop with critics.
 

Is it difficult to give so much of yourself through your music? Do you ever feel vulnerable in any way?

I don’t find it difficult at all. Ironically I’m quite a private person but when something stirs me emotionally, I find sharing it through my lyrics very therapeutic.
 

You have personally financed every album you have ever recorded. Do you think you appreciate the end product more because of this?

Having the freedom to choose what goes on an album is a fantastic feeling. It means nothing is edited; it’s raw and real. That’s the way I like it.
 

You won the RIANZ Best Country Album award and APRA Best Country Song award 2011 for the album and title track What Am I Gonna Do? Has this added any pressure to what you do?

Critics can love you one week and not the next so even if I thought my next project was great that wouldn’t make it so in the opinion of others. I believe in following my gut instincts and expressing my art with few expectations that others will love it. If that happens it’s a bonus.
 

What Am I Gonna Do? is your fifth album, but your first release since 2002. How did you spend this gap?

I was finding my feet again after having the wind knocked out of me. I’d left behind a relationship in London and was pretty low for a while adjusting to being home after an absence and getting used to be single again. Former venues were closed and new ones opened. I had to reconnect. Musicians I’d known earlier were busily tied up with new bands or had moved away. The gap was partially a financial one but also because I was a little unsure about how I’d get the sound I was after with musicians I hadn’t known for long so I kept putting it off. I wrote all but one of the songs on the album during that time and was searching for the right studio and producer. It all turned good in the end.
 

After living in London from 1999-2005 and touring Europe extensively, what kinds of knowledge did you bring back to your hometown of Auckland, New Zealand?

 I’ve learned that artists worldwide share similar challenges. Being with different cultures and languages, I learned new ways of hearing and listening to music and new ways of appreciating music and the arts.
 

What can we expect from your upcoming tour of New Zealand?
 

I’ll be playing some new material and some songs from the award-winning album which will be familiar. Some of the gigs will be solo. I love the intimacy of a solo performance.
 

The title track of Donna Dean’s title track taken from her – arguably greatest – album What Am I Gonna Do features on the Absolute Country compilation. Out now on iTunes, Amazon, eMusic and Guvera.