When we caught up for lunch in a quiet Mount Lawley café Arena was in the middle of a media whirlwind. Her new album has been released and her autobiography had been on bookstore shelves for just a few days. She’d taken a few days off from her ‘Dancing with the Stars’ rehearsals for Telethon and had a stack of other commitments during her weekend in Perth.
Arena’s fans have a chance to get to know the singer a lot better by reading her autobiography. The book charts her story from joining TV’s ‘Young Talent’ Time through a recording career that’s had its highs and lows. At the forefront are themes of resilience, hard work and family life. Recalling all the highlights of the last forty years was something that Arena admits wasn’t easy.
“There were large chunks that needed to be kick started,” said Arena, “There’s a lot of stuff that you delete.”
Telling her story on her own terms though is something that drew Arena to the proposal of writing about her career.
“I think it was important to chronologically put those things down, before someone else did in a manner that may not have been as easy or pleasant and, certainly not as accurately.”
Deciding which parts of her life should go in the book was a challenge for the singer but she’s not one to dwell on the low points of life, but rather acknowledges them for what she learned from the experience.
“You’re always battling with what you put in and what you leave out, there’s obviously a lot that I can’t put in. I think the thing that was ultimately concerning for me was ‘Do you acknowledge it or do you ignore it?’
Arena is certain though that her book would not be a ‘kiss and tell’ memoir filled with juicy celebrity stories. Arena has no interest in that kind of story telling and wonders why many people in society find fulfillment in sensationalist celebrity tales.
“I’m deeply saddened by the fact that we live in a society today that is more interested in your train wrecks than your achievements. It’s very deeply disturbing for me. Not only as someone who experiences that because of my job, but watching society… not really evolving.”
Writing the book however meant that Arena had to include some of the sadder moments of her life, I asked if including the breakdown of her marriage was difficult. Arena is practical in her answer but shares her disappointment that it’s something people are interested in.
“If you don’t acknowledge it then people will say why you didn’t you write about that, for me it’s a very thin chapter of my life, the fascination with it is something I’m completely gobsmacked by.”
“I haven’t lived a perfect life, and I hope it doesn’t intimate that, I don’t think it does. You don’t need to sit there and be descriptive of every minutia of detail, I’m sure that people can read between the lines a little bit too,” Arena said.
Arena was pleased to hear about tweets from her fans, including some of Perth’s best known drag performers, discussing her new album ‘Reset’.
“It’s been a long time between drinks, I’m just grateful that they were still bloody bothered to listen,” laughed Arena, “I’m really touched by it.”
Having full control in the studio without the worry of record company bosses is something Arena said she enjoyed most about recording ‘Reset’.
“It was fun, I had a really good time, I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the process; I enjoyed producing half of it. This time there were no constraints. I only had to get the approval of myself,” Arena declares, “I’m the toughest bastard to please. I’m an absolute perfectionist.”
Arena’s expectations for the album are simple, she said once it’s been released whatever happens will happen.
“If I make people dance and smile and think about things then I’m happy. If it lightens people’s lives, if it’s able to transport them in different ways, then fantastic, you can’t ask for more than that.”
While visiting Perth, Arena also pledged her commitment to ‘Merci Down Under’ the centenary anniversary of World War 1 which will be held in Albany next year. Arena will act as the organisation’s patron and return in October 2014 for a concert in Albany. Alongside this new commitment Arena continues as a patron of ‘Soldier On’, the organisation that acknowledges returned servicemen and women from Afghanistan. Arena is clear on why she shows so much support for service personnel past and present.
“They are people who do an enormous amount and are never really awarded and credited for it,” said Arena, “they’re kind of left out to dry.”
“I find that incredibly odd as a concept, I struggle to get my head around it,” said the singer, “Somebody who has taken the time to walk away from their family structure, love and support, to be put out in the middle of ‘cowboysville’, where you don’t know if you’re going to come out dead or alive, I think that’s something that you don’t sneeze at. You don’t ignore and you pay respect to those people.”
Arena said her interest in events of this nature is long standing.
“I think it’s something that’s always been there, my parents were war-children and we don’t know, we’re such an incredibly spoiled and petulant society and you’ve got to put things in perspective. I don’t want to live my life in a fucking bubble.”
Tina’s new album ‘Reset’ and her book ‘Now I Can Dance’ are available now.
Graeme Watson
