Sia's second album Healing Is Difficult didn't get an Australian release until a year after it initially came out in the UK.Īs its title suggests, she'd written the bulk of the album in the wake of her partner's death. This trend of international success and relative obscurity at home would continue for years. In Australia the song didn't manage to get past number 100, two years after its UK release. The trip hop track reached the UK top ten and landed her an appearance on Top of the Pops. In 2000, Sia broke through to the UK mainstream with her single 'Taken for Granted'. There was a guy running backwards and forwards in front of the stage going 'You're with me! You're with me!' He ended up managing me for the next three years.' 'So, I got up and I sang, and it was a beautiful moment. You're gonna get up and sing and you're gonna be great'. 'He said, 'You don't have any money, do you?' I said no, and he said 'Come to this jam, I'll pick you up and I'll buy you beers. 'I've got two British cousins and one of their friends rang up and said 'aren't you a singer? Why aren't you singing?' And I said, 'I'm a bit busy being an alcoholic'.

'It was a bit of a rescue mission really,' she said. We were all sort of grieving in our own special, unique ways.'īut people wanted to see her back on stage, so she struck a deal. 'I moved in with 13 Australians in a three-bedroom apartment in Shepherd's Bush and we got drunk, really. Neither Crisp nor OnlySee received much attention in Australia and, at first, Sia's priority in the UK was emotional recovery and grieving by way of drinking. 'Instead, the week before I was supposed to arrive, he was hit and killed on Kensington High Street by a black taxi.' 'I went to meet up with a friend, we were going to go travelling through the UK.

'I went over there to have a holiday, really,' she told triple j's Nicole Fossati and Costa Zouliou in 2002. Like so many 22-year-old Australians, she set off to the UK, where her boyfriend was living. Sia Furler's first days after leaving Australia were horrible.Īfter her acid jazz band Crisp broke up, and her debut solo album OnlySee was released, she decided it was time to travel. Read on for a quick insight into Sia's fascinating story. But now she does things on her own terms and her career is all the stronger for it. Throughout this long and increasingly illustrious career, Sia has had a chequered relationship with the press, fame and the music industry at large.

She has worked tirelessly as a singer and songwriter ever since the release of her debut album in 1997.įollowing years in the UK as vocalist for trip hop group Zero 7, she moved to the US, where she cracked the charts writing for artists like Christina Aguilera, Eminem and David Guetta as well as with her own music. Sia is a bona fide superstar, but her origins are humble.

Sia only see album