May 28, 2025 • 46 mins
In this edition of Great Chats with Francesca Rudkin, the author and screenwriter of the novel, film and television series One Day, David Nicholls is back with a new best-selling novel. He joins Francesca to talk the his massively successful career.
Author Kailane Bradley was also on our shore for the Auckland Writer's Festival this month - and joined Francesca to talk her debut novel, The Ministry of Time.
And Kiwi's own country music star Kaylee Bell stops by to give an exclusive performance and to chat getting recognition around the world.
Great Chats with Francesca Rudkin brings you the best interviews from Newstalk ZB's The Sunday Session.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB. The big names, the fascinating guests,
the thoughtful conversations bringing you the best interviews from the
Sunday Session. This is Great Chats with Francesca Rudkin, empowered
(00:27):
by News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hello and welcome to Great Chats. I'm franchisc Budkin, host
of the Sunday Session on News Talks EDB, and in
this podcast, we picked some of our favorite feature interviews
from over the last month for you to enjoy. Coming up,
we've got the amazing Kayleie Bell. She joins me to
talk about country music and managing her increasingly successful career
and motherhood. I'm also joined by Kelley Amn Bradley to
(00:49):
talk about her debut novel, The Ministry of Time, which
has become a global hit and it almost never got written.
More on that story later, but first up, author and
screenwriter of the novel, film and television series One Day,
David Nichols joins me to talk about latest.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Best seller, You Are Here.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
It is a great rate and I started off by
congratulating him on the success of the novel.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Oh, thank you very much. This was a real neighbor
of love this book. I had a great time writing it,
which isn't always the case, but I did love doing
this one.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
You were going to write a big London novel, and
then the pandemic and lockdowns came along and like so
many of us, kind of altered plans a little bit.
How did that period inspire this book?
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Well, you know, it was a terrible time to write.
I wanted to write about the present day, and there
was there was so much uncertainty about what the future held.
And also I found that, like so many people, I
was stuck in doors, not seeing my friends, kind of
forgetting how to relate to other people and how to
(01:55):
talk to people. And when it finally lifted, I found
it very difficult to get back out into the world.
Created so many routines and habits to make lockdown bearable.
And I saw this in my friends as well, that
we've all become a little bit nervous, a bit wary
around each other. And my friends who were living alone,
I think they had a particularly difficult time. And I
had to write about that, really about me, But how
(02:18):
rewarding ultimately it can be, and well, so I missed
the countryside. I missed going for my long walks in
the country, so I wanted to write about that as well,
and the two ideas came together and became you are here.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
It's interesting you mentioned that you wanted to write in
the present, because you often use time in the passing
of time to tell your stories. That this is very
much a book about living in the moment, appreciating the present.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Yes, absolutely, I wanted it to be a little kind
of chamber piece to follow two people's conversation over just
a matter of days. The journey they go on is epic,
it's a two hundred mile bike all the way across
the north of England. But it's very much a kind
of close up novel. It's very much about the details,
the tiny details of their interaction and their relationships. I've
(03:07):
written a lot of books, as you say, set in
the past, and a lot of books with quite a
large timescale, but this is like a little, delicate, little
chamber piece, even though it takes place against all these
mountains and lakes and rivers. It's a character study really.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
It doesn't reflect also sort of your approach to life
these days as well. You know, taking time to enjoy
the now.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
I suppose so. I think it's very much a book
about friendship and the formation of a friendship and a
friendship that may turn into a relationship a love affair.
But certainly it's hard. Is about opening up conversation, the
two characters getting a learn more about each other, and
thinking about the future, and really relishing each other's company.
(03:53):
And I guess that's something I feel more and more
as I get older. Yes, that my early books are
kind of quite noisy comedies about about dating and relationships,
and this one is a little bit maybe a bit gentler,
a bit wiser, a little bit more mature than some
of the other things I've written.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
David, what comes to you first? Is it the characters,
the location, sort of the premise around the narrative.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
I think it's often the premise for me, you know,
I wanted to write, Yeah, love story that takes place
in a long walk. That was the premise. And then
you start to ask yourself questions to you, who are
these people, how are they different to each other? What
kind of conflict might there be in their relationship? What's
their relationship to this landscape? Do they want to be there.
(04:38):
I then, of course had to do the walk, this
famous walk, the Coast to Coast, which is a two
hundred mile walk from the west coast of England to
the east, and along the way there was a certain
amount of improvisation, responding to the landscape, responding to the
rain and the cold and the terrible hotels, and wondering
who might be in that place. And it's a bit
(04:59):
like an act of preparing for a role, you know.
I think a lot about the characters' background, the tone, voice,
their physicality, and I make a a lot of notes
before I start writing the novels. So the novel there's
a kind of improvisation in character. It's a very slow process.
But with this book, I so enjoyed the experience of
the landscape and actually making the same journey as the
(05:21):
characters that it was a real joy.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I am very impressed that you did the walk. I
was going to ask you that because I noticed at
the end of the book and you sort of said
a note on the journey and you mentioned how you
were assisted by a few guides, and I thought.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Hmm, I wonder if David actually did this walk himself.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I am very ambressed, but you do warn people because
people will. I mean, I'm a wanderer. I love a walk,
so I read this and I love the relationship and
the story, but I also love the journey that you
took me on, and I would love to hit out
the door and go and do this walk. But if
you know, I love the way you warned people that
you did make up certain you know, b and bs
(06:00):
and places that they stayed and in things just in
case people go off to sort of reenact this journey.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Yes, it's very much a novel rather than a travel guide.
The landscape is absolutely real, and I did the whole
walk and stood everywhere the characters stood. But inevitably, sometimes
you want your characters to have a fantastic time and
sometimes you want them to be miserable, so everywhere they
stay is fictional. But the mountains and the rivers are
(06:27):
all real and very much first hand experience. It's an
amazing walk. I think there are more beautiful walks in England.
But there's a kind of symbolism to this idea of
walking all the way across the country, and there's a
kind of mythology to it as well. You meant to
pick up a pebble on the beach in Cumbria and
carry it all the way to Yorkshire and throw it
(06:48):
in the sea. And it's a walk that very much
has three acts. The lakes and the dales and the moors,
and all of that really informed that the novel.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
And I love the way, you know the quirks of
trampers or hikers, those you know, how they have those
seemingly gentle and yet quite competitive conversations about how far
are you walking and where have you come from? You know,
I loved all that details that you're.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Hearing, whether you take the high root or the low root,
the easy way of the hard way, and then yes,
endless conversations about the weather and the distance you've traveled.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yep, there are many funny lines and observations. Money uses
her work to get through a lot of situations in
her life. Does that wit come flying out of you
and onto the page once you have your character, or
do you have to work hard at nailing the humor?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Oh I wish it did come flying out. No, it's
very laborious. But you know what you have. You have
this great luxury as a writer of time. You know,
you can spend three years making a character as funny
as they can possibly be, And that process is quite detailed,
you know. I spend a lot of time polishing the dialogue,
working out whether it needs a dash or a full stop,
(08:00):
working out the precise language the characters use. And at
the same time, dialogue is the thing that I'm happy
is writing. It is again akin to being an actor
and improvising. Once I know who the characters are, I
can write pages and pages and pages of dialogue, which
then gets polished and cut down and shaped into the
(08:20):
dialog you read in the book. It's it's the part
of the process I love the most, and yet it's
also it's often comedy is about absolutely the right word
or the rhythm of a sentence, and all that takes many,
many months to do.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So do you find it easy to be funny through
writing than an everyday conversation.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Oh yeah, definitely. I'm completely deathly in conversation. I can't
tell a joke. I'm not particularly witty, you know, I
kind of I can't. I don't like at dinner parties.
But if you give me something to write with and
give me time, I can usually think of something. It
just takes a long, long time. David.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
You write characters that people resonate with, they recognize, and
they fall in love love, and therefore can become quite
pretictive over them and their stories. Do you mind that
people's opinion on your characters or maybe the outcome of
a book.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
No, I'm fascinated by it. I don't always know how
it's going to go. You know. Often I write characters
who I think are wonderful and I really love, and
they don't quite land and other characters that I that
I'm more wary of, you know, just as you would
be with meeting people in real life. There are characters
I adore, and I mean Marnie in this novel was
(09:37):
a real joy to write because she's so sharp witted
and smart and sardonic, and I loved loved writing her.
But you never quite know our people. It's a bit
like introducing friends. You never quite know how it's going
to go. I've definitely written characters who were a real
pleasure and I felt very fondly towards, and people were
(10:01):
less forgiving of their actions than I thought they'd be.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
You started your career in television. Has screenwriting impacted your
approach to writing fiction and vice versa. Has writing novels
impacted your screenwriting in.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Any way, Well, definitely. The screenwriting is sped into the fiction.
You know, people are very the screenwriting process is very tough.
You throw a lot of things away. There's a lot
of collaboration because everything costs so much to make. Everything
has to fulfill a purpose. You know, people are constantly saying,
can we cut the scene? What is this scene doing
for us? Have we seen the scene already? Does it
(10:34):
have to be outside? Does it have to rain? All
of those questions that very make the process often quite frustrating.
With fiction, you have terrific freedom, but at the same time,
I'm always asking myself what is this for? Is this boring?
Is does this have a book? Is this going to
get the reader into the next chapter? That feeling you
have at the end of a really good TV show,
(10:56):
what's going to happen next? I do want that to
find its way onto the page as well. So I
like to think I'm quite economical and quite careful about
story and a lot of time fanning. You know, I
don't improvise a novel. I spend often a year or
more just making notes and working out what it's going
to be and only when I know that whole shape
(11:17):
as a screenwriter would only then do I start writing
the pros.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Many of your novels have been adapted for the screen.
So when you are writing a book like you are here,
are you dreamcasting as you go? Are you imagining this
on screen as well?
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Not in a practical way, I mean in that you know,
I want a book to be a book. And there
are all kinds of things you can do in a
novel that you can't do on the screen, like internal
monologue and metaphor and childhood memories, that kind of thing.
All none of that really works on screen. Screen is
really about just what characters say and do. So you
do have all these extra tools as a novelist, and
(11:55):
I do try and make the most of that. At
the same time, you know, I grew up watching film
and television, and I grew up loving books, and to me,
they're the same thing, and elementally, you know, they're about
engagement and emotion and often comedy, and so there is
a certain overlap. And sometimes it helps me to think
(12:16):
of the physicality of an actor, not someone i'd necessarily cast,
but a tone of voice. You know, is this a
Jack Lemon character or a Katherine Heatbround character. I love actors,
and I've definitely drawn from what actors can do when
I try and create a character for the page.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Diavid is six books, all hugely successful. When you release
a new book, now, do you feel any preciure at
all for it to be a hit?
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Oh? Huge pressure? Yeah. I love all six, but some
have done much better than others, and there's no way
of knowing. You know, they're all equally hard work. I
put the same amount of commitment and love into each
of them, but you never quite know what's going to
take and how people are going to respond. So that's
the great unknown. But certainly I do my very best
(13:03):
to make it as good as it can possibly be.
I I wouldn't want to publish anything that I wasn't
entirely convinced by. At the same time, there's absolutely no
way of knowing whether it's going to absolutely fly or
just kind of, you know, do okay, And there's nothing
you can do about that, really except hold your nerve.
(13:24):
I'm very lucky to be published, but it is an
extremely nerve wrecking process, and there's no way of knowing
quite how things are going to go.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
The biggest names from the Sunday session Great Jets with
brand Jaska Rudkin on iHeartRadio powered by News Talks, it'd
be that was David Nichols.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
He was in town for the aucand Writerers Festival, and
I heard from a few people that he was incredibly
accommodating and willing to talk to people and sign books.
Even after his official book signing session, he hung out
at the makeshift bookshop at the festival signing books for people,
and I don't know, he's really charming. Then. I was
(14:03):
really interested to hear though, about the pressure of being
a best selling author. So you'd think that if the
majority of your books has gone well that the pressure
is kind of off, that you just roll with it
a little bit more. You know, with more experience comes
less stress. But maybe not. Another author who attended the
Auckland Riders Festival was cally Anne Bradley. Her session it
(14:23):
sold out like that, It sold out so quickly, and
I'm not surprised. Her debut novel, The Ministry of Time,
landed on many best of lists for twenty twenty four. Okay,
so I started with a gash of praise telling her
it was my favorite book of twenty twenty four, and
I wind that if she's inundated with other people telling
her they feel the same, I wish I could.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
I had responses as kind of enthusiastic as yours all
the time. It has been a real pleasure to see
that there are people out there who've connected with it
and who care about it. When I started writing it,
I didn't expect it to get beyond the original fifteen readers,
so it really is very thrilling.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, we'll talk about that just a moment.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
Now.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Lockdown inspired you to write some science fiction. What was
it about the lockdowns that brought that out of New.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Well, I couldn't go outside, I wasn't really doing anything,
and my brain, you know, during lockdown, we had all
these this strange space in our brain where you know,
things like going outside and meeting people and going to
work would have been during lockdown. I started watching a
TV series called The Terror, which is about Sir John
Franklin's Lost eighting forty five expedition to the Arctic. That
introduced me to the Lost eighting forty five Expedition to
(15:37):
the Arctic, in which one hundred and twenty nine men
and two ships vanished. But also one of the officers
on that expedition, a man called Graham Gore, who I
found just by accident, just looking up what I thought
was an interesting name on Wikipedia, and then I saw
his photo. I saw his photo on the Wikipedia page,
and I was dazzled.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
But also I read what smitten by him? Aren't you?
Speaker 5 (16:01):
I was? I really am. At the time. It felt,
you know, eyes across the crowded webs, like really electric.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
But it's partly.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Because his biography makes him sound like a very calm,
very competent, very likable man who was you know, he
was very quite senior by the time he went to
the Arctic, so someone you could trust to be in charge.
And during lockdown we were not being led by kind, competent,
likable people in the UK. So I think I really
latched onto this figure from history who I thought, God,
(16:30):
it'd be great if he was here now.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Actually, isn't an amazing Most of us were getting fixated
on how to make breed in here. You were getting
fixated on this man who's led to this book. Do
you still have the huge picture of him hanging in
your office right behind you on the zone So how
did he end up? How did you end up putting
(16:52):
him into this spook of fiction?
Speaker 5 (16:55):
Again, this was a sort of surprising lockdown mistake. So
when I started finding out about this expedition, the Lost
Expedition of eighteen forty five to the Arctic, and as
I was trying to find out more this officer, of
course I couldn't actually go anywhere. I couldn't go to archives,
I couldn't ask any questions. I only had the Internet.
So I went on the Internet, did a bit of googling,
that was searching around, and I found this community online
(17:19):
of people who were either very interested in the TV
show we'd watched, or the expedition or polar exploration in general.
And they were very very generous with the research they
already had. So there were experts out there who know
much more about Grahame more than me. They very generously
shared their research with me, and I began writing what
would become the Ministry of Time as a kind of
gift for them, as sort of joke, what would it
(17:41):
be like if your favorite polar explorer lived in your house?
Because we all had favorite polar explorers. That was definitely
a thing that was all.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Going on for us, it's amazing. So you initially started
writing this story just to entertain some new friends in
lockdown exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
And because you know, I had no way to reach
these people. We all lived in different parts of the world,
in different countries. You know, we couldn't go out of
the else it was lockdown. It felt almost like a
way not only to have a conversation with this person
I'd become fascinated with this historical figure, but to continue
having a conversation and building a friendship and building a
community with these friends that I'd made in my computer.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Basically, So how did it turn into a novel? At
what point did you realize its potential?
Speaker 5 (18:29):
I think this came in two stages. So there was
the stage where I began to take what I was
writing more seriously, because to begin with, the Ministry of
Time is about a ministry that is dragging people out
of the past to put them in the twenty first
century to find out whether time travel works. To begin with,
the Ministry was just the apparatus I needed to get
Graham Gore into the twenty first century so I could
(18:51):
torment him with Spotify and washing machines. It wasn't at
that time the most important thing about the book. But
as I kept on writing it, and I kept on
really trying to imagine and really engage with both the
historical figure his text and the emotional and psychological experience
of being pulled into the twenty first century, being told
(19:12):
you have to assimilate to this new land, this new country,
with its new rules. I started to see these parallels
between Graham Gore and the other expats from history and
the experience of refugees. So at that point I started
to take the story a little more seriously, and I
started to build it out a little bit more. I
was at the time writing what I thought would be
my serious debut novel, which was about Cambodia, the Khmer
(19:35):
Rouge and the Diastro, because I am half Cambodia and
my mother's Cambodian, so I thought that was what I
had to write. I was thinking about. I was really
struggling with that novel, and I was thinking what should
I send to agents, what should I send out? And
one of my friends, who was reading along with the
Ministry of what would become the Ministry of Time, said,
do you know, I think what you have here is
a novel. I think you could. You could really send
(19:58):
this out and no one would laugh at you. I
think it's a I think it could be your chance.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I think that's really interesting what you said there, how
you felt that you hit to write your mother's story,
the story inspired by your heritage and your mother's refugee experience.
Does they put a lot of pressure on you, though,
trying to tell a story like that.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
Absolutely, And I think it's both that sense of pressure
and the nervousness of living up to the pressure, and
then the constant questioning that comes with that kind of
self imposed responsibility. Am I the right person to be
writing this? Am I getting this right?
Speaker 4 (20:39):
You know?
Speaker 5 (20:39):
My family don't want to talk about the Khmer Rouge?
How much should I fictionalize? How much should I take
from my own family's past. There's that, and then there's
the sense of obligation. Obligation is actually I think a
kind of death wish for creativity. Just because it was
something that I thought about a lot, which preoccupied me,
it didn't mean that I was going to be able
to metabolize it into good fiction. So in fact it
(21:01):
was it wasn't going anywhere. I think not because it's
not a story worth telling, but because I I couldn't
find a way to tell it.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
But in a way you had, as you say, you
didn't completely abandoned that concept. And this is one of
the brilliant things about this book, is this concept of
bringing someone from another time into the twenty third century
and trying to get them up to speed with the
current modern world. I mean, it's fascinating, and I wonder,
(21:31):
was there a particular person from a particular time that
you had the most fun trying to adapt to the
twenty first century.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
I think the most fun I had was with a
character called Margaret Campbell, who is pulled from the Great
Plague of London. She's a Jacobean woman. She's brought into
a twenty first century, and you know, multiple things hit
her all at once, such as you can have you
can be a woman and be unmarried, and you're just
allowed to move around in the world. She's introduced to
(22:01):
the word lesbian. That's very exciting for her because now
she's got a new word to describe herself, to describe
a community she can find. She's talked about cinema. She
loves cinema that you know, just as a concept that's
something she's never had or could imagine. She finds out
about Riot Girl, she wants to go clubbing. It's like
to be able to write someone who is experiencing the
(22:22):
disorientation of a refugee. But it was also thriving is
looking for joy.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
That was loads of fun. For all that, it's fun
and the humor in it is absolutely fantastic. It's also
a really amazing way for us to reflect on our
humanity because there is a point in the book where
one of the bridges and our protagonist is a bridger
and is responsible for adjusting helping these expects as they
called adjust to the modern day. You know, it is
(22:48):
wondering how to explain the Holocaust, for example.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
So this was again as I tried to imagine what
it would actually be like to engage with these characters
and trying to looking back at recent history is from
the point of view as both an observer and someone
who whose identity has been influenced by recent history.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
It became.
Speaker 5 (23:12):
Quite difficult actually to step outside that and to face
up to some of the things in our recent history.
In the book, the Ministry chooses to hold back certain information.
They withhold the news about what happened in the Holocaust,
They withhold things like nine to eleven. And they say
(23:33):
this is because they don't want the expat's to be
too shocked, you know, they don't want to drive them
into shock and to have their assimilation disrupted. But in fact,
there's a certain kind of kind of lying by your
mission there, because if you show someone this kind of atrocity,
it makes them ask, well, what kind of person are
you that you came out of that past? And what
(23:54):
kind of person are you that you just have to
sit and live with that very recent past? So there is, yeah,
there's a friction there.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
We've meantioned sci fi, and I've obviously mentioned the humor
and things, but there's so much more to this book.
It's all so romance and there's mystery in here, and
there's a little touch of thriller. It's got everything.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
I'm really glad that those different genres landed with you yet.
So it wasn't intentional for me to write a book
that has so many different genres faught into a chordron
and mixed up like a like a wild magic potion.
But I think partly because I was never I began
writing this for friends rather than with publication in mind.
I didn't feel boxed in by markets, or didn't feel
(24:36):
boxed in by genre, so I felt able to be experimental.
Then I realized that the tropes of some of these
genres can be fun to play with. It can be
fun to seduce the reader with a romance and then
surprise them with a kind of horrific thriller underneath. And
it can be fun to play with the elements of
science fiction only to reveal that what's going on as
(24:57):
a kind of emotionally realist story. And all of these
genres mesh and they all, I think, contribute to each
other in this book, in literature in general, so it
was a lot of fun to do that.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I still find it had to believe that this was
just a lockdown mistake from mistake. So I'm sure that
there is a second novel on the go, and I'm
wondering whether you're sort of using a similar tectic for
fighting you know, your your premise and your purpose with
their book.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
I'm sorry to say I have not yet fallen in
love with another random dead person on a Wikipedia page,
which is a shame because I think it would make
my work much easier. I am writing a second novel.
I'm about to get notes from my editors. Actually very
nerve wrackingly. I think one thing I am still playing
(25:48):
with is this idea of genre being both a seduction
that pulls us along as storyline we expect, and then
being able to upend that relationship with genre. So it's
a sort of a fantasy novel, sort of a mystery novel,
sort of a novel about dealing with the fact that
we all have to die.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
I love it. You initially submitted The Ministry of Time
under a pseudonym. Why was that?
Speaker 5 (26:14):
Well, I work in publishing, and I thought, first of all,
I was slightly masochistic, and I thought, I don't want
to leverage my contacts with literary agents that I know,
because then maybe the book isn't you know. I wanted
the book to be good enough to pass Muster without
leveraging that. But also I had this terrible feeling that
(26:36):
what if I sent it to all these agents I
know and respect and have professional relationships with, and they
all go, oh, no, oh, no, how embarrassing. Oh she's
written this really embarrassing book. Oh we can never work
with her again. Delete her number, Oh don't look at
her at parties. So that's one of the reasons I
put it out under a pseudonym.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
First, and of course the complete opposite has happened. The
book has been hugely successful that your sessions here at
the Auckland Riders Festival sold out ages ago. The BBC
have picked up the rights for book. You are so
in demand that's quite exciting. Is that for a TV
or for a film adaptation?
Speaker 5 (27:12):
That's for a film adaptation. So it's being produced by
a twenty four Alice Birch, who wrote More People is
watching this good? I know, like every time I say it,
I'm like, is this real? Is someone going to descend
and say sorry it was all a joke? You don't
actually get any of this. Alice Bert who wrote norm
People's like in the script, and the BBC have commissioned
(27:33):
a series, so I don't know when it will hit
the screens, if it ever hits the screens. As you know,
things that a commissioned don't always make it all the
way to TV.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
But fingers crossed, do you feel like that? Do you
are you kind of do you sort of sit there
going wow, I can't believe all this has happened, but
it might all in tomorrow. Do you think like that?
Speaker 5 (27:52):
Yes, constantly. I have a really strong sense of I
think I really whind people up with it, a real
strong sense that I don't necessarily deserve every nice thing
that's ever happened to me, and that I should be
working harder to make sure I'm worthy of it. And
the minute that I stop working hard, it would be
right for it all to be taken away from me,
(28:13):
or for it to just turn out to be a
silly joke played at my expense.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
You cannot tell me that the result of their book
is not from hard work. It's fur too clever.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (28:25):
That's very kind of it is. I'm happy to admit
that the published version of Ministry is draft number nine.
So we did do a lot of work. We did
do a lot of editing.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Bringing you the best interviews from the Sunday session. Great
chats with Francesca Rudkin on iHeartRadio Empowered by News Talks
It'd be.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
That was also cally Anne Bradley. It was quite funny
because after the interview aired on the Sunday Session, I've
got quite a few texts from people saying that they'd
locked up Commander Graham Gore and could see the attraction
and could understand how Callianne had become obsessed with them. Look,
I am sure that Callianne has the great refugee experience
nol in her, but I am so pleased she's stuck
(29:06):
with this story. If you haven't read The Ministry of Time,
I highly recommend it. Right, let's get to some music.
Kaylie Bell is one of our most internationally recognized musicians
at the moment, huge in country in New Zealand, Australia.
They've got the nerve, toclaimer and the US. All her
hard work is paying off. So we started off by
talking about her for out here on Music Awards, and
(29:29):
I asked whether the local recognition is important to her.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Absolutely, I feel like I don't know.
Speaker 7 (29:36):
I just never really ever thought I would make categories
that weren't you know John specific. So to be an
album and single and to have country music recognized in
the mainstream now has just been such a dream come true.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
And yeah, just a celebration.
Speaker 7 (29:51):
I think of the last few years of just seeing
this rise of country music and you know, my career
here in New Zealand, which is so important to me.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
It's where it all began.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
And always dreamed of being able to tour this country
and hear my songs on the radio here and it's
all final happening. And it's reflecting in the olds now too,
which is just such a little cherry on the top.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
It's also it is I'm really excited that you've got
the album of the year, use this is the first time.
Speaker 7 (30:16):
Yeah, absolutely, and it's I feel like we're kind of
coming back to an album world too, you know. I
think it was very much single driven for a while there,
and I just I love having albums out, you know it.
Really it felt so different this last tour that we
did with the album out in the vinyl and really
connecting with fans back on that level. And I love,
you know, when fans discover sort of more of the
deeper cuts of the record and they're just it's just
(30:39):
such a nice feeling of having a project package together
and so yeah, just moving forth.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I just always want to make records now. That's really interesting.
Do you find are you surprised sometimes that the songs
that people sing along with, because they're not always the
single the ones that they respond to.
Speaker 7 (30:54):
You're so right, And that's the beauty of playing live.
It's like you never really know, and then you play
something live and that's when you get that little surprise.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
And it has been songs that we.
Speaker 7 (31:02):
Didn't really necessarily know if they like, they weren't released
as singles, and that's when you know you've got.
Speaker 6 (31:07):
The hard course there that are singing and I just
love that. Yeah, country music is kind of taking off
a little bit. You've been You've got behind the new
iHeart country music station here in New Zealand and your
song was you You were the first artist off the rank,
which is that's pretty amazing. Yeah, what's behind you think
(31:28):
this this growth of country music and particularly here in
New Zealand because I you know, obviously we know it's
massive in other parts.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Well, it's Australia too.
Speaker 7 (31:37):
It's the fastest growing genre basically in Australasia, which there's
never been a more exciting time.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
But I do think that it's also been very underground
for a long time.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
You know.
Speaker 7 (31:46):
I think there's been a lot of fans and they
just kind of haven't been fed their genre, you know,
on the mainstream radio. And it just took a few
singles you know, I think Luke Colmb's had a massive
song with Fast Car and Morgan Wallan and just a
few singles that kind of just had a wee moment
and slowly got the ball rolling. And then we've seen
a lot of Americans come out here until it in
the last sort of twelve months, and I just think
(32:08):
it's just been a combination of all these things. Kind
of it's like a perfect timing situation. You know, everything's
exploding at once, and yeah, I just think it's awesome
now that fans can turn on a radio station in
their car and actually be driving around listening to it.
I know I've put on everybody onto the station and
it's yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Hey, motherhood, this kind of came as a bit of
a surprise imagination.
Speaker 7 (32:33):
They have a four month old I do, little boy James,
and yeah, very unexpected. We found out we were having
him in Nashville last year. Actually, we just come off
the road. We just toured through New Zealand all of
April May. We're in Nashville for CMA Fest and yeah,
found out. So it's been quite a journey. I've spoken
(32:53):
on a few podcasts about my journey. I'm not going
to bore everybody with the details, but there has been
a long long ride for me with my health and
a few different situations and issues, and yeah, it's just
so nice now to have a little baby, and we're
just very much taking him on the road and including
him in our touring and our just in our life,
you know, because I just think what better education than
(33:15):
you know, travel and meeting people.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
And life goes on.
Speaker 7 (33:19):
Yeah, absolutely, And it's I've always also wanted to prove
that you can do both things, you know. I think
for whatever reason, as females, we still have that little
thing where it's it's just expected that we kind of
just carry on, you know, And I kind of am
making a point that you can do both and enjoy both.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
It's kind of quite common though in the country music circles. Yeah,
just do take their families with them. Ye's a bit
of a family affair, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
It is.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
You're right.
Speaker 7 (33:43):
I think it's the one genre that really embraces family's.
It's spoken about in people's songs, but it's also lived
out on the road in tour buses. And so I've
seen it in the country genre, which I think has
been a big help.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
But it's also.
Speaker 7 (33:58):
Something that I think that we need to see more
of and so you know, having him side stage and
backstage it shows and things like that will be something
that I really want to normalized as well.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
The change to motherhood though it's quite it's quite major.
And I mean you went from touring with UIs Superstar
Caine Brown to having the baby. Six weeks later after
he was born, you were performing at a festival in Oz.
I mean you even released a single in this time.
Is this a sign of your work ethic and dedication.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Or am I crazy where you've got today?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Or actually?
Speaker 4 (34:31):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Life goes on or is it actually, Hey, I've spent
fifteen years slogging it out to get to where I am.
I've now got this huge success. I'm not sure if
New Zealanders quite realized how successful you've been overseas. You've
got to keep the momentum going. Is there some pressure
on you to keep that momentum going?
Speaker 7 (34:49):
Yeah, And it's pressure that I put on myself, if
I'm being honest, You're right, though, I mean, this has
taken me years to get where I've wanted to go
and I'm still not there yet and I think that
no one cares about your career more than you do yourself.
Hence why I've always been self managed and independent. I'm
a big believer and get job done yourself. And I
think I really think that's you know, reflects the key
(35:10):
we upbringing that we have here. You know, it's like
that DIY like get the job done kind of mentality.
But it's it's really been something that I've you know,
needed in this industry. And yeah, I just knew that
there was no time to take, you know, peel off
the metal.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
It was like I had to be organized.
Speaker 7 (35:27):
And so I finished my record at the end of
last year, knowing that I would then be able to
release it this year and carry on. And again, I
just think it's I always wanted to prove that you
could do both things, and it's just taken a little
bit more organization, and like you said, though, we haven't
really slowed down, and it's sort of I think that's great.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
We can just kind of carry on now.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
That new single rig on. It is it a tricky.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
It could be.
Speaker 7 (35:57):
It was actually written as a joke I wrote in
New York last year, and I was terrified I just
would not play it to my partner for about six months,
and yeah, I never thought that song was he the
light of day, if I'm being honest. But the amount
of females that have seen me that song been like
this worked.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
I'm like, okay, it hasn't worked for me yet, but
it's worked for you. That's great.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
I love the fact that you also did a co
lab with the Wiggles, which means that in about two
years time, you were going to be rounded as a
very cool mother.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
I know, right, I'm still waiting for that.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
You're thinking about this very strategic You're going to be
able to say your child. But look, here's here's what
I did, was signed themselves. How much fun was that?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Oh my god?
Speaker 7 (36:39):
That was actually such a cool day. I filmed for
a whole day in Sydney with the team and they,
I mean, talk about work ethic. They have something insane
work ethic. They all have families, and I meant Katerina
the Red Wiggle, she just had her two little twins.
They were six weeks old and she was back at it.
She had a nanny. We were out filming for like
hours in the afternoon and it was just like it
(37:00):
was probably what I needed at the time, because I
had just found out that I was having a baby
and I was just like, how is this going to work?
And to see them make it work was like a
really important moment for me. But also they were just
so nice, Like they are the nicest humans in the world.
And I've had the chance to see them at the
Arias and a few different places since, and I feel
like I've just been kind of part of that Wiggles
family now. So, like you said, in two years time,
(37:21):
I'm going to be cool, mum, and I'm I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Are you surprised at the people that you do meet
and that you have meet along the way who are
very very well known?
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Yeah, at how grounded they are. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (37:33):
I think if there's one thing I've actually learned, it's
like the more famous people are, the nicer they are,
which is really ironic, but I speak for that, you know,
each year and was like that, Keith Evans like that,
the Wiggles are like that. It's like, not that they've
got nothing to prove anymore, but I think they've probably
seen it all and they've been through every kind of
up and down that it's like nothing really gets to them.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
Anymore, and I think that must be a really nice
place to get to.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Thinking back to when you start it out, there's so
much for potential for young Kiwi artists. Yeah, are you
excited about the opportunities for them or is it still
going to be a fifteen years log for most people?
Speaker 4 (38:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (38:14):
I mean, I don't want to scare anyone off, but
I think if you really want to do this properly,
it's you see people you know, have their little moments
off TikTok and things now that I think it's awesome
that being an independent artist and a self managed artist,
all those things I think would be a lot easier
now to get off the ground because there's a lot
more avenues, you know, with social media that you can
do it without needing to spend any money, or like
(38:36):
we can do it from New Zealand and people in
America can see it, for example. But I still think
the long game is the most important game, and I
think that it all comes back to being able to
put on a great show live and things like that
take time, and I don't think you get the chance
to take any shortcuts in this industry. I think it
all comes back to you if you do. It's like, yeah,
there's kind of no secrets in this industry.
Speaker 6 (38:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
It's interesting. Was there a time when you kind of
went after, you know, performing gigs and things, you kind
of went, Okay, I'm getting this, I'm developing as a performer.
I can you know that you actually recognize actually I
can kind of. I'm just constantly stepping up.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (39:14):
I think it was really when I made that call
with again the live show, to be like, I'm going
to have my band.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
That's going to be my band, and we're going to
work our butts off.
Speaker 7 (39:22):
We rehearse every week even when we don't have shows on,
and just that mentality of like this is like my
career and it's not a hobby.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
It's my job. It's my job.
Speaker 7 (39:32):
And yeah, and I think once I really shifted into
that headspace, it was like we just always constantly want
to keep getting better, and I think that should be
the goal anyway, right, So Yeah, I think I hope
that it's easier for the next generation coming through, and
I think there's now a lot more avenues where it
can be. But I still think if you want to
have a real career in this, you've got to play
(39:53):
the long game.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Yeah, do you ever go back? Have you got any videos?
So many videos?
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Do you ever go back and watch them?
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Not so much? It's yeah, way too humbling at this point.
Speaker 7 (40:02):
Actually it's I mean, I started so young. I was
four years old, and I've never really known anything else.
Speaker 6 (40:09):
You know.
Speaker 7 (40:09):
I was lucky that Mum and Dad were just very
encouraging that we go and play music in but never
ever thought I'd do it as a career.
Speaker 6 (40:17):
You know.
Speaker 7 (40:17):
It was like the way to pay through my union
and be able to get some drinking money or like,
you know, like it was just always something that I
did but never really thought much of.
Speaker 6 (40:26):
It.
Speaker 7 (40:26):
Was always like, Okay, you're doing that, but what are
you actually doing? You know, like what's what's the job?
What's the and so I mean, if that's one thing
I can show, you know, the next generation, that you
actually can have a career in country music in New Zealand,
then I think that would be an amazing thing to
a legacy to leave behind, because I didn't know that
when I was coming through.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
What do you think of all these pop stars now
putting out country jumping on the right.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
It's kind of awesome.
Speaker 7 (40:49):
I mean, post mall Own's record was probably one of
my favorite country records that came out last year, and
it all I just all think everything. You know, the
more we collaborate, the more we knock down walls with genre,
I think is a great thing.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
And so I'm always excited.
Speaker 7 (41:02):
To see how you know, different artists like Lana del
Rey has such a different take on country music than
you know, somebody like an Ned Cheer and a Fever
did a country record, which I'm sure he probably will
also do. It's just like, I just love it all
comes back to the songwriting. So I love hearing these
stories and why they wanted to do it too.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
So you're spending your time now between well, all over
the place, but New Zealand and Nashville they're the main
two bases.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
Yeah, in Australia.
Speaker 7 (41:27):
We spend a lot of time playing in Australia now too,
which is awesome. But my goal was always to live
just to never have a winter, and so it kind
of works perfectly with the American thing another tech.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Yeah, Yeah, it's good. So what does the rest of
the year hold for you and the family.
Speaker 7 (41:43):
Yeah, I feel like we've actually I mean, I know
we're already in man. This year's kind of come up
with us in a role, but we kind of haven't
even really got started yet. We've got a really crazy.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
End of the year.
Speaker 7 (41:51):
We're going to be out on the road a lot
more here in Australia as well, so we're going to
see a lot of our Kiwi fans over the next
sort of six months, which I can't wait to get
back out and and we'll have a lot more music
to share with them as well. So yeah, the rest
of this year I think is going to fly by
super fast because there's just so much coming and I
can't wait to be able to reveal it all the time.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Well I can't wait because right now, Kayla, you and
Aaron are going to perform your AMA nominated single Cowboy.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Thank You. We are all right, let's do it, Jez.
Speaker 8 (42:31):
We were in left here, right on track, my friends out,
trunk cars parked out back. We had everything we needed
and you treated me like maybe I'm you long the
stort h, you're brown eyes, crunt, my baby boos here
(42:59):
there was so many Emlsy got me thinking maybe if
you'd have it all hey, after all, now it's He'll
holding around.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
He go's a rodeover now my first baby, good topping.
You pulled me back? Tell me head to that and
see how baby tip your cat go crazy.
Speaker 8 (43:22):
Me if this guy age heb he's a high ball
if you think that I'm the long and see it
alas travel ol trawl out, Hey, don't tw me down,
(43:44):
don't kill me loose, just tell my name.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
I next you.
Speaker 8 (43:51):
Because I can't see the down ever and they just
they cake a hold and everything.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
But I can't wait for every for you to do.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
So it's he's.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
Holding around me go.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
It's a roadeo over now my first david through, it's topping.
Speaker 8 (44:07):
He pulled me back, tilly headed night is he how
baby doll?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Your cats go crazy?
Speaker 8 (44:14):
Me this YadA adri beater know how you fall? If
you pig that, I'm along this sig and a laugh
trable up cragleheap hey.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Do cago crazy? It's he how baby? He told around to.
Speaker 7 (44:41):
Go, it's a rodeopen the mockers baby, So it's happen
you pulled me back?
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Hellyhaded?
Speaker 4 (44:47):
That is he?
Speaker 2 (44:48):
How baby? Will you be my rider? Be forever? Bombas
he he's a lie I fall.
Speaker 8 (44:58):
If you think that I'm along this thing and a
laugh cowgleheap cragle out, Hey.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
There you sing the listen aloud now Yellowy.
Speaker 8 (45:17):
Day kill us without Cowboy Cowboy out.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
The best guest from the Sunday session Great Chatz with
Francesca rud Get on iHeartRadio powered by News Talks at B.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
That was Kaylee Bell performing her new song Cowboy Up.
She's impressive right, hugely talented, great work, ethic articulate and professional.
She is always happy to come and chat and play
a song. That was just a great way to end
out today's episode. So thank you so much for joining
me on this News Talks He'd podcast. Please feel free
(45:52):
to share these chats and if you like this podcast,
make sure you'll follow us on iHeartRadio or either you
get your podcasts. Don't forget that we release a new
episode of Great Chats on the last Thursday of every month.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
For more from the Sunday session with friend Jessica Rodkin,
listen live to News Talks a B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB. The big names, the fascinating guests,
the thoughtful conversations bringing you the best interviews from the
Sunday Session. This is Great Chats with Francesca Rudkin, empowered
(00:27):
by News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hello and welcome to Great Chats. I'm franchisc Budkin, host
of the Sunday Session on News Talks EDB, and in
this podcast, we picked some of our favorite feature interviews
from over the last month for you to enjoy. Coming up,
we've got the amazing Kayleie Bell. She joins me to
talk about country music and managing her increasingly successful career
and motherhood. I'm also joined by Kelley Amn Bradley to
(00:49):
talk about her debut novel, The Ministry of Time, which
has become a global hit and it almost never got written.
More on that story later, but first up, author and
screenwriter of the novel, film and television series One Day,
David Nichols joins me to talk about latest.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Best seller, You Are Here.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
It is a great rate and I started off by
congratulating him on the success of the novel.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Oh, thank you very much. This was a real neighbor
of love this book. I had a great time writing it,
which isn't always the case, but I did love doing
this one.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
You were going to write a big London novel, and
then the pandemic and lockdowns came along and like so
many of us, kind of altered plans a little bit.
How did that period inspire this book?
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Well, you know, it was a terrible time to write.
I wanted to write about the present day, and there
was there was so much uncertainty about what the future held.
And also I found that, like so many people, I
was stuck in doors, not seeing my friends, kind of
forgetting how to relate to other people and how to
(01:55):
talk to people. And when it finally lifted, I found
it very difficult to get back out into the world.
Created so many routines and habits to make lockdown bearable.
And I saw this in my friends as well, that
we've all become a little bit nervous, a bit wary
around each other. And my friends who were living alone,
I think they had a particularly difficult time. And I
had to write about that, really about me, But how
(02:18):
rewarding ultimately it can be, and well, so I missed
the countryside. I missed going for my long walks in
the country, so I wanted to write about that as well,
and the two ideas came together and became you are here.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
It's interesting you mentioned that you wanted to write in
the present, because you often use time in the passing
of time to tell your stories. That this is very
much a book about living in the moment, appreciating the present.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Yes, absolutely, I wanted it to be a little kind
of chamber piece to follow two people's conversation over just
a matter of days. The journey they go on is epic,
it's a two hundred mile bike all the way across
the north of England. But it's very much a kind
of close up novel. It's very much about the details,
the tiny details of their interaction and their relationships. I've
(03:07):
written a lot of books, as you say, set in
the past, and a lot of books with quite a
large timescale, but this is like a little, delicate, little
chamber piece, even though it takes place against all these
mountains and lakes and rivers. It's a character study really.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
It doesn't reflect also sort of your approach to life
these days as well. You know, taking time to enjoy
the now.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
I suppose so. I think it's very much a book
about friendship and the formation of a friendship and a
friendship that may turn into a relationship a love affair.
But certainly it's hard. Is about opening up conversation, the
two characters getting a learn more about each other, and
thinking about the future, and really relishing each other's company.
(03:53):
And I guess that's something I feel more and more
as I get older. Yes, that my early books are
kind of quite noisy comedies about about dating and relationships,
and this one is a little bit maybe a bit gentler,
a bit wiser, a little bit more mature than some
of the other things I've written.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
David, what comes to you first? Is it the characters,
the location, sort of the premise around the narrative.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
I think it's often the premise for me, you know,
I wanted to write, Yeah, love story that takes place
in a long walk. That was the premise. And then
you start to ask yourself questions to you, who are
these people, how are they different to each other? What
kind of conflict might there be in their relationship? What's
their relationship to this landscape? Do they want to be there.
(04:38):
I then, of course had to do the walk, this
famous walk, the Coast to Coast, which is a two
hundred mile walk from the west coast of England to
the east, and along the way there was a certain
amount of improvisation, responding to the landscape, responding to the
rain and the cold and the terrible hotels, and wondering
who might be in that place. And it's a bit
(04:59):
like an act of preparing for a role, you know.
I think a lot about the characters' background, the tone, voice,
their physicality, and I make a a lot of notes
before I start writing the novels. So the novel there's
a kind of improvisation in character. It's a very slow process.
But with this book, I so enjoyed the experience of
the landscape and actually making the same journey as the
(05:21):
characters that it was a real joy.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I am very impressed that you did the walk. I
was going to ask you that because I noticed at
the end of the book and you sort of said
a note on the journey and you mentioned how you
were assisted by a few guides, and I thought.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Hmm, I wonder if David actually did this walk himself.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I am very ambressed, but you do warn people because
people will. I mean, I'm a wanderer. I love a walk,
so I read this and I love the relationship and
the story, but I also love the journey that you
took me on, and I would love to hit out
the door and go and do this walk. But if
you know, I love the way you warned people that
you did make up certain you know, b and bs
(06:00):
and places that they stayed and in things just in
case people go off to sort of reenact this journey.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Yes, it's very much a novel rather than a travel guide.
The landscape is absolutely real, and I did the whole
walk and stood everywhere the characters stood. But inevitably, sometimes
you want your characters to have a fantastic time and
sometimes you want them to be miserable, so everywhere they
stay is fictional. But the mountains and the rivers are
(06:27):
all real and very much first hand experience. It's an
amazing walk. I think there are more beautiful walks in England.
But there's a kind of symbolism to this idea of
walking all the way across the country, and there's a
kind of mythology to it as well. You meant to
pick up a pebble on the beach in Cumbria and
carry it all the way to Yorkshire and throw it
(06:48):
in the sea. And it's a walk that very much
has three acts. The lakes and the dales and the moors,
and all of that really informed that the novel.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
And I love the way, you know the quirks of
trampers or hikers, those you know, how they have those
seemingly gentle and yet quite competitive conversations about how far
are you walking and where have you come from? You know,
I loved all that details that you're.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Hearing, whether you take the high root or the low root,
the easy way of the hard way, and then yes,
endless conversations about the weather and the distance you've traveled.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yep, there are many funny lines and observations. Money uses
her work to get through a lot of situations in
her life. Does that wit come flying out of you
and onto the page once you have your character, or
do you have to work hard at nailing the humor?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Oh I wish it did come flying out. No, it's
very laborious. But you know what you have. You have
this great luxury as a writer of time. You know,
you can spend three years making a character as funny
as they can possibly be, And that process is quite detailed,
you know. I spend a lot of time polishing the dialogue,
working out whether it needs a dash or a full stop,
(08:00):
working out the precise language the characters use. And at
the same time, dialogue is the thing that I'm happy
is writing. It is again akin to being an actor
and improvising. Once I know who the characters are, I
can write pages and pages and pages of dialogue, which
then gets polished and cut down and shaped into the
(08:20):
dialog you read in the book. It's it's the part
of the process I love the most, and yet it's
also it's often comedy is about absolutely the right word
or the rhythm of a sentence, and all that takes many,
many months to do.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So do you find it easy to be funny through
writing than an everyday conversation.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Oh yeah, definitely. I'm completely deathly in conversation. I can't
tell a joke. I'm not particularly witty, you know, I
kind of I can't. I don't like at dinner parties.
But if you give me something to write with and
give me time, I can usually think of something. It
just takes a long, long time. David.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
You write characters that people resonate with, they recognize, and
they fall in love love, and therefore can become quite
pretictive over them and their stories. Do you mind that
people's opinion on your characters or maybe the outcome of
a book.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
No, I'm fascinated by it. I don't always know how
it's going to go. You know. Often I write characters
who I think are wonderful and I really love, and
they don't quite land and other characters that I that
I'm more wary of, you know, just as you would
be with meeting people in real life. There are characters
I adore, and I mean Marnie in this novel was
(09:37):
a real joy to write because she's so sharp witted
and smart and sardonic, and I loved loved writing her.
But you never quite know our people. It's a bit
like introducing friends. You never quite know how it's going
to go. I've definitely written characters who were a real
pleasure and I felt very fondly towards, and people were
(10:01):
less forgiving of their actions than I thought they'd be.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
You started your career in television. Has screenwriting impacted your
approach to writing fiction and vice versa. Has writing novels
impacted your screenwriting in.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Any way, Well, definitely. The screenwriting is sped into the fiction.
You know, people are very the screenwriting process is very tough.
You throw a lot of things away. There's a lot
of collaboration because everything costs so much to make. Everything
has to fulfill a purpose. You know, people are constantly saying,
can we cut the scene? What is this scene doing
for us? Have we seen the scene already? Does it
(10:34):
have to be outside? Does it have to rain? All
of those questions that very make the process often quite frustrating.
With fiction, you have terrific freedom, but at the same time,
I'm always asking myself what is this for? Is this boring?
Is does this have a book? Is this going to
get the reader into the next chapter? That feeling you
have at the end of a really good TV show,
(10:56):
what's going to happen next? I do want that to
find its way onto the page as well. So I
like to think I'm quite economical and quite careful about
story and a lot of time fanning. You know, I
don't improvise a novel. I spend often a year or
more just making notes and working out what it's going
to be and only when I know that whole shape
(11:17):
as a screenwriter would only then do I start writing
the pros.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Many of your novels have been adapted for the screen.
So when you are writing a book like you are here,
are you dreamcasting as you go? Are you imagining this
on screen as well?
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Not in a practical way, I mean in that you know,
I want a book to be a book. And there
are all kinds of things you can do in a
novel that you can't do on the screen, like internal
monologue and metaphor and childhood memories, that kind of thing.
All none of that really works on screen. Screen is
really about just what characters say and do. So you
do have all these extra tools as a novelist, and
(11:55):
I do try and make the most of that. At
the same time, you know, I grew up watching film
and television, and I grew up loving books, and to me,
they're the same thing, and elementally, you know, they're about
engagement and emotion and often comedy, and so there is
a certain overlap. And sometimes it helps me to think
(12:16):
of the physicality of an actor, not someone i'd necessarily cast,
but a tone of voice. You know, is this a
Jack Lemon character or a Katherine Heatbround character. I love actors,
and I've definitely drawn from what actors can do when
I try and create a character for the page.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Diavid is six books, all hugely successful. When you release
a new book, now, do you feel any preciure at
all for it to be a hit?
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Oh? Huge pressure? Yeah. I love all six, but some
have done much better than others, and there's no way
of knowing. You know, they're all equally hard work. I
put the same amount of commitment and love into each
of them, but you never quite know what's going to
take and how people are going to respond. So that's
the great unknown. But certainly I do my very best
(13:03):
to make it as good as it can possibly be.
I I wouldn't want to publish anything that I wasn't
entirely convinced by. At the same time, there's absolutely no
way of knowing whether it's going to absolutely fly or
just kind of, you know, do okay, And there's nothing
you can do about that, really except hold your nerve.
(13:24):
I'm very lucky to be published, but it is an
extremely nerve wrecking process, and there's no way of knowing
quite how things are going to go.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
The biggest names from the Sunday session Great Jets with
brand Jaska Rudkin on iHeartRadio powered by News Talks, it'd
be that was David Nichols.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
He was in town for the aucand Writerers Festival, and
I heard from a few people that he was incredibly
accommodating and willing to talk to people and sign books.
Even after his official book signing session, he hung out
at the makeshift bookshop at the festival signing books for people,
and I don't know, he's really charming. Then. I was
(14:03):
really interested to hear though, about the pressure of being
a best selling author. So you'd think that if the
majority of your books has gone well that the pressure
is kind of off, that you just roll with it
a little bit more. You know, with more experience comes
less stress. But maybe not. Another author who attended the
Auckland Riders Festival was cally Anne Bradley. Her session it
(14:23):
sold out like that, It sold out so quickly, and
I'm not surprised. Her debut novel, The Ministry of Time,
landed on many best of lists for twenty twenty four. Okay,
so I started with a gash of praise telling her
it was my favorite book of twenty twenty four, and
I wind that if she's inundated with other people telling
her they feel the same, I wish I could.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
I had responses as kind of enthusiastic as yours all
the time. It has been a real pleasure to see
that there are people out there who've connected with it
and who care about it. When I started writing it,
I didn't expect it to get beyond the original fifteen readers,
so it really is very thrilling.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, we'll talk about that just a moment.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
Now.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Lockdown inspired you to write some science fiction. What was
it about the lockdowns that brought that out of New.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Well, I couldn't go outside, I wasn't really doing anything,
and my brain, you know, during lockdown, we had all
these this strange space in our brain where you know,
things like going outside and meeting people and going to
work would have been during lockdown. I started watching a
TV series called The Terror, which is about Sir John
Franklin's Lost eighting forty five expedition to the Arctic. That
introduced me to the Lost eighting forty five Expedition to
(15:37):
the Arctic, in which one hundred and twenty nine men
and two ships vanished. But also one of the officers
on that expedition, a man called Graham Gore, who I
found just by accident, just looking up what I thought
was an interesting name on Wikipedia, and then I saw
his photo. I saw his photo on the Wikipedia page,
and I was dazzled.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
But also I read what smitten by him? Aren't you?
Speaker 5 (16:01):
I was? I really am. At the time. It felt,
you know, eyes across the crowded webs, like really electric.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
But it's partly.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Because his biography makes him sound like a very calm,
very competent, very likable man who was you know, he
was very quite senior by the time he went to
the Arctic, so someone you could trust to be in charge.
And during lockdown we were not being led by kind, competent,
likable people in the UK. So I think I really
latched onto this figure from history who I thought, God,
(16:30):
it'd be great if he was here now.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Actually, isn't an amazing Most of us were getting fixated
on how to make breed in here. You were getting
fixated on this man who's led to this book. Do
you still have the huge picture of him hanging in
your office right behind you on the zone So how
did he end up? How did you end up putting
(16:52):
him into this spook of fiction?
Speaker 5 (16:55):
Again, this was a sort of surprising lockdown mistake. So
when I started finding out about this expedition, the Lost
Expedition of eighteen forty five to the Arctic, and as
I was trying to find out more this officer, of
course I couldn't actually go anywhere. I couldn't go to archives,
I couldn't ask any questions. I only had the Internet.
So I went on the Internet, did a bit of googling,
that was searching around, and I found this community online
(17:19):
of people who were either very interested in the TV
show we'd watched, or the expedition or polar exploration in general.
And they were very very generous with the research they
already had. So there were experts out there who know
much more about Grahame more than me. They very generously
shared their research with me, and I began writing what
would become the Ministry of Time as a kind of
gift for them, as sort of joke, what would it
(17:41):
be like if your favorite polar explorer lived in your house?
Because we all had favorite polar explorers. That was definitely
a thing that was all.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Going on for us, it's amazing. So you initially started
writing this story just to entertain some new friends in
lockdown exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
And because you know, I had no way to reach
these people. We all lived in different parts of the world,
in different countries. You know, we couldn't go out of
the else it was lockdown. It felt almost like a
way not only to have a conversation with this person
I'd become fascinated with this historical figure, but to continue
having a conversation and building a friendship and building a
community with these friends that I'd made in my computer.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Basically, So how did it turn into a novel? At
what point did you realize its potential?
Speaker 5 (18:29):
I think this came in two stages. So there was
the stage where I began to take what I was
writing more seriously, because to begin with, the Ministry of
Time is about a ministry that is dragging people out
of the past to put them in the twenty first
century to find out whether time travel works. To begin with,
the Ministry was just the apparatus I needed to get
Graham Gore into the twenty first century so I could
(18:51):
torment him with Spotify and washing machines. It wasn't at
that time the most important thing about the book. But
as I kept on writing it, and I kept on
really trying to imagine and really engage with both the
historical figure his text and the emotional and psychological experience
of being pulled into the twenty first century, being told
(19:12):
you have to assimilate to this new land, this new country,
with its new rules. I started to see these parallels
between Graham Gore and the other expats from history and
the experience of refugees. So at that point I started
to take the story a little more seriously, and I
started to build it out a little bit more. I
was at the time writing what I thought would be
my serious debut novel, which was about Cambodia, the Khmer
(19:35):
Rouge and the Diastro, because I am half Cambodia and
my mother's Cambodian, so I thought that was what I
had to write. I was thinking about. I was really
struggling with that novel, and I was thinking what should
I send to agents, what should I send out? And
one of my friends, who was reading along with the
Ministry of what would become the Ministry of Time, said,
do you know, I think what you have here is
a novel. I think you could. You could really send
(19:58):
this out and no one would laugh at you. I
think it's a I think it could be your chance.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I think that's really interesting what you said there, how
you felt that you hit to write your mother's story,
the story inspired by your heritage and your mother's refugee experience.
Does they put a lot of pressure on you, though,
trying to tell a story like that.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
Absolutely, And I think it's both that sense of pressure
and the nervousness of living up to the pressure, and
then the constant questioning that comes with that kind of
self imposed responsibility. Am I the right person to be
writing this? Am I getting this right?
Speaker 4 (20:39):
You know?
Speaker 5 (20:39):
My family don't want to talk about the Khmer Rouge?
How much should I fictionalize? How much should I take
from my own family's past. There's that, and then there's
the sense of obligation. Obligation is actually I think a
kind of death wish for creativity. Just because it was
something that I thought about a lot, which preoccupied me,
it didn't mean that I was going to be able
to metabolize it into good fiction. So in fact it
(21:01):
was it wasn't going anywhere. I think not because it's
not a story worth telling, but because I I couldn't
find a way to tell it.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
But in a way you had, as you say, you
didn't completely abandoned that concept. And this is one of
the brilliant things about this book, is this concept of
bringing someone from another time into the twenty third century
and trying to get them up to speed with the
current modern world. I mean, it's fascinating, and I wonder,
(21:31):
was there a particular person from a particular time that
you had the most fun trying to adapt to the
twenty first century.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
I think the most fun I had was with a
character called Margaret Campbell, who is pulled from the Great
Plague of London. She's a Jacobean woman. She's brought into
a twenty first century, and you know, multiple things hit
her all at once, such as you can have you
can be a woman and be unmarried, and you're just
allowed to move around in the world. She's introduced to
(22:01):
the word lesbian. That's very exciting for her because now
she's got a new word to describe herself, to describe
a community she can find. She's talked about cinema. She
loves cinema that you know, just as a concept that's
something she's never had or could imagine. She finds out
about Riot Girl, she wants to go clubbing. It's like
to be able to write someone who is experiencing the
(22:22):
disorientation of a refugee. But it was also thriving is
looking for joy.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
That was loads of fun. For all that, it's fun
and the humor in it is absolutely fantastic. It's also
a really amazing way for us to reflect on our
humanity because there is a point in the book where
one of the bridges and our protagonist is a bridger
and is responsible for adjusting helping these expects as they
called adjust to the modern day. You know, it is
(22:48):
wondering how to explain the Holocaust, for example.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
So this was again as I tried to imagine what
it would actually be like to engage with these characters
and trying to looking back at recent history is from
the point of view as both an observer and someone
who whose identity has been influenced by recent history.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
It became.
Speaker 5 (23:12):
Quite difficult actually to step outside that and to face
up to some of the things in our recent history.
In the book, the Ministry chooses to hold back certain information.
They withhold the news about what happened in the Holocaust,
They withhold things like nine to eleven. And they say
(23:33):
this is because they don't want the expat's to be
too shocked, you know, they don't want to drive them
into shock and to have their assimilation disrupted. But in fact,
there's a certain kind of kind of lying by your
mission there, because if you show someone this kind of atrocity,
it makes them ask, well, what kind of person are
you that you came out of that past? And what
(23:54):
kind of person are you that you just have to
sit and live with that very recent past? So there is, yeah,
there's a friction there.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
We've meantioned sci fi, and I've obviously mentioned the humor
and things, but there's so much more to this book.
It's all so romance and there's mystery in here, and
there's a little touch of thriller. It's got everything.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
I'm really glad that those different genres landed with you yet.
So it wasn't intentional for me to write a book
that has so many different genres faught into a chordron
and mixed up like a like a wild magic potion.
But I think partly because I was never I began
writing this for friends rather than with publication in mind.
I didn't feel boxed in by markets, or didn't feel
(24:36):
boxed in by genre, so I felt able to be experimental.
Then I realized that the tropes of some of these
genres can be fun to play with. It can be
fun to seduce the reader with a romance and then
surprise them with a kind of horrific thriller underneath. And
it can be fun to play with the elements of
science fiction only to reveal that what's going on as
(24:57):
a kind of emotionally realist story. And all of these
genres mesh and they all, I think, contribute to each
other in this book, in literature in general, so it
was a lot of fun to do that.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I still find it had to believe that this was
just a lockdown mistake from mistake. So I'm sure that
there is a second novel on the go, and I'm
wondering whether you're sort of using a similar tectic for
fighting you know, your your premise and your purpose with
their book.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
I'm sorry to say I have not yet fallen in
love with another random dead person on a Wikipedia page,
which is a shame because I think it would make
my work much easier. I am writing a second novel.
I'm about to get notes from my editors. Actually very
nerve wrackingly. I think one thing I am still playing
(25:48):
with is this idea of genre being both a seduction
that pulls us along as storyline we expect, and then
being able to upend that relationship with genre. So it's
a sort of a fantasy novel, sort of a mystery novel,
sort of a novel about dealing with the fact that
we all have to die.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
I love it. You initially submitted The Ministry of Time
under a pseudonym. Why was that?
Speaker 5 (26:14):
Well, I work in publishing, and I thought, first of all,
I was slightly masochistic, and I thought, I don't want
to leverage my contacts with literary agents that I know,
because then maybe the book isn't you know. I wanted
the book to be good enough to pass Muster without
leveraging that. But also I had this terrible feeling that
(26:36):
what if I sent it to all these agents I
know and respect and have professional relationships with, and they
all go, oh, no, oh, no, how embarrassing. Oh she's
written this really embarrassing book. Oh we can never work
with her again. Delete her number, Oh don't look at
her at parties. So that's one of the reasons I
put it out under a pseudonym.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
First, and of course the complete opposite has happened. The
book has been hugely successful that your sessions here at
the Auckland Riders Festival sold out ages ago. The BBC
have picked up the rights for book. You are so
in demand that's quite exciting. Is that for a TV
or for a film adaptation?
Speaker 5 (27:12):
That's for a film adaptation. So it's being produced by
a twenty four Alice Birch, who wrote More People is
watching this good? I know, like every time I say it,
I'm like, is this real? Is someone going to descend
and say sorry it was all a joke? You don't
actually get any of this. Alice Bert who wrote norm
People's like in the script, and the BBC have commissioned
(27:33):
a series, so I don't know when it will hit
the screens, if it ever hits the screens. As you know,
things that a commissioned don't always make it all the
way to TV.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
But fingers crossed, do you feel like that? Do you
are you kind of do you sort of sit there
going wow, I can't believe all this has happened, but
it might all in tomorrow. Do you think like that?
Speaker 5 (27:52):
Yes, constantly. I have a really strong sense of I
think I really whind people up with it, a real
strong sense that I don't necessarily deserve every nice thing
that's ever happened to me, and that I should be
working harder to make sure I'm worthy of it. And
the minute that I stop working hard, it would be
right for it all to be taken away from me,
(28:13):
or for it to just turn out to be a
silly joke played at my expense.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
You cannot tell me that the result of their book
is not from hard work. It's fur too clever.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (28:25):
That's very kind of it is. I'm happy to admit
that the published version of Ministry is draft number nine.
So we did do a lot of work. We did
do a lot of editing.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Bringing you the best interviews from the Sunday session. Great
chats with Francesca Rudkin on iHeartRadio Empowered by News Talks
It'd be.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
That was also cally Anne Bradley. It was quite funny
because after the interview aired on the Sunday Session, I've
got quite a few texts from people saying that they'd
locked up Commander Graham Gore and could see the attraction
and could understand how Callianne had become obsessed with them. Look,
I am sure that Callianne has the great refugee experience
nol in her, but I am so pleased she's stuck
(29:06):
with this story. If you haven't read The Ministry of Time,
I highly recommend it. Right, let's get to some music.
Kaylie Bell is one of our most internationally recognized musicians
at the moment, huge in country in New Zealand, Australia.
They've got the nerve, toclaimer and the US. All her
hard work is paying off. So we started off by
talking about her for out here on Music Awards, and
(29:29):
I asked whether the local recognition is important to her.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Absolutely, I feel like I don't know.
Speaker 7 (29:36):
I just never really ever thought I would make categories
that weren't you know John specific. So to be an
album and single and to have country music recognized in
the mainstream now has just been such a dream come true.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
And yeah, just a celebration.
Speaker 7 (29:51):
I think of the last few years of just seeing
this rise of country music and you know, my career
here in New Zealand, which is so important to me.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
It's where it all began.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
And always dreamed of being able to tour this country
and hear my songs on the radio here and it's
all final happening. And it's reflecting in the olds now too,
which is just such a little cherry on the top.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
It's also it is I'm really excited that you've got
the album of the year, use this is the first time.
Speaker 7 (30:16):
Yeah, absolutely, and it's I feel like we're kind of
coming back to an album world too, you know. I
think it was very much single driven for a while there,
and I just I love having albums out, you know it.
Really it felt so different this last tour that we
did with the album out in the vinyl and really
connecting with fans back on that level. And I love,
you know, when fans discover sort of more of the
deeper cuts of the record and they're just it's just
(30:39):
such a nice feeling of having a project package together
and so yeah, just moving forth.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I just always want to make records now. That's really interesting.
Do you find are you surprised sometimes that the songs
that people sing along with, because they're not always the
single the ones that they respond to.
Speaker 7 (30:54):
You're so right, And that's the beauty of playing live.
It's like you never really know, and then you play
something live and that's when you get that little surprise.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
And it has been songs that we.
Speaker 7 (31:02):
Didn't really necessarily know if they like, they weren't released
as singles, and that's when you know you've got.
Speaker 6 (31:07):
The hard course there that are singing and I just
love that. Yeah, country music is kind of taking off
a little bit. You've been You've got behind the new
iHeart country music station here in New Zealand and your
song was you You were the first artist off the rank,
which is that's pretty amazing. Yeah, what's behind you think
(31:28):
this this growth of country music and particularly here in
New Zealand because I you know, obviously we know it's
massive in other parts.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Well, it's Australia too.
Speaker 7 (31:37):
It's the fastest growing genre basically in Australasia, which there's
never been a more exciting time.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
But I do think that it's also been very underground
for a long time.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
You know.
Speaker 7 (31:46):
I think there's been a lot of fans and they
just kind of haven't been fed their genre, you know,
on the mainstream radio. And it just took a few
singles you know, I think Luke Colmb's had a massive
song with Fast Car and Morgan Wallan and just a
few singles that kind of just had a wee moment
and slowly got the ball rolling. And then we've seen
a lot of Americans come out here until it in
the last sort of twelve months, and I just think
(32:08):
it's just been a combination of all these things. Kind
of it's like a perfect timing situation. You know, everything's
exploding at once, and yeah, I just think it's awesome
now that fans can turn on a radio station in
their car and actually be driving around listening to it.
I know I've put on everybody onto the station and
it's yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Hey, motherhood, this kind of came as a bit of
a surprise imagination.
Speaker 7 (32:33):
They have a four month old I do, little boy James,
and yeah, very unexpected. We found out we were having
him in Nashville last year. Actually, we just come off
the road. We just toured through New Zealand all of
April May. We're in Nashville for CMA Fest and yeah,
found out. So it's been quite a journey. I've spoken
(32:53):
on a few podcasts about my journey. I'm not going
to bore everybody with the details, but there has been
a long long ride for me with my health and
a few different situations and issues, and yeah, it's just
so nice now to have a little baby, and we're
just very much taking him on the road and including
him in our touring and our just in our life,
you know, because I just think what better education than
(33:15):
you know, travel and meeting people.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
And life goes on.
Speaker 7 (33:19):
Yeah, absolutely, And it's I've always also wanted to prove
that you can do both things, you know. I think
for whatever reason, as females, we still have that little
thing where it's it's just expected that we kind of
just carry on, you know, And I kind of am
making a point that you can do both and enjoy both.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
It's kind of quite common though in the country music circles. Yeah,
just do take their families with them. Ye's a bit
of a family affair, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
It is.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
You're right.
Speaker 7 (33:43):
I think it's the one genre that really embraces family's.
It's spoken about in people's songs, but it's also lived
out on the road in tour buses. And so I've
seen it in the country genre, which I think has
been a big help.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
But it's also.
Speaker 7 (33:58):
Something that I think that we need to see more
of and so you know, having him side stage and
backstage it shows and things like that will be something
that I really want to normalized as well.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
The change to motherhood though it's quite it's quite major.
And I mean you went from touring with UIs Superstar
Caine Brown to having the baby. Six weeks later after
he was born, you were performing at a festival in Oz.
I mean you even released a single in this time.
Is this a sign of your work ethic and dedication.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Or am I crazy where you've got today?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Or actually?
Speaker 4 (34:31):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Life goes on or is it actually, Hey, I've spent
fifteen years slogging it out to get to where I am.
I've now got this huge success. I'm not sure if
New Zealanders quite realized how successful you've been overseas. You've
got to keep the momentum going. Is there some pressure
on you to keep that momentum going?
Speaker 7 (34:49):
Yeah, And it's pressure that I put on myself, if
I'm being honest, You're right, though, I mean, this has
taken me years to get where I've wanted to go
and I'm still not there yet and I think that
no one cares about your career more than you do yourself.
Hence why I've always been self managed and independent. I'm
a big believer and get job done yourself. And I
think I really think that's you know, reflects the key
(35:10):
we upbringing that we have here. You know, it's like
that DIY like get the job done kind of mentality.
But it's it's really been something that I've you know,
needed in this industry. And yeah, I just knew that
there was no time to take, you know, peel off
the metal.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
It was like I had to be organized.
Speaker 7 (35:27):
And so I finished my record at the end of
last year, knowing that I would then be able to
release it this year and carry on. And again, I
just think it's I always wanted to prove that you
could do both things, and it's just taken a little
bit more organization, and like you said, though, we haven't
really slowed down, and it's sort of I think that's great.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
We can just kind of carry on now.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
That new single rig on. It is it a tricky.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
It could be.
Speaker 7 (35:57):
It was actually written as a joke I wrote in
New York last year, and I was terrified I just
would not play it to my partner for about six months,
and yeah, I never thought that song was he the
light of day, if I'm being honest. But the amount
of females that have seen me that song been like
this worked.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
I'm like, okay, it hasn't worked for me yet, but
it's worked for you. That's great.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
I love the fact that you also did a co
lab with the Wiggles, which means that in about two
years time, you were going to be rounded as a
very cool mother.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
I know, right, I'm still waiting for that.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
You're thinking about this very strategic You're going to be
able to say your child. But look, here's here's what
I did, was signed themselves. How much fun was that?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Oh my god?
Speaker 7 (36:39):
That was actually such a cool day. I filmed for
a whole day in Sydney with the team and they,
I mean, talk about work ethic. They have something insane
work ethic. They all have families, and I meant Katerina
the Red Wiggle, she just had her two little twins.
They were six weeks old and she was back at it.
She had a nanny. We were out filming for like
hours in the afternoon and it was just like it
(37:00):
was probably what I needed at the time, because I
had just found out that I was having a baby
and I was just like, how is this going to work?
And to see them make it work was like a
really important moment for me. But also they were just
so nice, Like they are the nicest humans in the world.
And I've had the chance to see them at the
Arias and a few different places since, and I feel
like I've just been kind of part of that Wiggles
family now. So, like you said, in two years time,
(37:21):
I'm going to be cool, mum, and I'm I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Are you surprised at the people that you do meet
and that you have meet along the way who are
very very well known?
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Yeah, at how grounded they are. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (37:33):
I think if there's one thing I've actually learned, it's
like the more famous people are, the nicer they are,
which is really ironic, but I speak for that, you know,
each year and was like that, Keith Evans like that,
the Wiggles are like that. It's like, not that they've
got nothing to prove anymore, but I think they've probably
seen it all and they've been through every kind of
up and down that it's like nothing really gets to them.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
Anymore, and I think that must be a really nice
place to get to.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Thinking back to when you start it out, there's so
much for potential for young Kiwi artists. Yeah, are you
excited about the opportunities for them or is it still
going to be a fifteen years log for most people?
Speaker 4 (38:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (38:14):
I mean, I don't want to scare anyone off, but
I think if you really want to do this properly,
it's you see people you know, have their little moments
off TikTok and things now that I think it's awesome
that being an independent artist and a self managed artist,
all those things I think would be a lot easier
now to get off the ground because there's a lot
more avenues, you know, with social media that you can
do it without needing to spend any money, or like
(38:36):
we can do it from New Zealand and people in
America can see it, for example. But I still think
the long game is the most important game, and I
think that it all comes back to being able to
put on a great show live and things like that
take time, and I don't think you get the chance
to take any shortcuts in this industry. I think it
all comes back to you if you do. It's like, yeah,
there's kind of no secrets in this industry.
Speaker 6 (38:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
It's interesting. Was there a time when you kind of
went after, you know, performing gigs and things, you kind
of went, Okay, I'm getting this, I'm developing as a performer.
I can you know that you actually recognize actually I
can kind of. I'm just constantly stepping up.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (39:14):
I think it was really when I made that call
with again the live show, to be like, I'm going
to have my band.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
That's going to be my band, and we're going to
work our butts off.
Speaker 7 (39:22):
We rehearse every week even when we don't have shows on,
and just that mentality of like this is like my
career and it's not a hobby.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
It's my job. It's my job.
Speaker 7 (39:32):
And yeah, and I think once I really shifted into
that headspace, it was like we just always constantly want
to keep getting better, and I think that should be
the goal anyway, right, So Yeah, I think I hope
that it's easier for the next generation coming through, and
I think there's now a lot more avenues where it
can be. But I still think if you want to
have a real career in this, you've got to play
(39:53):
the long game.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Yeah, do you ever go back? Have you got any videos?
So many videos?
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Do you ever go back and watch them?
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Not so much? It's yeah, way too humbling at this point.
Speaker 7 (40:02):
Actually it's I mean, I started so young. I was
four years old, and I've never really known anything else.
Speaker 6 (40:09):
You know.
Speaker 7 (40:09):
I was lucky that Mum and Dad were just very
encouraging that we go and play music in but never
ever thought I'd do it as a career.
Speaker 6 (40:17):
You know.
Speaker 7 (40:17):
It was like the way to pay through my union
and be able to get some drinking money or like,
you know, like it was just always something that I
did but never really thought much of.
Speaker 6 (40:26):
It.
Speaker 7 (40:26):
Was always like, Okay, you're doing that, but what are
you actually doing? You know, like what's what's the job?
What's the and so I mean, if that's one thing
I can show, you know, the next generation, that you
actually can have a career in country music in New Zealand,
then I think that would be an amazing thing to
a legacy to leave behind, because I didn't know that
when I was coming through.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
What do you think of all these pop stars now
putting out country jumping on the right.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
It's kind of awesome.
Speaker 7 (40:49):
I mean, post mall Own's record was probably one of
my favorite country records that came out last year, and
it all I just all think everything. You know, the
more we collaborate, the more we knock down walls with genre,
I think is a great thing.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
And so I'm always excited.
Speaker 7 (41:02):
To see how you know, different artists like Lana del
Rey has such a different take on country music than
you know, somebody like an Ned Cheer and a Fever
did a country record, which I'm sure he probably will
also do. It's just like, I just love it all
comes back to the songwriting. So I love hearing these
stories and why they wanted to do it too.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
So you're spending your time now between well, all over
the place, but New Zealand and Nashville they're the main
two bases.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
Yeah, in Australia.
Speaker 7 (41:27):
We spend a lot of time playing in Australia now too,
which is awesome. But my goal was always to live
just to never have a winter, and so it kind
of works perfectly with the American thing another tech.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Yeah, Yeah, it's good. So what does the rest of
the year hold for you and the family.
Speaker 7 (41:43):
Yeah, I feel like we've actually I mean, I know
we're already in man. This year's kind of come up
with us in a role, but we kind of haven't
even really got started yet. We've got a really crazy.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
End of the year.
Speaker 7 (41:51):
We're going to be out on the road a lot
more here in Australia as well, so we're going to
see a lot of our Kiwi fans over the next
sort of six months, which I can't wait to get
back out and and we'll have a lot more music
to share with them as well. So yeah, the rest
of this year I think is going to fly by
super fast because there's just so much coming and I
can't wait to be able to reveal it all the time.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Well I can't wait because right now, Kayla, you and
Aaron are going to perform your AMA nominated single Cowboy.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Thank You. We are all right, let's do it, Jez.
Speaker 8 (42:31):
We were in left here, right on track, my friends out,
trunk cars parked out back. We had everything we needed
and you treated me like maybe I'm you long the
stort h, you're brown eyes, crunt, my baby boos here
(42:59):
there was so many Emlsy got me thinking maybe if
you'd have it all hey, after all, now it's He'll
holding around.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
He go's a rodeover now my first baby, good topping.
You pulled me back? Tell me head to that and
see how baby tip your cat go crazy.
Speaker 8 (43:22):
Me if this guy age heb he's a high ball
if you think that I'm the long and see it
alas travel ol trawl out, Hey, don't tw me down,
(43:44):
don't kill me loose, just tell my name.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
I next you.
Speaker 8 (43:51):
Because I can't see the down ever and they just
they cake a hold and everything.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
But I can't wait for every for you to do.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
So it's he's.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
Holding around me go.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
It's a roadeo over now my first david through, it's topping.
Speaker 8 (44:07):
He pulled me back, tilly headed night is he how
baby doll?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Your cats go crazy?
Speaker 8 (44:14):
Me this YadA adri beater know how you fall? If
you pig that, I'm along this sig and a laugh
trable up cragleheap hey.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Do cago crazy? It's he how baby? He told around to.
Speaker 7 (44:41):
Go, it's a rodeopen the mockers baby, So it's happen
you pulled me back?
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Hellyhaded?
Speaker 4 (44:47):
That is he?
Speaker 2 (44:48):
How baby? Will you be my rider? Be forever? Bombas
he he's a lie I fall.
Speaker 8 (44:58):
If you think that I'm along this thing and a
laugh cowgleheap cragle out, Hey.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
There you sing the listen aloud now Yellowy.
Speaker 8 (45:17):
Day kill us without Cowboy Cowboy out.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
The best guest from the Sunday session Great Chatz with
Francesca rud Get on iHeartRadio powered by News Talks at B.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
That was Kaylee Bell performing her new song Cowboy Up.
She's impressive right, hugely talented, great work, ethic articulate and professional.
She is always happy to come and chat and play
a song. That was just a great way to end
out today's episode. So thank you so much for joining
me on this News Talks He'd podcast. Please feel free
(45:52):
to share these chats and if you like this podcast,
make sure you'll follow us on iHeartRadio or either you
get your podcasts. Don't forget that we release a new
episode of Great Chats on the last Thursday of every month.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
For more from the Sunday session with friend Jessica Rodkin,
listen live to News Talks a B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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