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stan walker

Stan Walker: Let the music play

22 November 2011

by Victoria Lucas

Stan Walker is impatiently waiting for his album to be released. He is used to things happening quickly these days. In the past two years he has won the final series of Australian Idol, and recorded three albums, each spawning a Platinum single. His third album, Let the Music Play was released last Friday, but at the time of this interview it was still two long days away from hitting the shelves, hence Walker’s nervous energy.

“I’m just really excited,” he says down the phone from New Zealand, where he is enjoying a few rare days at home before embarking on more press junkets, promotional appearances and the usual business. “I just wanna hurry up and get it out. I just want everybody to hear it,” he enthuses.

::EMAIL US YOUR TOP THREE STAN WALKER SONGS TO WIN A COPY OF LET THE MUSIC PLAY

Recorded over four weeks, the fast turnaround was a double-edged sword; it forced Walker to work quickly, but also meant he didn’t have the luxury of second-guessing any of his vocal takes, relying on intuition rather than psyching himself out by doing several arduous takes. “It was a really quick process but at the same time it was really good for me,” he admits. “We had such a small timeframe that I had to just step up and make it really good. I had to be serious about it.”

His duet with Jessica Mauboy, Galaxy, was a longer process. Recorded in May, but only recently released as a single, the song was written especially for the pair to sing, and affixed to a re-release of Mauboy’s album Get ‘Em Girls. Although the track is already six months old, its gestation was even longer. “We had been waiting for the right song to come for a while, because we really had to choose the right song for this,” Walker explains. “And that song came about and we both really liked it and decided that was the one, and that we just had to do it. And it turned out really well.”

Another project in the pipeline is Walker’s acting debut, in which he is to be thrown in the deep end, taking the lead role in New Zealand production, A Gift To Zion. Following the story of an ambitious Maori boy who has dreams of becoming an artist and leaving his tumultuous home-life behind, it’s not surprising Walker saw shades of himself in the script, admitting it mirrors his own pre-Idol ambition. When the role was offered to him, he jumped at the opportunity to play the lead, despite not having acted professionally before.

“I’m not an actor or anything,” Walker quickly clarifies, “but I’m excited because it’s a big role for me, I’m the lead role. I’m definitely nervous and everything is still in the early process – casting and screen-testing and all that – we’ll see how good I am first, then if I’m not good I’ll stop and this can be my only film,” he laughs. “Otherwise it’s something I would definitely do more of later on.”

It’s been a whirlwind two years for Walker, but he can still pinpoint the moment he first realised that there had been a seismic shift in his life.

“It was during Idol, I had a really long piece on TV about me and my life, and then the next day I was walking down the street and people were recognising me and saying ‘Oh, it’s him’ and I was like ‘Whoaa, trippy,’” he laughs. “And I thought, ‘Oh so that’s what it is going to be like from now on.’

“It’s not really something you get used to but you just deal with it.”

Let The Music Play is out through SME

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