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MUSIC BIOGRAPHY: CANDICE
30 November -0001
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For the last five years, South African born singer songwriter Candice has kept a diary of her dreams. Each morning, she wakes up and begins scribbling. These being dreams, the bleary-eyed scribblings give a skewed impression of Candice's reality, but they conjure an undeniable truth which spills over into the 25-year-old’s passionate, candid lyrics. If her music is bound together by one unifying theme, Candice explains, it is this: "The places you come from to get to where you're going." Snapshots of life, then: living and learning, following your heart. Debut single ‘Hello’ is snappy and catchy as hell, but don't let the perky title, radio friendly guitar licks or Candice's barrage of upbeat distinctive vocal hooks fool you. The song may find it’s way onto many a summer soundtrack but it’s as deceptive as the skewed celebrity world most serious singers try to avoid. The song is very much a reflection of what I was going through a couple of years ago,” Candice explains. One one hand there was this picture perfect life people perceived me to lead, but which differed so much from reality. It’s a song which basically says that everyone goes through their own shit.“One one hand there was this picture perfect life people perceived me to lead, but which differed so much from reality. It’s a song which basically says that everyone goes through their own shit.
Behind closed doors the song's protagonist - "the luckiest girl in the world" - dwells in an aimless world of solitude and despair: "There's nothing that's real, there's nothing she can touch / She's making a plan but it slips through her hands, it splinters and shatters and bursts".
The seeds of Candice’s musical career were sewn four years ago when she met Australian songwriter Clive Young. “Send me your poetry,” he told her, “and let’s see what happens.” What happened was beyond anyone’s expectations; in 2002 she signed to one of South Africa’s leading independent record label Musketeer Records and at the beginning of 2003 her debut album was released.
Featuring contributions from Divinyls mainstay Chrissie Amphlett amongst others, the album was called ‘Chasing Your Tomorrows’. “People seem to live for the future rather than for the moment,” Candice says of the title. “I always used to freak out and worry but two years ago it suddenly dawned on me: ‘I'm just gonna get on with it'.” Sometimes, she adds, “you have to throw your cards in the air and see where they land.”
For the last 25 years, Candice’s cards have fallen in some pretty strange places. Back home she was in the public eye from an early age - Drawn to the stage by an interest in musical theatre, a young Candice landed a job presenting top-rated youth show KTV from launch, progressing to primetime music shows where she'd travel the world interviewing her future musical peers.
While swatting off offers of a flimsy pop career like flies (“They kept promising to turn me into the new Britney Spears,” she grimaces) her talent for acting prompted a series of roles in movies and TV dramas. Chat with Candice for long enough and she'll continue to surprise you with strange anecdotes - like the time she rollerbladed across Africa, or the time she traveled to Washington to take part in an international poetry summit - but talk music with Candice for just one minute…..and there's no mistaking where her heart lies, or where she really allows her creativity to run free.
Freedom of expression was one of the defining features of Candice’s childhood. She says that as a youngster growing up in and around Johannesburg, “I was always told to go full steam ahead with things that I liked; and if I didn’t like something not to let it worry me.” Candice fondly recalls a blackboard in her basement, where she’d spend hours chalking out doodles and poems, soundtracked first by her parents’ broad record collection and later on by the music she’d buy for herself – Bob’s Dylan and Marley and Pink Floyd.
As Candice’s obsession with music took grip, schoolwork seemed to become ever more irrelevant. “I just didn't enjoy it,” she laughs “If I needed 50% to pass something and I got 52% I felt like I'd wasted 2% effort."
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