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Mail On Sunday, 5.9.99
THE INTERVIEW Jewel
She's sold 12 million records, topped the New York Times bestseller list
with her poems & now she's a movie star. Not bad for a 24 year old from
the
Artic wastes.
>From rural shacks to Lear jets & limos, Jewel Kilchers short life
reads
more like a blueprint for the american dream than the overnight success
story of the latest pop poppet. Best known in the UK for her beeseeching
country folk hit 'Who Will Save Your Soul', this sensitive 24 year old
Alaskan singer-songwriter already has 12 million record sales under her
belt & international legions of adoring fans hanging on her every
utterance. Plus a queue of film-makers & photographers desperate to
capture
her good looks. Jewels star quality blazes among the brightest celebrity
firmament. All of which is some acheivement for a girl brought up on the
edge of the Artic tundra in a log cabin with no running water.
' A lot of my childhood was simply about getting by in a semi-rural
community on a day to day level ' Jewel recalls ' For a long time we didnt
even have electricity. It was a struggle; we had to work hard to survive. I
still feel like im getting up everyday to do my job, only now it's singing
& songwriting '
Born to swiss-american entertainer parents in Homer, 200 miles west of
Anchorage & just a days drive from the Artic Ocean, Jewel had a
peripatetic
childhood. ' From age 8-16, I lived in 14 different houses; from 16-20 I
lived in 14 other houses, & from 20 to now i've been touring all over the
world, so I havent had the good old fashioned American Homestead for the
majority of my life. '
After her parents divorced, such defiance of domestic normality even led to
a stint living in an estate car parked in a vacant Californian lot-a penny
pinching subsistence which helped fund the teenagers seemingly remorseless
quest for salvation through a career in music. Typically, just to spike any
illusions of a romantic loner existence, Jewel is quick to point out that
bivouacked in the car next door was her ever supportive mother, Nedra.
Nedra is more like a sister to Jewel & her own life story is straight out
of a Tammy Wynette song. having endured an alcoholic husband, a protracted
divorce, poverty afflicted single motherhood & the demise of her own
singing career, she is one of life's survivors. And its those implacable
genes that her daughter has so obviously inherited.
' The thing that Nedra does ' Jewel explains ' is to make sure that
everythings progressing in the right direction without over doing the
tour
or promotion side. She looks out for me in a way very few ever really do. '
The eccentric folklore surrounding Jewel- tales of her silencing menacing
hecklers with a display of Alpine yodelling & going nowhere without a good
luck Tupperware box of Alaskan soil-sits oddly with the profesional young
woman currently circumnavigating the globe in support of her second album
Spirit.
Her upcoming British dates will not be Jewels first visit to these shores;
' I toured Europe after my first album as a solo act-mostly playing small
venues-so im looking forward to coming back with my band. Theres something
open minded about audiences in Britain. I mean in the States they just
don't undestand someone who comes from a working rural Alaskan
background-they assume im the product of a weird hippie upbringing. They're
a little less prejudiced in the UK. ' Its funny all this stuff that gets
said about me ' she says ' I was pn stage one night & took a sip of the
guitarists beer & this girl shreiks,' I thought you didnt drink!'-which is
just not true. I don't know where it all comes from. '
But Jewels rise to prominance has been based on just such a word of mouth.
Her 1994 debut albim Pieces Of You- an old fashioned accoustic guitar
underpinning lyrics apparently torn from any literate teenagers
diary-eventually racked up 8 million sales in the States alone-without any
hype.
As if all this werent enough, Jewel recently published a slim volume of
her own poetry, A Night Without Armour, which spent 3 months on the New
York Times best seller list (its due out in the UK later this year). A
second collection of 'journal entries, poems, essays & stories' is on the
way, according to publishers, Harper Collins.
And then theres the acting. A former drama student at Michigans Interlochen
Arts Accademy, Jewel recently completed a major part in Ang (eat drink,
man, woman)Lees forthcoming civil war drama, Ride with the Devil, where she
plays a feisty confederate farm widow, courted by Skeet Ulkrich & Tobey
Maguire.
' I love acting ' Jewel grins ' I like not having to make every creative
decision. It makes a nice change to let a director order me about. ' Shes
been linked with more than one actor as well. ' Before I was completley
self reliant, but the more well known i've become, the more men seem to be
interested in me.' (funny that)
Such thoughts are a world away form her impoverished Alaskan youth-not that
shes forgotten her chilly homeland; ' Alaskas a funny place, the rest of
the states don't get it. I've been on the road for five years;thats my
world now, but I miss the wide open spaces.'
She proabably dosent miss the lack of warmth & water;these days Jewel has
all the plumbing & heating shewants in the house in sunny San Diego to
which she bolts when she wants to escape the limelight.
In the meantime, her simple confessional songwriting continues to gather
accolades & awards from every corner. ' My life has been about over coming
obstacles to some extent, ' she says ' Of course, the biggest challenge
comes when there are no challenges left. What then? '
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