Evenings with Leith ForrestWell, since the nineteen eighties, my next guest has been entertaining the masses with a number of hit songs what the kids of today would call bangers. Adding to those, she does amazing live performances. I'm happy to say and delighted to mention that Kim Wild will be in our fair city on Thursday, the twenty fourth of October, performing at the GUVs. She joins me, Kim, so lovely to have you on o lith It's.
So beautiful to be here.
I can't wait to get back down Under with my bangers.
It's been eight years, Kim. I know there was a global pandemic, but that's a long time for you not to visit us.
Yeah.
The last time I was in Oz was twenty sixteen with Howard Jones as Too Bloody Long.
Yeah, you're making up for though, You've got the greatest hits show here. It's memories, it's nostalgia. You're shooting back. I hate to say this, it's forty years. You don't you haven't changed at all. You have not aged. I look like I've been hit by a truck. We can't wait to see you.
Well.
We start on the seventeenth in Brizzy and then we go to We're finished in Melbourne on the twenty sixth. Yeah, I'm there for a few weeks and we'll be doing all our greatest it's the Greatest Hits tour, so all the stuff that you know, the cover versions as well, you keep me hanging on and if I can't have you, and then of course Kids in America and check at Love and View from a Bridge and a number of other songs that you might.
Sound might be familiar with. And yeah, we're just going.
To just just do the whole Greatest Hits thing and celebrate a forty year career.
How fast has that gone? Came forty years?
Well, you know what, it hasn't gone that fast. I can it doesn't feel that fast to me.
Actually doing it.
But actually time now as I've got older, does seem to go fast. But there's a lot of memories, a lot of stuff that happen, a lot of traveling around the world, some disappointments too. You know, I've had a bit of a rollercoaster of a career. So it's not been it's not been smooth sailing. I've come out of it with my sense of humor intact my health is good, and that these are things that I value more above all other things.
Of course, have you always felt the love from this country. We've got a great connection the UK in Australia, but we've always you've always been in our charts.
Yeah, I have.
I mean I came to Australia first when I was a teenager, so when I was thirteen, and I fell in love with Australia then, and I came over with my mom and dad and I couldn't wait to get back, and it didn't. It wasn't until kids in America came out and I came back and came back.
I think what I was in Sydney. It came back to in the King's.
Cross area where I'd stayed before with my dad, and then I bumped into characters like Molly Maldra and you know, the whole thing just exploded. And I've been back several times since. You know, another greatest hit Store happened in the nineties. And then I've done some traveling myself, you know, as someone with a backpack and a rock sack and ended up on Magnetic Island staring up at the at the Milky Way. So I've done a lot of stuff in Australia, not just work, and there's still more to come. I mean, and now my backing singer Scarlet, who's my niece, has just fallen in love with a noisy guy, so she's getting married and so I'm about to have proper family now in Australia, which I'm very excited about.
Well, you've always been an adopted Ozzie and a you can sort of make that official via that family chat, which is nice. I know we shouldn't play favorites, but you did mention kids in America. It's like picking your favorite child, but I'm going to. I think Kim it's one of the perfect pop songs because it is so catchy. It is so interactive. When I heard of the first time, when I hear it all these years on, we all get to join in. We get to do the worlds, we get to do the hey, you know, the whole. There's something very catchy to that though, as a fan, to not just sit and enjoy and watch your talents, but to feel like we're a part of it too. That's a credit.
I love that.
You're so right. That's a really important part of pop music. Sometimes of course there are any rules, but you know you can make up a few, and that is one of them. If you can get a song that has some interaction, yeah, you know you're half way, They're already, and Kids in America is a perfect.
Song for that.
Do you know What I love about the song too, is how beloved that is from the top level to the bottom level. So Dave Grohl and the Food Fighters do a version of your song, then, can I tell you about growing up?
Kim?
My friends in high school had a band called Notorious, and they used to do your song, and Emma, the lead singer, would channel her in a Kim Wilde and she would just play kids in America. Any would go off.
Yeah, it goes off at any level. You know.
A friend of mine was in a pub a few months ago and put the FaceTime on and there was a pub band doing a blinding version of it. And then my great mates Lawnmower Death, who are pretty heavy as heavy as they sound, and they did an awesome version of Kids in America. So yeah, I love how universal that song is.
And it must be fun for you to hear other people do that too, knowing the song so important to them.
It really is, because I know how that feels, because I'm a pop peed too, and I grew up with pop music or whatever you want to call it. I call it pop, you know, whatever you call it, you call it that. It's a small word and it's a big umbrella for.
A lot of genres. And those songs mean the world to me.
There were the soundtrack in my life and as soon as I hear them, I'm transported and it's a beautiful thing. And only pop music or music has a part to do that.
I had Billy Ocean on the show last year.
Kim.
We were talking about the eighties and we thought whether or not it's the best era of music. It's certainly the most fun era for music. And I think of the eighties for you, thirty million records, brit Awards, you're the most successful British female artist of that entire decade. Was it as fun as we thought as fans being part of that, being right in amongst it?
Yeah, it was great fun, you know, because I was a twenty twenty one year old pop star. That's a great age to be a pop star. I mean it's pretty fun to be one at sixty.
Four as well.
But We won't talk about that, but twenty one was a great age to be a pop star. I was still buying records then, you know, the vinyl was still something you would buy. It was before CDs, it was before mobile phones, it was before the internet.
You know.
It's just such there was such an energy about that time.
You know.
It was all about radio and going out and buying a record and smash hits and Top of the Pops and all that kind of stuff. And I was living the dream that I've been watching. You know, I've been watching Top of the Pops. I've been buying smash hits, I've been going out buying records, and all of a sudden, I was part of that. So I'm traveling all over the world, you know, and I'm meeting all my heroes, you know, meeting all the people like Heaven seventeen and ABC and Belinda Carlisle and Toya and all these and Elvis Costello and all these people.
Who I've been looking up to. So yeah, it was a blast, babe, it was a blast.
That's It's so funny. The magazine that you bought that you're then on the cover. You know, that's got to be a pinch yourself moment with all of that. By the way, just a quick sidetrack when you mentioned sixty four, I don't think you were what Paul McCartney was talking about when he's talking about that song. You don't fit into that sort of mental image of what people at sixty four are like.
No, you know, it's really interesting, is it?
Because I was thinking that because when Paul obviously wrote that song sixty four.
You're sort of on your last legs.
Yeah, And I think I remember the shame of thinking when I was much younger and hearing that Olivia Newton John had had become thirty and thinking.
Oh, well, she had a good career, she'd had a good career. This is me as a child thinking that.
So yeah, I mean, our whole perception of age has been completely blown out of the water. And now you know, you know, I go into my local store and there's lots of there's rows and rows of cars for one hundred year olds.
One hundred year old I know, I know it's not it's crazy. And you would see that when you're look at it.
I'm a little youngster.
Yeah, that's right. You're just a spring chicken. And I can imagine too, when you look into the audience, you would see that you would see your fans from the first time round in the eighties, and in generational they bring their kids and their grandkids. The beauty of TikTok, for all the negativity of TikTok, is that it pumps these songs again into the ear and kids like mine who are fifteen and thirteen get to hear these great songs which they think they're hearing for the first time, and we're like, yeah, we were listening to that forty years ago.
Yes, that is.
Surreal that I have had that experience here in my very own home, with my very own offspring. I mean, it's a wonderful world to have been growing up in and as a child, and then to be part of as an adult and to still be inspired by at this stage in my life. And I feel immensely privileged. And anyone who went out and bought a record of mine, I'm so so grateful because anyone who did that made it possible for me to get down to Ossie in October to do my grade zits for and come and celebrate a great era in music. But we might throw in a fresh one because We've got a new album out next January and we have got some new bangers, so we might be throwing and a few new bangers beautiful.
We look forward to that. Before I let you go and I thank you so much for your time. Some people in the audience may not know this. Apart from being a rock star and a pop star, you're also an amazing landscape gardener. You present gardening shows on the Telly in the UK, and you won a gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show. I work for a brief period Kim on a gardening show and the expert Michael Kiellen that I worked with was telling me that Chelsea is like the Glastonbury for gardeners. It's like the biggest deal. The bell rings and the Queen comes through and everyone behaves. He said, so, congratulations, that's quite an achievement.
Yeah, it really was an amazing experience. And gardening for me has completely transformed my life. It's been my therapy and my joy and a private passion and it really has I think really saved me very much a lot of money from the site going to a therapist or I mean, it's just an incredible therapy. Anyone listening. Who's like struggling a bit? A lot of people do, and we all have at some point. And the garden is a great refuge and a great place to rejuvenate. And it just brings me so much happiness to share it because it's it's also like pop music. It's something you can share.
With a lot of people.
I'm part of a local community of gardeners. Yeah, a big sort of nursery that happens down the road. It's encourages the community to come into it. It's a sort of a free vibe and I'm very much a part of it. So and it brings people people of all you know, of all ages, sizes, shapes, yes, whenever you like.
And it just brings the work.
The world turns up to this place to buy plants, to talk about plants, to work with plants.
This a great thing. I better stop now otherwise.
Well, I hope you get some downtime here in Adelaide. You can check out our beautiful botannic gardens, of which we have a number. It's a thrill to have you back in the country. The fans will be so excited to see you. Kim Wild is performing at the gov on Thursday, the twenty fourth of October. Tickets are available via oz ticks or you can get them on the gov website as well. It's been far too long, Kim, but we cannot wait to see you back in Australia.
Oh. I know. I'm so excited. Thanks for having MELI, thank you
So lovely to meet you, the great Kim Wild I guess
