The Electric Kid Knows What's Watt

From: The “Daily Mirror” (Sydney, Aust), November 30, 1989.

Title: The Electric Kid Knows What’s Watt
Writer: Vicki Roach

     What does an Electric Youth do when she finally arrives home after a whirlwind,
world-wide concert and promotional tour?
     If her name is Debbie Gibson, she rings up old school friends and invites them around
to “sleep over” after the show.
     The 19-year-old singer, who has had five US Top 5 singles and sold millions of albums
in her short career, is part ambitious artist and part all-American teenager.
     On the one hand she’s an accomplished singer/songwriter who was just four years old
when she decided she was going to be a star.
     On the other, there’s the dutiful daughter who relies on her manager/mother to help
deflect the adoring hordes and co-ordinate the hectic schedules of press and performance.
     But perhaps above all, Debbie Gibson is a level-headed lass.
     She seems to know more about what she wants - and how to get it - than most people
twice her age.
     “Music is my life,” she says. “Maybe it’s a bit different to that of other people, but at
the same time I’ve always made an effort to stay in touch with reality.
     “It would’ve been easy for me to say: ‘OK, I’m going to drop out of school’ or I’ll take
a tutor on the road with me.’ but instead I decided to do concerts four days a week and
come back to school three days a week.

Balance

     “I don’t want to be 40 years old and thinking: ‘Oh, I never went to the Prom.’ Because
that’s important too.
     “I’ve always tried to keep that balance, I still do.”
     Somehow, Debbie managed to combine the two lifestyles, and keep her marks up,
before she graduated.
     Even now, she makes an effort to stay in touch with her old school friends.
     “I was home last week to do a concert. I had my friends around afterwards and they all
slept over. It was great fun.”
     Debbie has wanted to perform for as far back as she can remember. “My parents
bought a piano and that was it.”
     Her first song was entitled Make Sure You Know Your Classroom.
     “It was about starting school, because there really is nothing else for a four-year-old to
write about,” she laughs.
     It was to be another 10 years before she would write the song that would give Debbie
her much sought-after Big Break.
     And two more before she was signed to Atlantic Records a month after her 16th
birthday.
     Her first single, Only In My Dreams, made No. 4 in the American charts.
     On the strength of that success, the record company agreed to an album - Out Of The
Blue, which went multi-platinum.
     The follow-up album proved she was not a “one hit wonder” whatever the critics might
say. It held the No. 1 spot in America for five straight weeks.
     Of her second record Debbie says: “Alot of the songs have matured, mainly because
I’ve experienced more.
     “On the first album I wrote the songs between the ages of 13 and 16 - and there’s a big
difference between age 13 and 19,” she says.
     “I think the arrangements are more sophisticated too and vocally I’m stronger.”

Irrelevant

     The title track of Electric Youth is about taking young people seriously.
     “When people hear that you’re young they automatically assume you don’t know what
you’re doing,” says Debbie.
     “But really one thing has nothing to do with the other - there are some 30-year-olds
who don’t know what they’re doing and some 15-year-olds who know what they want to
do for the rest of their lives.
     “Age is irrelevant.
     “I always knew I was going to be a performer.
     “That’s the whole point - a lot of people don’t even decide to go into music until
they’re 15 or something, I’ve been doing it for my whole life.”
     Many of Debbie’s songs were written before she could possibly have had the chance to
experience the subject matter first hand.
     But she is quick to scotch any talk that that makes them less valid.
     “I don’t think any songwriter experiences every single thing they write about,” she says.
     “In some senses it’s like being an actor - an actor can still do a convincing performance
of an alcoholic without ever having been one.
     “And a person can write realistic lyrics without having experienced the situation first
hand.
     “Initially, most of my lyrics came from observing people,” she says.
     “It wasn’t until I was about 15 that I started writing from experience.
     “That was a bit embarrassing at the time because I’d write a love song and my parents
would go: ‘Who’s that about? Do we know him?’

Earnings

     “I made this deal with my mum. I told her: ‘I’m not going to write these songs if you
ask me who they’re about.’
     “We still have that deal now. She still doesn’t ask me, although she probably knows.”
     By now Debbie has surely earned more than enough to be financially independent, but
she says she has no intention of moving out on her own.
     The singer still lives with her parents in the suburban family home in Merrick, New
York.
     The family garage-turned-studio has graduated from four-track to 48-track, so Debbie
can record her albums there.
     But she says she is not in the least bit tempted by the rock ‘n’ roll trappings which
usually go with success.
     “Those people fizzle out - there’s only so long you can enjoy that sort of lifestyle.
     “I try to take good care of myself because I want to be doing this forever.
     “And you don’t do that by partying at 19.
     “Besides, I like living at home. I’m away and around strangers so much it feels
great to go back to the family.”
     Debbie’s mother, who is also her manager, accompanies her when she goes on tour.
And the daughter appreciates the support.
     “Obviously you mother isn’t motivated by money or anything. She looks out for me.”
     Such closeness causes little conflict. “We try to keep the roles separate,” says Debbie.
     “There are times when we’ll sit down and mum’ll say: ‘I need to talk to you about some
dates or interviews.’ Other times she’ll call my room and say let’s have breakfast.”
     Debbie admits, though, that the relationship is changing as she gets older.
     “At the beginning of this tour we went through what I think every mother and daughter
go through.
     “We used to share a suite. But this time around I wanted my own room, my own space.

Sisters

     “I don’t think mum found it any easier to accept than she did when the same thing
happened with my older sisters.”
     Debbie has three sisters - one is a teacher, another works for Atlantic Records and the
youngest is still at high school.
     “None of them has any desire to do what I do so there’s certainly no jealousy involved.
     “In fact, sometimes they think I’m crazy running around the way I do,” she laughs.
     But Debbie’s success has obviously affected family life to a large extent.
     “We’ve had to put gates in front of the house and things like that.
     “And it’s meant being more careful. I know mum gets worried about my youngest
sister’s safety at times.
     “People will see her in the audience and ask for her autograph.
     “We haven’t let it change us as people, but it does change your life a bit,” she admits,
master of the understatement.
     One of the problems of such a high profile is the lack of private moments.
     “I still managed to find time for myself,” says Debbie.
     “But when you do do something, you may read about it in the paper the next day,” she
laughs.
     “Once her tour of Australia is over she will test out her talents as an actress.

Movie Role

     Debbie has landed the lead role in a movie called Skirts , to be directed by Dirty
Dancing choreographer Kenny Ortega.
     “I’ve done tons of theatre, and a lot of short films for schools and extra work.
     “But this is kind of getting back in a much bigger way into something I used to do. It’s
very exciting,” she says.
     “I read for a lot of different roles.
     “It was kinda funny - I met a lot of the same casting directors I read for five years ago.
     “It was like Ha ha, remember me? I was knocking on your door and now you
called me.”
     Debbie, 19, reckons she’s more comfortable on stage than anywhere else. “I feel like
I’m in my living room.”
     Debbie will also write part of the soundtrack for the movie.

Fade-out

     And if that’s not enough to keep her busy, she has two screenplays under way.
     Another, already completed, has to be typed up “because my handwriting’s too messy
to read.”
     Then there’s another album. “I definitely have enough songs,” she says.
     Is Debbie worried that perhaps such early success may mean she’ll follow in the
footsteps of other teen performers who faded into obscurity just as fast as they found
fame?
     “People said I was a one hit wonder after the first single,” she says.
     “I’m not worried at all. I can see my songs changing and growing and so am I.”

_________________

[Three picture go with the story. 1.- Deb in Tartan skirt with long sleeves rolled up. 2.-
Deb with Michael Hutchence at an Atlantic Records party in NY. 3.- Deb with an ASCAP
award she won.]