There’s a steady rain that is falling upon the footpaths and bustling roads of Brisbane, turning pathways that were once easily traversed into landmines of muddy puddles that seem intent to make their mark upon any trouser leg that steps too close.

Kate Miller-Heidke stares out at the outside world from the dry comfort of a café and breathes a sigh of longing. She explains that on a day like today, the only place that she desires to be is home watching a movie. She is beginning to feel the effects of a cold, a plate of lemon and lime slices and a large glass of water bearing evidence that she will not go down without a fight.

Perhaps her immune system is still recovering from the physical battering that Miller-Heidke endured when filming the music video for Can’t Shake It, the debut single from her new album, Curiouser.

“I was so fucking sore for a week after the filming for Can’t Shake It,” she says amongst a series of giggles. “They had me on that elliptical trainer for three hours and because they wanted that effect of me moving really fast in the clip, they were playing the music really slowly and I had to move as fast as I could.” Miller-Heidke stares back into the rain, turning back with a wry grin upon her face. “I’m not fit either, which might not have helped.”

It’s a small sacrifice to pay for an album that will brush off any talk of second album syndrome. Recorded in Los Angeles with Mickey Petralia, Curiouser is a step forward from her debut album Little Eve, which is by no means an easy feat. This could be partly due to the wide scope of lyrical topics addressed by Miller-Heidke and her partner and collaborator, Keir Nuttall, particularly the nostalgic memories of school, featured most vividly on Caught In The Crowd, a tale of bullying told through the eyes of a person too afraid to help somebody else.

“The germ of those songs addressing school came from Keir,” explains Miller-Heidke. “He wrote the bulk of the lyrics and then they were filtered through my own personal experiences. What happens to you in school can be really defined in the person that you’ve become, especially trauma when it comes to being bullied. It really shapes your personality.”

It seems that Miller-Heidke knows only too well of the trauma of bullying that occurs in high school.

“I had a pretty hard time in high school and for the first couple of years I was just miserable. Maybe that’s why I became a songwriter, because I had this little nub of self hatred that wants to come out in some form of creative expression.” Again, her wry, contemplative grin glitters upon her features. “So in a way, I’m thankful for that trauma.”

Miller-Heidke has always been, and will no doubt continue to be, a unique individual within a world of manufactured idol pop artists. This is a woman who was asked about how she felt when she was nominated for five ARIA Awards and refused to get carried away, simply stating, “The key to happiness is not to raise your success, but to lower your expectation.” When asked about this particular statement, Miller-Heidke is yet again philosophical in explanation.

“Apparently they say that in history when the class system was prevalent, if your parents were servants, you’d be a servant and so would your children, that the level of happiness was a lot higher back then,” she says, “You knew what you were going to be from the age of a young kid and you accepted and took pleasure where you could.”

Curiouser will undoubtedly raise Miller-Heidke’s profile in Australia higher than it has ever been before. How is she finding keeping her expectations low before the success that seems to be finding her in a very mercurial manner?

“The key to happiness is not to raise your success, but to lower your expectation.”

“It’s hard. You look at other people’s success and it is difficult not to be ambitious and then resentful and bitter when things don’t go your way and doors don’t open for you,” she admits, quickly adding that she finds it frustrating seeing as there are so many ambitions of hers that are yet to be fulfilled.

“Having success overseas is a big ambition. Curiouser is coming out in Japan early next year, which is very exciting. In Australia an ambition of mine is playing the Big Day Out, which seems to be a very exclusive club. My main challenge is not to take things for granted and to try and stay in the moment.

“Because I really don’t know,” says Miller-Heidke, “Right now could be the best it’s going to get right now.”

A person who is always in the moment with her is Nuttall, who co-wrote and co-produced the album. It was with Nuttall on holiday in Laos that Miller-Heidke discovered the nucleus for Curiouser, which was demoed in her and Nuttall’s home studio and caught Petralia’s attention the moment he heard it.

Where once Miller-Heidke and Nuttall felt self-conscious around each other when writing, today now finds the inhibitions and fear replaced by trust and a faith in each other’s creativity.

“It’s so rare to be able to trust somebody like that creatively,” says Miller-Heidke. “As a songwriter, your ego tends to get in the way. That trust doesn’t come along very often.”

That trademark grin of hers reappears, followed by a little chuckle. “It’s not ideal because he’s my partner and our lives are now so inextricably entwined that we have to make a conscious effort not to talk about music.”

She might like to keep her expectations low, but don’t for a second be fooled into thinking that Kate Miller-Heidke is not a driven and ambitious human being. But as this conversation plays out to its inevitable ending, it is clear that Miller-Heidke’s ambition comes from her art, not from the little ego that sits inside all of us. She knows this, and it might just be the edge that she needs to achieve her dreams.

KATE MILLER-HEIDKE plays The Tivoli on Thursday Nov 20. CURIOUSER is out now via Sony Music. www.myspace.com/katemillerheidke

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