‘Better to Be Hated for Who You Are’: How Kate Ceberano Handles Fame

In Partnership with Shure

In a world where the pressure to conform can be overwhelming, Kate Ceberano draws inspiration from one of rock’s most iconic voices, Kurt Cobain.

“Better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not,” Cobain once said. For Ceberano, these words encapsulate the essence of what it means to be an artist.

In the latest episode of ‘Behind The Rolling Stone Cover’, sponsored by Shure, Rolling Stone AU/NZ Editor-in-Chief Poppy Reid sat down with the multi-talented artist to reflect on the last four decades of her career, and see how her thoughts on the industry have changed since her iconic 1990 Rolling Stone magazine cover story.

“If you’re going to go into this business, you better desire to be strange,” she tells Reid, embracing the idea that true creativity requires a willingness to stand out, even if it means being misunderstood or disliked. 

Ceberano continues: “The sheer act of doing what you’re doing is so uniquely extreme. You won’t become a normal person. You don’t go back to being a middle class family that has tea and lunch with the neighbours. You will never become that person.” 

“You are always marked by the fact of having chosen to do this. You will be an outsider, it’s part of what we do.” 

Looking ahead, Ceberano is passing on that wisdom to the next generation of artists.

Now a mother and mentor to her daughter Gypsy, who is also carving out a career in the music industry, Ceberano draws parallels between her own journey and the path her daughter is forging. “I know that she will succeed and fail maybe two or eight times a day on different objectives that she might have,” she says. 

“No one can dream for you, no one else can have ambitions for you, it’s got to be self driven. Every little win then is like ka-ching.” 

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