Lovers finally get it together
January 4, 2004
Chad Watson looks at how two world-famous musicians in the end found love with someone from home.

As a celebrated citizen of the world, Natalie Imbruglia owns mansions in London and Los Angeles, boasts international modelling and recording contracts, appeared in a Hollywood film and has been linked to some of the most famous men on the planet.
But in the end, the pop chanteuse did not have to look much further than her own backyard to find love.
The former Neighbours star lost her heart to Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns, a boy from - well, maybe not next door, but the next major town.
Imbruglia, 28, originally hails from the NSW central coast, about a soapie episode down the freeway from her 24-year-old rocker beau's home city of Newcastle.
They grew up in beachside suburbs - Imbruglia in Berkeley Vale, Johns in Merewether - as part of "regular" families: Imbruglia's father owns a plant nursery and her mother was a teacher, while Johns' parents had a fruit store.
But they had to go halfway around the world to meet each other, and both have younger siblings to thank for helping them get together.
It all started when Imbruglia's sister recommended Silverchair's 1999 best-seller Neon Ballroom.
Already a multi-platinum artist herself through the worldwide chart-topper Torn, Imbruglia bought a copy of the CD and inside was a list of upcoming concerts.
Coincidentally, the next date was a few days away and in London.
She went to the gig, thought the band was brilliant and waited at the backstage bar to tell them so.
It was love at first sight. "I think some people have a very strong destiny," she has explained.
They did not officially become an item until the 1999 ARIA awards, when they were spotted canoodling at an after-show party.
Ninety per cent of the stuff I've read about us is wrong. I think people make it up to entertain themselves.
 "I can't believe how scary it was to have found your soulmate at 21," Johns told Juice magazine.
His sister Chelsea became the envy of paparazzi everywhere when she snapped the first photograph of them.
But the relationship between the high-profile pair has not been without its trials.
There was their "famous break", with the couple opting to go their separate ways due to the tyranny of distance, with Imbruglia ensconced in England and Johns in Newcastle.
They eventually reconnected in 2001, at the ARIA awards of all places, but then had to deal with overcoming depression, illness and the glare of publicity.
If you believe gossip columnists, Imbruglia has been courted by everyone from Friends star David Schwimmer to rock star Lenny Kravitz, Formula One driver Jacques Villeneuve to Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, and ego merchant Robbie Williams to future king Prince William.
As she once joked: "Someone only has to walk me to my car and I'm sleeping with them."
Imbruglia leaned on Johns as she struggled with personal demons between the success of her debut album Left Of The Middle and the commercially disappointing follow-up White Lillies Island.
"I was just rattling around my house," she told British newspaper The Sun.
"I hardly went out and my friends got concerned for me. I didn't end up on Prozac or anything, but it was frustrating. Meeting Daniel helped me sort myself out."
Likewise, Imbruglia proved a tower of strength while Johns battled a crippling bout of reactive arthritis.
He realised she was the one when she rushed away from her Johnny English film commitments to care for him.
It was Imbruglia who hooked him up with a holistic doctor in Los Angeles, pushing him around in a wheelchair between appointments.
As their romance blossomed, Johns took his mother along to help buy "the Rolls-Royce" of diamond rings from a Newcastle importer, but left her at home when he proposed with 200 pink and yellow roses.
Their music may fall in different genres, but the former teenage stars still have plenty in common - both have millions of fans worldwide, tattoos (he a self-designed Celtic pattern on his forearm and she an Indian symbol on her tailbone), a fondness for vegetarian foods (he's a strict vegan), body piercings (his nipples, her ears), a penchant for make-up (she's the face of L'Oreal and he likes eyeliner) and both have allegedly been the target of kidnappers (a school-aged Johns by jealous thugs and Imbruglia by a mystery assailant outside a nightclub).
"If I was . . . with someone who wasn't in the industry, it would be hard for them to understand why I have to spend so much time away and do whatever else it is that I do," Johns says.
Of course, New Year's Eve was not the first time that Imbruglia has worn a wedding gown.
Johns was thinking about forming a grunge band called the Innocent Criminals in his first year of high school when Imbruglia, as Neighbours tomboy Beth Brennan, donned a white veil and dress for nuptials that never eventuated with Brad Willis, played by Scott Michaelson of Holly Valance ex-managerial fame.
Imbruglia has understandably been protective of the emotionally sensitive Johns.
While they usually deflect speculation about their love match, Imbruglia angrily denied reports that she had a date with Chris Martin - now Mr Gwyneth Paltrow - while Johns was on his sickbed, saying "it was just not fair".
"At least 90 per cent of the stuff I've read about us is wrong. I think people make it up to entertain themselves," says Johns, who has put Silverchair on the backburner to concentrate on his marriage and a new band with Paul Mac called the Dissociatives.
"We just try to block it out and pretend it's not happening . . . Natalie and I usually have a laugh about all the attention we get."
With more than 250 publications around the globe having bought their wedding photo - the proceeds go to charity - Johns and Imbruglia are giggling all the way to their honeymoon suite.
 TheAge