"Usually the vocal cords are spaced apart when you sing," Vika Bull says, demonstrating with her fingers.
But when you belt out a song the vocal cords hit each other and can form a callus. Then the air can't get through and you can't sing."
Pardon? Can't sing? What if you are due on stage at the time? "It has happened," Vika says. "You lose your top end and have to sing low. You have to think on your feet. It's a very unpleasant experience."
Vika, who turns 50 in March, is a self-confessed "belter" who five years ago developed throat nodules while touring with Paul Kelly. "I was taking steroids to get me through," she says. "I'd do one song and the voice would go – and I'd panic." A surgeon operated, telling her she would "sing like a 17-year-old" afterwards, and indeed she has – but there was a proviso. "Look after your vocal cords,” the surgeon warned, "because the nodules can come back."
Her throat has taken a fair old hammering in the past couple of years – Vika's show At Last: the Etta James Story, based on the late African-American singer, has been a huge success and she is coming back to do some more high-class belting in February at the Playhouse. So Vika is making sure those cords get plenty of tender, loving care. "Water and lots of rest," she says. "And my mother's cooking always works. Home cooking always makes me feel better."
It was Siniva Bull who taught her two daughters, Vika and Linda, to sing harmony. Siniva was born and raised in Tonga where singing is a way of life. "Honestly, they sing from six in the morning to midnight," says Vika, whose full Tongan name is Vikaveiongo. She was born in Melbourne but has visited her mother's home town several times in Vava'u, Tonga's northern-most group of islands. As with many islanders, the church and song seem to go hand-in-hand. "Tongans are very religious," Vika says. "They go to church at least four times a week. When I have been there, you can always hear a choir practising somewhere. I actually got a bit sick of it!"
Siniva was one of the first Tongans to settle in Melbourne and helped found a Tongan church. Vika recalls that, after church service, some of the family would come back to their home and sit around with their guitars, singing Tongan songs. A youngster at the time, Vika says she found it a bit embarrassing but now the music makes her quite emotional. Her family has an interesting cultural mix. Vika's maternal grandmother was half-Tongan, half-French – and grandfather half-Tongan, half-Fijian.
Siniva first came to Australia as a nurse, met an Aussie orchardist named Aussie at the Sandringham Yacht Club and they were married three months later. Siniva is now 81, Aussie 80, and they have moved from the old family home in Doncaster to Clifton Hill. Aussie's parents also owned a house in Doncaster, which was demolished to make way for the Doncaster shopping centre. "Dad was diagnosed with lymphoma recently," Vika says. "So he's going through chemo at the moment. He's been very strong."
Vika, who left school at 17 to train as a legal secretary, became a professional singer instead. She and Linda made their mark as backing singers for Joe Camilleri's Black Sorrows. When they moved on from the Sorrows in 1994 to release their own album, Vika and Linda, Paul Kelly produced it. The album, the first of six featuring their names, went gold. The sisters also ventured into retail 10 years ago, opening a baby shop called Hoochie Coochie in North Fitzroy. However, Vika quickly discovered retailing was not for her. "Linda was great at it but I was hopeless, didn't have the patience. Actually, Linda sold it recently."
Vika is married to drummer John Watson, whom she met while he was playing for James Reyne in 1988. They have a 19-year-old daughter, Mafi, a shortened version of her full Tongan family name, Mafi'iolani. For Vika, her own life as a young woman was a whirl. "I was living out of home, partying my brains out, doing gigs and staying out till six in the morning when I had to sing the next night. So I'd go home to mum and she would cook dinner and the voice would come back. But now I'm a lot older, I can't do that anymore. Of course, now I don't want to."
At this moment Izakaya Den co-owner Miyuki appears with three plates to share – pork belly, tuna tataki and sweetcorn balls. It is a fascinating venue for this Japanese restaurant, under what used to be the Russell Street post office. "The communications cables came through here," says Miyuki, who was enthused at the possibilities when she saw the space six years ago. We are eating here because Vika voted for Japanese. "It is my favourite food," she says.
Vika is an enthusiastic cook, although she doesn't do much Tongan cuisine. Cooking is one of her few interests outside her music; the other is swimming. "I love the water," she says. "Swim every day if I can." Sometimes, she says, she is tempted to retire – Vika still gets nervous and anxious before each performance – but then, she would miss the buzz. "On one hand, I ask why I put myself through this,'" she says, "and on the other, if I don't sing, I feel a bit sick."
The Etta James show was a gift from the gods for her. Vika had cottoned on to the landmark entertainer's voice many years earlier and, in preparing for the show, researched the James story for the first time.
"I watched interviews and film clips and videos," Vika says. "That's what I love about the internet, there's so much stuff on there. Clips of Etta singing while she's off her face but still singing really great. And interviews where she's incredibly witty. She was a very funny woman. And she could be a cheeky thing, could be quite overtly sexual on stage. You think: 'I can't believe she did that'. "
Vika read the Etta James autobiography, Rage to Survive, several times. It is a tragic story, far removed from the loving upbringing and marriage Vika has enjoyed. Born to a 14-year-old mother, father unknown, Etta James (given name Jamesetta Hawkins) led a life of stellar musical achievement but plagued by personal disaster. Etta launched her singing career in 1954, going on to record hits including Something's Got Hold of Me, At Last and I'd Rather Go Blind for which she wrote the lyrics. Etta is credited with "bridging the gap" between rhythm and blues and rock'n'roll, winning six Grammys and 17 Blues Music awards. Rolling Stone magazine ranks her number 22 on their list of 100 greatest singers of all time. Etta died in 2012 aged 73, damaged by alcohol and drugs.
"Really, the only thing Etta and I have in common is the singing," Vika says. And that talent has taken her all around the world, starting with the Black Sorrows. At their peak they were performing up to 300 times a year. Last year she slotted a second tribute show in among the Etta James tour – a show about Marvin Gaye where Vika sang the roles of several female vocalists, including Diana Ross and Motown singer Tammi Terrell.
"Tammi died at 24, she collapsed on stage with a brain tumour," Vika says. The Marvin Gaye show went to South Africa later and Vika did a fortnight there. "Half the cast were South African," she says. "The singer playing Marvin was a Zulu and he was incredible. Won South African Idol and just had that soulful feel that black people seem to have."
At Last, the Etta James Story first hit the stage in 2013 and returns to the Arts Centre next month. "I often wonder when I do the show what Etta would think of this," Vika says. "She's almost like a second sister. I hope she would like it. And her two sons are still alive so you have to be very respectful of that."