Music: Lisa Mitchell
The former Aussie Idol is back in the country of her birth
The former Australian Idol contender has been carving out her own, leftfield indie-pop career since early fame beckoned.
Do you consider yourself an Aussie or Brit-Aussie!? Good question! I love Australia, I’m proud to be from here, but I’ve travelled so much in the last 10 years that I really do just have love for lots of different cities and people. Global child!
How do you now view the Australian Idol experience? Idol is really one of those things in my life that always makes me chuckle as I was 16 at the time, so I feel quite different now! I’m 25 now and I guess I was really lucky that my writing shone through in what I released after that. I was able to forge my own path despite everyone wanting to label me with ‘Idol’. I felt for a really long time that I had to prove myself. But I really don’t give a shit anymore. The main thing I think and care about in life is how to push into the unknown. It’s hard to be honest and write about what turns you on, what scares you, what you don’t want to look at, and because that is so hard to do it is valuable to people.
Wah Ha is a great title for a song! Tell me about that. Wah Ha is just one of those words that my mouth just made and it felt good so I didn’t argue with it. It’s more of a feeling, rather than a literal meaning. To me, it says: ‘ I don’t care/whatever/this is how many fucks I give’ type of thing. Haha!
Tell me about your new album The new album is… I’m laughing because it’s still in various stages of completion..! Maybe if you crossed ‘Teardrop’ by Massive Attack with a huge pop song like, ‘All That’ by Carly Rae Jepson, and then tinted that with a bit of dark electric folk like PJ Harvey, you’d get close… Yeh? Clear as mud?
Do you get to play the UK often? Still have family here? So excited to be back, and yes I have family in Scotland, I’ll be heading up to the West Coast to see my Gran and then we play three shows in Scotland. We’ll be playing Brighton which will be great; my Mum and Dad lived in Steyning for a while so it’s a bit of a special place for our family as well.
I imagine the venues will be considerably smaller here… What chu tryin’ to say?! Haha, nah it’s true, it’s been a while since I’ve played in the UK & Europe – it will be super cool to be playing these smaller venues, makes for a pretty ‘real’ experience for us and the audience! A good way to get acquainted again!
Komedia, Mon 15 July, 7.30pm, £11
