It's been a good year for South Australian indie pop singer-songwriter Stellie.
Performing as part of the emerging Adelaide talent showcase Scouted in July, Stellie has followed through with her knockout shows at BIGSOUND earlier this month in Brisbane. “I got heaps of great feedback, which is really nice,” Stellie says of her BIGSOUND bonanza.
“People seemed to enjoy themselves so that's all I could really ask for. I felt good about them, which I guess is the main thing. I didn't come off stage thinking 'I could have done that better'. . . there's always room to improve but I'm proud of myself. It was my first interstate show, so it was a whole, new ball game for me.”
Stellie's burgeoning success is a far-cry from where she was just a year ago, working three jobs and struggling with her creative urge, when a fateful trip to Splendour In The Grass gave her the kick-start she needed.
“I'd always been singing since I was little, I'd always been attempting to make music but I never took it too seriously,” Stellie explains.
“Last year, I went to Splendour In The Grass and that was a very eye-opening experience for me. I got home from that trip and I was working three jobs last year and not really having a good time.
“I loved what I was doing, but I knew that music was always something I wanted to do. SITG made me realise that that's what I wanted to do, so as soon as I got home I quit my jobs and focussed on music, and it kind of worked out somehow,” she laughs.
Stellie has so far given us three singles – 'Cry Baby', 'Let's Forget We Were In Love' and 'Love Me First' – each one of them a revealing insight into a young artist learning to be at ease airing her innermost feelings.
“The first song that I really felt comfortable to release was [debut single] 'Cry Baby'. . . because I'm really sensitive about sharing my songs with people, which is really weird to say because that's what I do for a living.
“The way I see it is when people listen to my music I want them to feel like they're reading my diary in a way, so that's how personal I want it to feel. It's terrifying because sometimes when I write songs, especially before all this came about, I was writing them just for me and no one else would hear so they were really personal. Now that everyone is hearing them it gets a bit daunting, but it's also very therapeutic.”
To cap off what's been a year of great progress for Stellie, she was recently one of five recipients of the Stigwood Fellowship, the proceeds of which she will use to further build her career.
“It's come at the right time as well, because with musicians a lot of people don't understand that we don't make a lot of money starting out at all, but we invest a lot into our dreams and into our work,” she says.
“It's exactly like starting up a business: you put a lot in before you get anything out of it. So this has come at a great time to help me grow my career and my business.”
