Pepper Jane and her guitar, Maureen, write a smattering of tunes from lofty, folky numbers through to belted lashings of barely-refined aural cacao-cotton candy.
Her latest endeavour is titled 'Keys' and scenestr is stoked to premiere the song's accompanying video today. "I wrote this song in about 15 minutes," Pepper says.
"I was leaving a mate's place in the middle of the night, everyone else was asleep and the last thing I did was pick my keys up off the counter and in the darkness, and the silence, they made this chilling, obnoxious, crunchy kind of sound.
"The sound that dogs recognise as 'we're going somewhere *pant pant*', and that people recognise with despondence 'you're going somewhere' or we use it as a threat.
"It's about that sound and a fleeting backstory behind the feeling I got. Sometimes you'll get a feeling for a song and within that feeling is access to this whole fictional story that may or may not be from real life, or another stimulus. Hey, that's a cool album title: 'Real Life And Other Stimuli'.
"So this one (song) isn't entirely autobiographical, but yeah I was missing someone at the time. It's always the same someone *wink emoji*.
"I first recorded it three years ago at the Gold Coast just so I had a demo CD to hand out to venues and people, some people paid for it but that wasn't the main point.
"There are over 2,000 copies of that floating around the globe, since I met with a bunch of songwriters in the States in 2016 and played a couple of shows in Norway and rural England.
"This year, my favourite Toowoomba performer, Andrzej Fenner, loved the song enough to offer his time and studio to craft a new arrangement and push me towards releasing it properly.
"He plays all the guitars in this recording and enlisted his mates Wayne (bass) and Kosta Theodosis (drums for Amy Meredith, Miami Horror, Robbie Williams) to also donate their time and vast experience, which is pretty humbling.
"Honestly it did take some adjustment on my part, hearing it with a band the first few times, since solo acoustic is my jam (without looping for the love of all that is holy) and I'd only been hearing the track with one guitar for three years.
"Sometimes since I started this career (2014) I have felt like I needed to bring more, like Stella Donnelly experienced, and have similarly taken on the fears of the naysayers that said 'it'd sound great with a band behind it!' (gee thanks) - but eventually I realised that I love going to watch solo folk singers, like the incredible Steve Poltz, Rose Cousins and the mastery that Didirri manages in his solo manifestation.
"Yes there is still room for a band sometimes, but no one needs to feel like it's essential, is all I'm saying.
"Anyway, these guys did a fabulous job adding some real-world pop sensibilities to it that I'm not practiced at conjuring, and I feel totally blessed that they wanted to be involved in my little baby song, so I'm proud to introduce this baby (FINALLY) to the world.
"The video was shot at Solbar, Maroochydore and Foxy Bean, East Brisbane, which I chose because it's such an eclectic venue, so it looks like several different places.
"We wanted to show what my life looks like: I play shows, sometimes watch other people's shows and I brush my teeth in the street - #vanlife, as they say."
