I started out performing in theme parks on the Gold Coast like Movie World and Sea World, with a stint in Germany as a magician’s assistant, and then I eventually ended up at Universal Studios Singapore as Marilyn Monroe. It was while I was working there that I befriended and started gigging with a bunch of local musicians, who eventually dared me to sing a song on YouTube in their language (that I couldn’t speak a word of). We eventually made a video that went on to become an overnight viral sensation, even getting me nominated for a Malay Music Award (Anugerah Planet Muzik) in 2012. I spent the next 8 years of my life learning the language and eventually relocated to Malaysia, then soon signed with Warner Music Malaysia to officially launch my career there. Though I later parted ways with my label and continued as an independent artist, I was able to forge a very successful career for myself in Malay as not only a recording artist, but as a TV personality and presenter, actress, influencer and speaker. My love of languages also lead to me learning to sing in other languages such as Mandarin and Cantonese, and I also have songs under my belt in French, Spanish, Latin, and Indonesian. The pandemic abruptly tore me from that reality when I unexpectedly moved home to Australia, and I have been fortunate enough to continue this career in Australia whilst now adding Live-Singing DJ to my bag of tricks and I have been releasing recording projects in English! 

Music has always been such a big part of my life. My mother was a singer and I always found singing to be such a cathartic experience. If I’m honest, I had always felt destined for the spotlight and had an innate feeling that my life was destined to be shared, so I always just assumed that is where I would end up. When I attended concerts, my soul yearned to be on stage. Some people make a choice to be in the industry, and then the rest of us have always just been drawn there. It’s the only place to us that makes sense. The stage is home, and no matter what happens in life, if we come back ‘home’, somehow everything else will fall into place.

Honestly, not at all. I say this as someone who has a Masters Degree in Arts Management. I feel that the best way to get into the music industry is to GET INTO the music industry, you have to dive in and work from the ground up. I am a huge advocate for deepening your knowledge in your craft if you want to become a top tier musician or artist, and I believe higher education can be a wonderful tool for providing people with the discipline and structure to do so, but I entered the music industry straight out of high school. I learnt on the job by throwing myself in the deep end and allowing each gig to teach me something and help me grow into a better performer. For some, education can be a way to delay getting out there into the real world, and when it comes to music especially, regardless of if you wish to be onstage or off, the soft skills and networking required can only be done by getting out into the industry itself, the sooner the better. 

I have definitely had some career highlights that I feel were such a blessing to be able to experience. I was able to perform at the Kuala Lumpur Opera House (Istana Budaya)  for 4 nights alongside two of Malaysia’s greatest recording legends Dato Jamal Abdillah and Dato M Nasir, which would be the equivalent to performing a concert with John Farnham and Jimmy Barnes in Australia. I also had the opportunity to perform for the Sultan of Malaysia at the King’s Palace (Istana Negara) and on a few occasions was able to perform for the Prime Minister of Malaysia at televised government events. Other major highlights were performing at the YouTube Awards, Mercedes Benz Fashion Week and getting to star in as a gang boss in a TV Series called KL Gangster Underworld 2, which could be likened to Aussie series Underbelly. 

I remind myself of what I can control in this exact moment. My breath, my words, my actions and my reactions. I practice trying to remind myself that I am no good to others if I am not being the best version of myself, so I always prioritise taking a moment to centre myself amidst chaos and re-regulate my nervous system. 

My parents. Though I have certainly baffled them with my ideas, they have never tried to convince me my dreams were too crazy. Even when their child wanted to become a star in a foreign land and language that she couldn’t even speak yet, they always encouraged me and let me pave my own unique path. My beautiful, courageous mother has always been my absolute back bone, having held me as I’ve cried at the toughest of times, and having shown up front row and centre at every milestone. My legendary stuntman-of-a-father didn’t let a leg amputation stop him from continuing onto become a superstar Stunt Co-ordinator and I attribute so much of my work ethic, resilience and values to him. Whenever people would ask me “why” he would always be the one to ask “why not”, and he has taught me to lead with authenticity and integrity above all else.

My dad always quotes a movie called The Gumball Rally from the 1970s where two guys are in a convertible and the driver says “Let me tell you the first rule of italian driving…”, he then pulls off the rear view mirror, throws it and says “… What’s behind you is not important.” 

Allow your character and your work ethic to speak for themselves. 

My ultimate goal when I step on stage is to uplift everyone in the audience. I want people to have fun and leave feeling energised and connected, that’s why I aim to be ‘the Hype Girl you never knew you needed!’ The ultimate dream for me is to continue to write and release more original English music that serves this purpose and travel the world creating magical experiences for people through both music performance and live speaking events.

Pink. Adele. Rihanna. – All are strong, authentic, talented women who go against the grain and aren’t afraid to re-define what artistry is and what limits people conceive it to have. 

I can’t wait to see what else is to come from Teddy Swims. And locally I am living for The Maes & Electric Fields

Teddy Swims

The Maes

Electric Fields

I think we are making progress, and that is to be credited. Awareness and change are an endless process, and I think as long as we are moving in the right direction, we have cause to celebrate and continue the mission. I am excited for the future of diversity representation in Australia as it develops and we come to see, learn about and appreciate an even wider representation of the cultural heritages and languages of our artists and musicians.

The social media game over there is a different world and the way their artists leverage and engage with it as well. Much of it is due to a very different culture surrounding the use of mobile phones and cameras, however, if Australian artists could learn to adopt their approach to storytelling in an authentic way, then I think we would see a much greater rise in social media followings and fanbase loyalty for our artists. 

For me true allyship is an attitude rooted in deep empathy, awareness and acceptance that we are all unique individuals that have our own paths to walk, paired with the willingness to empower others to embrace and celebrate that uniqueness despite the ways in which it may be different to your own. 

There can be such varying scales of activism in performance and it’s most widely recognised through major acts of intentional, overt statements that are meticulously curated. For example, I have friends abroad who are now refugees because they were required to flee their country for speaking out against it’s government. I think this grand scale is something that the majority of us comprehend. For me, I also became fascinated with the micro acts of activism that are meticulously placed in plain sight, especially when getting to experience performance art in more conservative cultures where the laws and religions place such strict limitations on what is deemed acceptable. I learned how a simple act of intentionally and strategically raising a hem line by an inch, or adding a sheer element or nude coloured panel to a dress can cause a stir and be perceived as an act as a form of rebellion. Many cultures don’t offer the same freedom of expression that we take for granted in Australia, and it was deeply humbling to learn of this when first moving abroad, forgetting how it is here, and then re-learned that once returning.

I think great art puts into words the things that we can’t quite comprehend or articulate. When we are passionate about something, grieving something or trying to come to terms with something, we feel the physical weight and the effect it has on us, but so many of us struggle to express or even process how we feel. The storytelling of song has the ability to speak to the soul, to validate our thoughts and make us feel seen and understood, or even giving words to the things we were struggling to express or understand. Music provides answers, representation, validation, and often a voice to our inner most thoughts and feelings, and it binds together a collective of people who are having that shared lived experience. Music allows us to grieve together, rise up together, fight together and love together, and when coupled with the true authentic intention of activism, it has the power to change the world. As a result of the bravery of the artist to boldly speak their truth through their music, they then give a voice to the voiceless and that magnetism is infinitely powerful.

I am a huge advocate for mindset training, which most people have never heard of, let alone considered for their music journey. All of the focus is on the strategy, the tools, the skills… but the mindset is overlooked and in my journey, the mindset I had cultivated in the years I was building my career was the only thing I believe set me apart from the competition. It’s the only thing that has kept me in the game all these years, and I work on it relentlessly to make sure I am always upgrading it. I truly believe if there were more focus on this, our artists would dream bigger, last longer and see greater results.  

In my experience, many avenues of it are, yes absolutely. So much of it can be about who you know, etc. HOWEVER, my journey has also taught me that if you are doing something authentic, unique and magnetic enough, there is no gatekeeper than can stop you. People only have power over you to the degree at which you will allow them to stop you. In today’s world of the internet, if you continue to create and INNOVATE then there will always be people drawn to you and your work, and if that work is great, it will always find an audience and open up opportunities for you that the gatekeepers can’t control. When my label dropped me, there was a period where I couldn’t get work and tales of the gatekeeping made it’s way back to me, instead of allowing it to stop me, I kept my head down, I worked hard and focused on what I could control. A little over a year later, those same gatekeepers who were making my life hell were seeing me perform on the Opera House stage with the biggest living legends in the Malay music industry, sending messages of congratulations telling me how ‘proud’ they were of me. At the end of the day we are a product, and everyone wants a piece of that pie, especially the gatekeepers when they see you succeeding. My advice? Build your own team, find your own people that have your back and believe in your vision, focus on making great work together and being good people in the world and together you will become unstoppable. 

I believe that as artists, we ultimately cultivate a safe space for ourselves when we surround ourselves with the right people. I moved overseas alone and entered the music industry in a different culture without any friends or contacts, so I have been in many “unsafe” spaces and environments on my journey and not surrounding myself with people who loved me and had my best interests at heart left me vulnerable to the greatest amount of damage or mistreatment. However, when I began surrounding myself with the right people who had the same shared values, and stopped trying to do everything on my own, no space was ever truly unsafe. This is because how my team and I conducted ourselves within them ultimately determined our experience. Having great people around me meant I also had the support necessary to leave any spaces that did not meet our level of expectation. I think there is wonderful work at play in the industry about making changes to create more safe spaces, but the greatest work we can do as artists is to focus on what we can control, which is who we do business with, who we let onto our team and how we set the standard for that team to move and operate, despite the challenges we may be presented with. Laying this foundation, learning to minimise risk before entering spaces, and always honouring your intuition is the best approach. 

Don’t wear your sunglasses on stage!! Ok that’s a huge pet peeve of mine, because ultimately a live performance is about CONNECTION and you can’t connect with your audience if you place a barrier between them and the window to your soul. You need to LOOK at your audience as individuals, not the bigger picture or collective size of the crowd. When I go to shows, I look for which artists are making eye contact with their audience, who are making people feel seen and appreciated for being there. The show should be an opportunity for you to engage with your audience. They have shown up to get access to your essence, and those people showing up are why we even get to be there on that stage in the first place. I have always believed that the easiest way to tell an artist’s true motivation for their art is by watching them perform live… are they in it for the validation and notoriety or are they doing it because they feel called to and for the love of the art? I love to see vulnerability in live shows, presence in the moment and celebration of the imperfections or mishaps as they happen. People will always connect more deeply with how human you are over how perfect your show was or how great your vocal runs were.

Whatever comes quickly and easily will disappear as fast as it came. There is a never-ending process of being shaped and moulded by the industry and your life journey that will ultimately influence who you are as an artist, and if you are doing it authentically, the act of channeling your journey into your art will then leave you with an incredible story and body of work at the end of your life. You need to go through the ups and downs in order to handle the next level of your success, so if someone offers you something on a silver platter or tempts you to take a shortcut, stay true to yourself and try to ask yourself ‘Is this truly aligned with my worth and mission, or am I tempted by my impatience to succeed?’ The truth behind taking short cuts is that you are ultimately sending yourself the message you didn’t think you could do it on your own and you needed someone else to make it happen for you. Stay real with yourself and be prepared to play the long game, your intuition will then help you differentiate what is a ‘short cut’ from what is a ‘level up’. 

I would say the hardest lesson I had to learn and the greatest lie that I ever bought into was that the end goal was to get that major label deal, or the right manager, and that ‘the experts’ would then come in and take over, taking your career and you as an artist to new heights. It was a major fall from grace when I eventually got that deal, met all my idols and soon the reality hit… These were just ordinary people, and despite being told they were now ‘my family’, it didn’t take long to realise that I was actually only ever a product or another work assignment. Countless artists will share the same story. We are sold the lie that fame, money, and success will bring you happiness, and for many, it brings the opposite. 

I feel very blessed to say I have managed to achieve the amount of success that meant I could not leave my door without recognition, however, it ultimately left me miserable and completely isolated. Had it not been for the pandemic unexpectedly uprooting me back to Australia, I would probably never have had the opportunity to discover that what truly mattered was family, friendship and human connection. I now re-enter the music world with my priorities in order, a greater understanding of myself and what I bring to the table, what I wish for my music to do for people and the impact I want to have on the world. The greatest gift to come from it all is now having the ability to authentically share those experiences with others who are looking to get into the music game and be the mentor for them that I always wished I had.

I think the most honest answer would be learning the ability to delegate. For me it is always an ongoing process. To me, music plays only part of the vision, as I find the greatest fulfillment in all elements from the writing, recording, and then conceptualising all creative visual elements, costumes, props, choreography, editing, you name it… I was always bleeding myself dry trying to be and do all the things. Eventually I hit severe burnout when I churned out 12 fully costumed, choreographed, recorded, green screen filmed and self-edited weekly videos in the pandemic that took 40-60 hours of work each. This taught me that proper rest and separation from your creative practice is absolutely essential to creativity and consistency. 

Is it too honest to say daily?! The more I share my journey, the more I realise how more people experience this than not, especially in the creative field and even more-so those of us living with neurodivergence. It is also often the case that the more you succeed, the louder the inner critic and the imposter becomes because the pressure placed upon you continues to build. Being that we are in an industry where we are often expected to shift our sound/image/etc. to better suit what is ‘sellable’, we are then forced to compromise and in a way self abandon for the sake of commercial viability, and this only exacerbates the issue because it ultimately leads to a loss of connection with who we truly are. For me it eventually meant I couldn’t differentiate between the ‘stage persona’ version of myself and the real me. The mask was always on. I think we can often become so obsessed with ‘making it’ that we forget to nurture the human being that we have to live with for the rest of our lives, ourselves. Making time for self care and self-centreing practices like meditation, tapping and breathing exercises not only help you to learn to better know yourself, but they lowered my anxiety before performances/meetings/etc. and allow me to act from a centred and grounded place. Working on yourself and daring to question your belief systems and push yourself into spaces that scare you will also force you to grow, so recently I have started making myself do things because they scare me, and just to prove to myself that limiting beliefs are just lies I have told myself. I highly recommend it.

Get to know your artists. We are all generally so time poor and overworked in the music business that we can often paint all artists with the same brush, or aim to maintain a state of detachment as we pump people through and try to hit our KPI’s. The greatest disservice my labels and management have made when I look back on any of our failed ventures together was treating me like a number and never getting to know who I am, what is my actual skillset and what do I need to become the greatest artist possible. We thought we were working as a team, but ultimately our assumptions and miscommunications were our downfall. I will never forget when my label had dropped me and I had one final show to perform for them, it was the only show they had ever booked where I would be in my element and I revealed a whole other skillset on that stage they never knew I had, and my label rep pulled me aside after the show and said, “What was THAT!? I have seen you perform all year, but I have never seen you do anything like THAT!” and all I could say was, “Well, I guess that shows that none of you ever really took the time to get to know me.” Some artists have magic in them that you never fathomed could have existed because you put them in a pigeon hole of what kind of artist you thought they were. If you sense potential in an artist, get curious about them and explore the scope of where their talent could take you both together, if they sense you truly taking an interest in them, you will unlock their highest potential whilst they are still working alongside you. 

I am ready for the era of women that uplift each other. We are starting to see it, but we still have a long way to go. Girl-on-Girl Crime can be merciless and I’m standing with the women who are refusing to hold space for it.

This month I will be launching my new company The Fearless Fempreneur which offers transformational mindset training for Fempreneurs that want to achieve their big dreams with less hustle, less overwhelm, and more authenticity. We will also host unmissable in-person networking events for Women In Business who are looking for a greater sense of community, creating spaces where femmes with big hearts can lift each other up while they let their hair down. There just might be some new original music dropping later in the year as well *wink, wink*

Bring Me To Life – Evanescence