Words by Stella Anning // Photograph by Adrian Narayan
I’m a guitarist. I love guitar. When my mum asked me what after school activity I wanted to do when I was 10, I instantly knew it was to be a musician and more specifically, someone in the rhythm section. For years that was my identity – “guitarist”. If you had asked me, even in my early 30’s, if I thought people would be introducing me as a “singer”, I would have said no way! But then I had a baby.
It’s hard to say if it was the transition to parenthood or if it developed out of basic need, because it coincided with the beginnings of the COVID epidemic, but I’d say it was a mix of both. In the quiet solitude of lockdown, most especially with a newborn baby, I spent a lot of time reflecting on my past and envisioning the future I wanted for myself, my baby and also my community. This experience made me want to write words, to be able to communicate directly to my audience and engage with them in a more personal and meaningful way than my previous instrumental albums.
The profound transition that one has to parenthood, can’t really be explained. And I guess it plays out differently for everyone. But every day I grew to understand my newborn baby more and in turn, myself and my purpose, in a completely different light. I always knew I wanted to be a musician and although I had many curveballs in my music career trajectory, becoming a lead-singer in my 30’s definitely was not what I had on the cards.
By the time I became a parent, I had one instrumental album out, and another one soon to be recorded and released. I had performed in various ensembles as a guitarist and had been a backing singer as an added extra! I did really enjoy singing, but I never had a desire to be the lead singer. I really love playing guitar and it will always be my first love. The first time I felt an urge to write a song with lyrics was in 2019 when I had a miscarriage. Even though I had had ups and downs in my life before that, nothing came close to the emotions that came with that loss. The song just came pouring out. I wrote it, I sang it at home, then I put it to bed. I then continued back on my usual track, writing instrumental pieces. But then once I was postnatal, songs started pouring out. Songs about stories from my past, songs about my life, songs about what I wanted for the future. It was almost involuntary.
Once I had a collection of songs that I had workshopped on small gigs and then recorded, a year later, it was release time. I started booking small tours and bigger shows, releasing singles and doing all of that good industry stuff that comes with being an independent musician. All the while, I had been getting singing lessons and working on this new craft, which I’ll tell you, is hugely different to guitar! I’m not sure I had truly envisioned how much work I would need to put into this new skill, when I was just flippantly writing songs during lockdown! Having said that, it has been immensely rewarding.
There have been many many challenges along the way! As any singer will tell you – dealing with a tired voice, a sick voice, having eaten too close to the performance, not warming up enough, using incorrect technique, singing in front of one of your singing idols (Kristen Berardi!) or even being just a little bit sad (or in the lowest part of your menstrual cycle!) before a performance and then having to go onstage and sing your heart out to a really emotional song. Singing encompasses your entire emotional and physical self. You have to be extra kind to yourself!
The songs off of this album, this collection of motherhood reflections, are all deeply personal songs. And since then, I have written even more deeply personal songs that will most definitely be on my next album. But the honeymoon of writing deeply personal songs is also becoming increasingly close to an end. I have exhausted myself, singing about some very sad experiences! Now I’m excited to write about a squirrel, or a pencil, or about a bush walk I took in my 20’s. The song writing world is my oyster! And it’s just not maintainable to continue writing about only your trauma or euphoria! Or not for me anyway. And hopefully my life is becoming more stable and I won’t have trauma to write about ever! One can wish…
So now I have a new creative outlet. I song-write. I do prompt based writing. Sometimes I even get together with a friend to do it together and share our writing. My friend Michael J Brady (another guitarist-come singer-songwriter, from Sydney) introduced me to this great book ‘Song writing without Boundaries’ and we get together and do prompts from the book. Michael and I were both lucky enough to do an Artist Residency at Banff last year. We would meet every morning and go through song writing prompts and we have continued these meet ups since.
Since releasing my new singer-songwriter material, I have been booked for different gigs that I wasn’t getting booked for as solely a guitarist, and I guess that was part of the aim… to get more gigs. Or more gigs that I like doing! But I will still continue to do projects that are exclusively guitar work and that just gives me more variety in my artistic practice.
Some journeys you plan, others sneak up on you in the quiet moments between life’s chaos. Becoming a singer wasn’t in my blueprint, but it’s given me a new way to express myself – one where vulnerability and creativity meet. It’s also given me a deeply personal and authentic way to connect with people, that is vastly different to performing on the guitar. What began as an instinctive response to life’s biggest shifts has now become a part of my artistic identity, sitting alongside my lifelong love of the guitar. So, this is me telling you, it’s never too late to try something new.
Stella Anning’s newest album Yellow Brick Veneer comes out September 3rd.
See Stella Anning with her band on their upcoming tour:
Saturday 20 September – 7pm, Smith’s Alternative (upstairs) Ngambri & Ngunnawal/Canberra
Sunday 21 September – 3pm, El Horses, Nowra
Monday 22nd September – 7.30pm, Church Street Studios, Gadigal/Sydney
Sunday 5 October – 3pm, Shotkickers, Naarm/Melbourne
