It’s safe to say that folk-pop songstress Vera Blue has had a huge rise in popularity in the last two years; from going platinum with Illy to closing out Splendour with Flume, sold-out national tours and now on the brink of releasing her debut album Perennial, Celia Pavey AKA Vera Blue is unstoppable.
The stunning singer-songwriter wrote her first song when she was just 15 years old, after being exposed to musicians such as Joni Mitchell and Simon and Garfunkel. It was then that sparked her ear for folk music and she realised music was her calling.
“I was exposed to a lot of folk artists and started listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell and I think that really started my passion to write music. I taught myself the guitar, started writing songs myself and I think that’s when I realised that maybe this is something that I could give a good shot at and I loved it,” Pavey says. “I was passionate about it and my parents seemed to really believe in me so it was a really special thing to be given the opportunity to be able to continue on.”
She first emerged into the music scene as Celia Pavey, a contestant on The Voice Australia, however it was her time after The Voice that she began discovering new sounds, and it was with a new-found love for electronic music that Vera Blue was born.
“I was very focused on folk music and writing folk songs which is where I was at an artist at that time and that was totally cool, that’s what Celia Pavey music was. But I started listening to electronic music, like people like Alt J and I just thought that this was just the coolest thing ever and I said to my producer Andy Mak that I really want to blend the folk music with the electronic and he was just like ‘cool sweet’ and we just experimented and we got my EP ‘Fingertips’,” she says.
“That’s when I realised it deserved its own project name and I see Vera Blue not just as myself, but as Andy and Tom and a few other people who have come to the collective as well.”
The very original Vera Blue sound that we know and love can be heard on her latest two singles for the forthcoming Perennial album, with her latest release ‘Mended’ a beautifully raw and honest ballad that gives insight into what the album will sound like.
“This record is very vulnerable and it’s kind of like a healing journey and a personal development in growth record about myself, it’s very special to be able to release it. It’s all very honest,” she says. “I think people can relate to it as well because sometimes you might be saying something that other people might not have the courage to say.”
Pavey said she is both excited and nervous to tour the album, performing new songs with a fresh live stage show but can’t wait for the world to go on this musical journey with her.
“It’s been quite an emotional roller-coaster so I’m just really excited for people to be able to connect to it. We’ve kind of structured it into three different chapters and the chapters show the emotional journey and the phases I went through to overcome a relationship and really repair from it, I learnt so much about myself and I’m really excited for people to feel what I feel.”
When & Where: Tap House, Bendigo – August 8 & The Wool Exchange, Geelong – August 12.
Perennial is available for purchase now.
Written by Molly Slater
