Sarah Blasko

As a child, being read bedtime stories is often the norm. While this is still true for Sarah Blasko, instead her father nourished her love for music from a young age, often playing his favourite records to the budding songstress.
“I think my dad’s enthusiasm for music really made an impression on me, but I think there was also a really natural inclination there as well,” Sarah says.
“It seems to be a real mixture of having someone who plays a mentor kind of role in your life and plays you music and then I think there was also a natural spark inside me that it really appealed to.
“I just remember I would sit there for hours just looking at the records and reading the inside sleeve. One of the earliest memories was The Elephant Man soundtrack, which horrified me. I was so scared of the music but so intrigued by the music at the same time.”
Six albums later, all released in a timely manner, with plenty of side projects seeing Sarah working on a soundtrack for a short film (The Nightingale and the Rose) and alongside the Sydney Dance Company amongst others, you could say there’s certainly something about her inspiration and work ethic.
What seems to set Sarah apart is her unbridled honesty in what she creates, something that in a social context may cause her grief, but in her music sets her work alight.
“I’ve always wanted to be someone who could reveal less about themselves. People who play it cool and you think they never have a doubt in their mind. Some people can hold things in much easier than I feel I can as a human being. But I suppose it must be a useful thing in writing music or revealing something in a performance,” she says.
“People ask me a lot, ‘Don’t you feel horrified about how honest you are in your music?’ and I think that I don’t really think about it. Then when people bring it up I’m like, ‘Oh my God, yeah I am!’. I’m revealing a lot.
“I think that when we create music the great thing about it is that it’s a really heightened version of your own experience. And in a sense you can feel sort of protected by that because it’s not absolute truth. It’s heightened and it could be something you feel in a fleeting moment that you’ve written a whole song about it.”
This time around for her release Eternal Return, whilst claiming it openly as a love album, her signature heartfelt lyrics have been injected with synth. Much like everything Sarah does it was a natural progression for her music.
“It was just simply buying a profit keyboard and really loving the sound,” Sarah says.
“From there it was about finding the right people to work with. There’s a guy called Donny Benet who played bass on that album and he’s also a real synth nerd, so he brought some of his beautiful synth to play on the album.
“Early on that seemed to be the right path. I think with each record there’s been a different instrument to start off the record. With the last album that was probably when I got a ukulele and the album before that was when I started playing a piano.”
Her core instrument may evolve with each album, but there’s always a sentiment of truth that rings through in each release, and chances are, that won’t be stopping any time soon.
Written by Amanda Sherring
Release: Eternal Return is out now at all good retailers