Australia's Next Pop Star: Chatting With Nicole Millar

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There are many brilliant vocalists across Australia. On most tracks you’ll like the melody, but soon you fall in love with the vocalist as their voice echoes through the melody. Nicole Millar is one of Australia’s most prominent vocalists who released her debut EP, Tremble, earlier this year.

The tracks on Tremble gave us a closer look at Millar and the wonderful writing skills she possesses. After collaborating with major acts like Peking Duk, people would have had ‘High’ expectations of Millar (I went there) when she finally released solo material. Luckily, she surpassed everyone's expectations and released a compelling collection of tracks that we all became obsessed with.

Since Tremble’s release, Nicole Millar has been performing non-stop. She performed at Splendour In The Grass this year and blew the audience away with her explosive voice and fiery energy on stage. We also heard that she’s been working on some new tracks so we caught up with her, ahead of the Pandora Warehouse Party, to see what she’s been working on.

Tremble was a huge success for you and everyone loved it, but I hear you’ve been working on some new material lately. How will the new material differ from the tracks you released on Tremble?

Well, I know myself as an artist now and so I know the music I want to be making. With Tremble, I was still kind of figuring it out. I’m performing a lot now and I do love jumping around and going crazy, I just love shows that are energetic. There is a track that’s more of a slow pop ballad, but it’s something that’s a bit more upbeat. Do you know Sable?

Yeah I do! I actually heard he was in the studio with you, has he been a big influence on you in the studio? Has he snuck some of his own sound into tracks?

[laughs] It’s got a bit of a mixture of my music and Sable’s. All the lyrics were done and Sable flew in from Perth to be in the studio of about a week or two. He just got it to a level that sounds so cool and we have a medium between our two sounds. [With my music] it still has to feel like a pop song, nothing too experimental.

Is there a track that’s really stood out for you whilst recording?

My favourite new track is probably ‘Signals’. It’s going to be released soon, I probably shouldn’t be telling you this [laughs], but it should be released within the next month.

That’s still vague enough for you to be safe I think! I read that you also write in bed sometimes. When you write your songs, do you feel like you need to be in a comfortable atmosphere and be at ease?

I used to just get given beats over the internet and because I still live at home, my room is where I write everything. I usually write late at night and record melodies on GarageBand. I take those ideas into sessions and I usually don’t finish them because I get stuck. I like to take them into a producer and a writer so we can flesh it out. I’m quite shy so it’s good to start there and have something to go into the studio with, especially if you don’t know the people as well. It can be a bit awkward [laughs].

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You mentioned before that you’ve been performing quite a lot. How has your live show evolved since you started performing?

It’s definitely changed since the first show I did with the new live band. I think it evolves because I have new songs or cut out the ones that don’t really suit the show and make it a tighter set. I’ve created an intro and we have visuals as well. Sometimes I’ll have dancers, but it just depends on what we’re doing.

Is there anything in your live show that you’d like to play with, anything else you’d add to it?

I’d like to get the dancers to come all the time, but for budget reasons we can do that yet. I’d like to bring another girl too, like bring another female element to the show.. and maybe another guitarist [laughs].

You’ve been in the music industry for quite some time and worked with some pretty big names, how do you see the industry now and how it might evolve in the future?

It’s definitely growing, new artists pop up everyday and when I went to the United States in April, they were very aware of the artists here. When I went to Europe on holiday, everyone was really into it and I think we have a lot to look forward to. People are understanding Australian musicians and we’re getting more opportunities.