— I love that you felt the contrast between the ostensible image of "Marie" - my album's protagonist – and the realness of what she is going through and how she acts. My upcoming album is called "33, Single & Broke" - just like it's first single. The title is uncomfortably honest and very on the nose. But that's life sometimes! I found myself at the start of the pandemic – 33 years old and suddenly without all my normal work and life as a musician. On top of that I experienced a break up 1 week before lock down started - the timing was horrible. It felt like everything was striped away and all I had was my honesty, my feelings and my guitar. So I made this album to tell my story - and a big part of that was dealing with all the pressures that women face in their thirties. There is a very strong societal picture of where one should be at this age – if you not hitched up, with kids, highly successful and making good money, somehow you're made to feel like you a lacking. Not good enough.

I decided to tell my story honestly with this music, in the hope that my vulnerability might help to break down some taboos and create a feeling of solidarity for those going through the same things. I created a protagonist to tell this very natural and honest story who would contrast with it strongly. I wanted to be provocative and visually impacting and to give my topics a historical lens as well. My initial thought was to depict myself as some form of royalty in an oil painting for the cover - because that would contrast so well with the title. The more I researched looks of glamorous historical royalty though, the more Marie Antoinette came up – she is everywhere, she is legend. The most interesting part though is that she is also widely misunderstood. She was forced from childhood onward to play a part – to fulfill her role as royalty – as a women - doing as she was told. She was frivolous and opulent by all accounts - but wouldn't any bored teenager with the equivalent of an unlimited credit card be? Her image was sexualised and instrumentalized during the french revolution - she was slut shamed, she was abused. I really felt for her - trying to make her way through all the expectations handed down to her. So .. I decided to catapult Marie into 2022 and create her modern counterpart – to tell this story and give it the weight of so many generations of women going through similar problems with different labels.

On a side note – I always sing barefoot on stage – so that part is all me. :) It's probably the New Zealander in me.

— It's always a mix for me. Sometimes a guitar riff comes first or sometimes it's a melody swimming in my head. With the two last singles the melody and a few catch phrases came first. With 'so many men' I had the whole melody and lyrics already before touching an instrument.