We interview Australian singer-songwriter Tulliah about her forthcoming EP, her singles ‘Distant Dream’ and ‘Just My Type (A Little Bit Lonely)’ and how the pandemic has shaped her music.
Tulliah’s debut EP ‘Fre$h Hugs’ is available for pre-save here now.
You’ve got such an exciting few weeks coming up with the EP release. How are you feeling about it all?
It is about time, it’s been so long. I’m really excited, I’m excited to get it out in the world because I’ve heard it so many times and it’s probably been nearly a year since we started in the studio, so I’m excited to just let people hear it.
What has the creative process been like for you? Have you done isolated writes, have you written with people?
So, when we started recording it was probably two weeks before lockdown hit. I was on tour and the very last show was on the 13th March, which was kind of the last show anywhere. Straight after that, it was pretty much full lockdown, so you could only work with one other person. I slept in the studio at Dean’s – my producer.
I was going to ask about him, how much has he brought to the project?
Oh, he’s brought so much to the project, I went in there and I had no clue what I wanted things to sound like or what my sound was. From the start, we went in together and had no clue, I showed songs that I loved and a lot of those songs were mainly acoustic. There was only one that had piano in it, they were just very simple and beautiful lyrics.
That’s quite a nice base to build upon, you can just go where the songs want to go, rather than getting too het up with everything else.
Yeah I think if you go in with an idea of where you want to go, it kind of blocks any chance of something special or a random spark of inspiration. Some of the songs came so randomly, I have no idea where they came from and if you’re so focussed on getting somewhere, you might miss out on that.
Talking about that inspiration, what does the track ‘Just My Type’ mean to you? You’ve been quite frank about it.
Yeah, so that one took the longest to find where it felt right, production-wise and stuff. I first wrote it, it was a piano ballad. I wrote the first two lines and it just had a nice feeling, but at that time I didn’t know what it was about or where I was drawing it from. I ended up finishing it and it took about a month to finish it and I still didn’t know what it was about, it just gave me this feeling and made me emotional. In the studio, I changed some lyrics around and it just made sense, right now for me, it’s just about that feeling when you meet someone and you feel like you want to help them or get through something, but they wouldn’t do the same for you. I think there was a point where I’d take on people’s problems and they would drain me a bit, just because I wanted to help. The lyrics ‘you’re just my type – a little bit lonely,’ was kind of that I was drawn to people who were a bit sad and I felt like I could lift them up and drawn to what remains and I just wanted to help them.
It’s interesting that you have that form of inspiration but then your most recent single was inspired by a painting, so can you talk about finding inspiration in that way?
It was yes, so that one was also a piano ballad – that was called ‘Distant Dreams’ and I wrote that at my friend’s. He gave me his upright piano, it’s really old and it’s about a quarter of a semitone out of tune and I was just playing it, my mom and dad were moving a painting to above it to make it look nice. As they were moving it, my mom read out the title and it just had ‘Distant Dreams’ on the back. We’ve had this painting for years and I was just playing chords and it just flowed out. It was one that just happened so easily. I had been gigging and busking locally for years and I was on this plateau for ages, cruising along and I wanted to take that next step but I didn’t know how to get there, so I was feeling deflated and it was just written from the perspective of being in a dream where everything’s fluid and all your goals are achieved – then you wake up and it’s back in reality.
You’re out in Mornington Australia, what is the musical scene like there and what has your musical journey looked like?
I’ve always sang around the house and with my singing school, we just had little concerts. In year nine, I started busking and it was really good. The most awkward part is setting down, everyone is just kind of looking at you, but when you get going, you get people walk past and smile. Just from that, I’d get people walk past and give me their cards, I booked a few gigs and I met my manager through my singing teacher and he just helped me kick things off.
Before you know it the sky’s the limit, so what do you hope that people take away from this project?
I would love it to be one of those records that people just put their headphones and they sit there and listen, or they might be on a walk, just taking in all the different sounds and feelings and listen to the lyrics.
It’s a beautiful project so I can’t wait for people to hear it.
Thank you.
