Tell Her Journal

I think I discovered Gabrielle Aplin on Youtube when I was 14. She was uploading a lot of covers and I loved her style straight away. She uploaded a lot of originals too and I just thought her storytelling and her lyrics were so intriguing and from then on she became my inspiration for songwriting. I guess Gabrielle was also a big reason behind me deciding that I wanted music to be my career so I’ve always felt that I owe her a lot. I had a hard time at school and a big part of what helped me through that time was listening to her music on the school bus. Every morning and every afternoon I would tune out from my surroundings and just get lost in her stories and voice and imagine myself being able to do the same thing as her. And that image felt so distant but also really familiar too. Like deep down I knew I was capable of achieving a career in music but it was disguised in a lot of self doubt and I guess…tall poppy syndrome. Being from Australia, England to me was such a far away place and so out of reach…to me that stuff just didn’t exist in my reality. I would tell all my friends to listen to her. Whenever I experienced self doubt with music or anything really I would put on her music and just remind myself what everything I was doing was for and how important it was to me.

The other part of Gabrielle's career that felt super inspiring to me, was the artist community that surrounded her. I’ve always craved that kind of community and because I felt so alone all the time. Without sounding like a complete crazy person…Gabrielle Aplins community of artists felt to me, like they were my friends too. That was the first time I realised the importance of creating a welcoming and warm community as an artist and what that can do emotionally for a fan who is having a hard time. Some of those artists included Lewis Watson, Nina Nesbitt, Hudson Taylor and Orla Gartland.

Speaking of listening to Gabrielle when I was feeling alone or sad…I was 17 when I had my first crush on a girl. It was a confusing time but also it felt so normal for me. The only confusing thing was that this wasn’t something that was represented in my community. I lived in a pretty sheltered town with that stuff so I was confused why it wasn't a normalised thing. So I just never really told anyone about it. I buried it pretty deep down for a long while and honestly forgot about it until a couple years later when I saw that same girl again and was reminded at 19 of this thing I have buried so deep. It had surfaced again and this time I worked up the courage to talk to her. It was so thrilling because the crush intensified and I realised my feelings were not a phase or a little random feeling. It was real and she was so charismatic and she …i now realise.. was flirting with me and it felt so natural to me to flirt back and I guess I just wasn’t ready to openly acknowledge that part of myself. I pushed it down again until I didn’t remember it was there. I continued on with my life and had crushes on boys and every now and then, the memory of her would seep back into my mind like a disease I was too ashamed to admit to. I had this huge secret I was going to take to my grave. Listening to Gabrielle’s music would always help in these times and I kept focused on my dream and I swore to myself I’d never let a boy get in the way and distract me from what I knew I was made for. And from then on I continued to stay inside my bedroom and write songs and record covers and post them on to YouTube and would dedicate all my time to this dream I had. Any spare moments in between working on songs and recording youtube covers would be spent manifesting and daydreaming about being on a big stage with a full band singing my guts out as a community of fans surrounded me singing the words I wrote, feeling my heart almost burst from seeing how my music has affected people in such a loving way. That was all I ever wanted. I would daydream so much that I was almost never present in family chats at the dinner table. I would be off in my fairy land willing this dream to come true and then brought back down to earth whenever they’d realise I wasn’t listening.

When I was 20 I met a boy and I broke the one rule I swore I’d never break. I fell in love with a beautiful distraction and got swept up in a relationship that I thought would last forever. And while it did last 7 years with many ups and downs. We lived in a beautiful house on a hill surrounded by the most beautiful Australian bushland and I thought we’d made it. It truly was what everyone dreams about. We had bought a dog and we had a house on a hill out in beautiful nature and it felt like the beginning of a fairytale. Except somewhere along the way something got lost between the boy and I and if I’m honest…we weren't happy. The love had faded. The relationship had turned me into feeling like his mother and I knew we both weren’t as happy as we could be. I also knew he would never be the first to admit it. And I guess the straw that broke the camel's back was when I met the girl. THE girl. It was that feeling again. The same feeling I had when I was 17 was surfacing again and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t keep it down. It was like tasting bile in my mouth. It was coming up whether I liked it or not and I could no longer push it down. I just knew and you can call me crazy, I don’t fucking care. I knew she was something really special. Whether she liked me back or not…I was sentenced to a lifetime of loving this person I hardly knew and chances were, she wasn’t going to love me back. I was completely fucked.

Then two weeks later I was on a plane to London by myself. By myself, overseas for the first time in my life. Alone. No distractions and I remember thinking when the boy had dropped me off at the airport, I knew deep down that I was never going to come back the same. I knew that this would be the last time I was this version of myself. So as I was saying goodbye to him, I hugged him tighter than I ever had because I was also saying goodbye to myself. I walked into the airport and called my friend and burst into tears and told her everything.

I was in London and it was time to write some songs. I had a bunch of writing sessions lined up and I was meeting my label for the first time. Here and there I had shared with my label how much I love Gabrielle. Her music is part of my story and she was a big part of me wanting a label deal in the first place. I was such a big fan of Gabrielle that when I was 18, my mum and I traveled over to the UK and I made us go visit the city Bath because I knew that’s where Gabrielle would spend a lot of time and I wanted to visit the venues she’d play. So you can imagine how I felt when my team told me that Gabrielle would be joining in on my first writing session with Seaton Daunt and Ash Howes. After everything that was already going on, this session with her was a full circle moment for me and I was reminded of how the universe works in such wonderful and mysterious ways. Also reminded that I didn’t know her at all..but her music…her music was a person to me. Her lyrics were a friend…a really close friend. So all of a sudden I’m on a train from London to Bath and of course didn’t sleep a wink the night before. I was running on pure adrenaline. Everything was moving too fast to let reality sink in. I was just hoping she would like me enough to take me seriously as an artist. I was just hoping to be enough. I was also just trying to remind myself that she most likely won’t be what I hoped and that’s okay because it was her music that was my friend, not her and that’s okay. They always say “don’t meet your heroes” so it’s okay if she wasn’t how I thought she’d be. I dropped any expectation I had in my head and got to the session early. Ash and Seton picked me up from the station. We got to the studio…which was on top of a beautiful picturesque hill surrounded by sheep and rolling hills. It was a beautiful 360 clear view of the horizon. We went into the studio and I sat on the couch as we traded small talk and music industry stories and then Ash got a text that Gabrielle was half an hour away. Gabrielle Aplin was half an hour away. On her way to a session with ME? I still couldn’t believe it wasn’t fake or a huge miscommunication. 20 mins to go, 10 mins to go.. 3mins, I heard a car pull in. omg. omg. omg. Don’t panic. Be yourself. Breath. Low and behold she walks in like a human hurricane. She smelt like cigarettes and I absolutely loved it. She was real. I just sat there on the couch taking it all in. In complete disbelief that my songwriting idol was sitting right there and I wasn’t there as a fan, I was there as an equal because I worked hard to get there. Well that’s what I told myself as a pat on the back. All of a sudden Gabrielle who was Gabby/Gabs….Bags?? Bags turned to me and said “so what are we writing about??” and Ash said “well she’s got quite the story”. And so I told her everything about the girl and the boy and the secret…not the part where I was a die hard fan. But everything that had happened. I met a girl that made me feel like I was living a lie. This girl reminded me of who I was and also made me feel like I was coming home after school camp. Does that make sense? Anyway.. she just made me feel like I was saying hello to myself for the first time. I was sitting there on a couch with Gabrielle Aplin and confiding in her, Seaton and Ash about my crisis and my heartbreak and confusion and complete overwhelm. What was I gonna do when I got home? Just keep pushing it down for it only to appear stronger later? Or just be brave and do the hard thing. Break the boys heart and my own just so i can say hello to myself? Great.

From there, the first single of my debut album was born, ‘Tell Her’. We laughed and I cried and we all loved the song so much, Gabby was jumping around with joy that this song was giving her. “Bish Bash Bosh”. She said that a lot and I didn't know what it meant but I liked it. Then it was getting dark and she left like she entered. A bloody hurricane and it was calm and silent after. Like when you can hear your ears ringing after a concert and the silence feels so loud. Ash drove me back to the station and I floated back to London that night.