COUNTRY DARLING READY TO ROCK

From the classroom to the stage, Lily Grace is climbing her way up the country music charts before finishing high school

At just 16-years-old, country musician Lily Grace has more determination than most people three times her age. Her father likes to joke that she is a part time student and full time musician, despite still being in high school.

The Gold Coast local is already mixing it with big names in the music industry, partnering with James Blundell to release her first official song, Annie June, which reached number two on CMT charts and sat in the charts for about five months.

Her second song, and first solo song, Sixteen Wishes has been even more successful, sitting in the CMT charts for several months.

“It has had over 200,000 Spotify streams and in excess of 85,000 individual monthly listeners,” Lily said.

“It just recently got voted at The Tamworth Songwriters Association Awards as Country Song of the Year.”

Lily released her second solo song on February 11, The Two Of Us Meet, which was released in both Australia and the US.

“I am travelling to Nashville in June for performances and to work on my new song,” she said.

Last year Lily travelled with James Blundell on a co-headline tour, The Annie June Tour.

This year she is travelling to headline her own shows.

“This tour to Bundaberg and Townsville is my first headline tour and I am very excited,” Lily said.

Lily has extra reason to be excited for her first tour in Townsville with plenty of family living in the region.

“I have a lot of cousins and stuff up there who we haven’t seen for a while, so it’s gonna be a nice time,” she said.

Lily said she was keen to see the response of Townsville fans to her live performance.

“It’s gonna be a very stripped back, intimate and acoustic set,” she said.

“I’ll be sharing one of my unreleased songs as well as older songs and my brand new single.

“I get home from school and I write a song and I’ve been doing that for a couple of years now so I’ve got a lot of songs under my belt that I haven’t released.

“I’ve released a couple of videos on social media but I haven’t actually performed them live so to share these with the audience is exciting.”

While other people her age are busy with sport and friends, Lily dedicates her time to music

“My favourite things to do are write songs, perform music,” she said.

“I love it so much, it’s my favourite thing to do.

“My dad makes a joke that ‘Lily’s a part time student and a full time musician’.

“I’m really excited though because I’ve been posting on social media for a long time and I suppose it was big audience on there and a lot were from Townsville and I’ve met people at festivals and Tamworth who are from Townsville but I’ve never actually performed there and a lot of people have just seen me on social media but not in person so I’m really excited to be bringing this show to the stage and meeting them all.”

Lily started on her singing career path at just 10-years-old by busking at her local markets and used the money to buy an amplifier for future gigs.

“I do work hard at what I do, but James has also given me a foot in the door, and I’m incredibly grateful,” she said.

“(Working with Blundell) was the most amazing experience.

“I was originally booked to play on a show with Tania Kernaghan.

“The show was me, Tania and James but unfortunately something came up and Tania had to pull out.

“I had already met James at this point and, being the gentleman he is, he called up and he’s like, ‘Would you like to still play the show with me?’ I’m like, yeah, of course. You be the headliner, I’ll play support.

“And he said no, we’ll co-headline so I’ve turned 15 and headlining a show with James Blundell.

“I did the whole journey of promoting the show, doing interviews, posting on social media, making videos together and also organising sets for the show.

“I was going to have a set and James was going to have a set and then we’d have one together, we were singing two of my songs and two of his songs and two covers. I said I had an idea that we could write a song together and he was like, ‘cool idea’.

“So I kept chasing him up and it happened, we booked a date, it was a lazy Sunday afternoon, I was in my back bedroom, he was in his shed – being the country boy that he is – and we wrote this song called Annie June. We released that song, it did incredibly well.”

But not one to rest on her laurels, Lily has big plans for the year ahead.

“My new single’s called The Two Of Us

Meet, I’ve been putting a lot of work into it, filming content music videos and everything to go along with it and I’m also going to Nashville next year, which is super exciting,” she said.

“I’ve been working to go there for a long time now and I’m very excited to be going.

“I’ve been on social media to the American market but I’ve never actually released a song there properly so I decided to give that a good crack too.”

For Lily’s Townsville show she will be sharing the motivation and inspiration behind her music.

“I’ll be sharing the stories behind my songs and how they came about and where the inspiration came from, why they’re relatable.”

I do work hard at what I do, but James (Blundell) has also given me a foot in the door, and I’m incredibly grateful