Kiwi singer Georgia Lines on signing the deal of a lifetime

Kiwi singer/songwriter Georgia Lines has signed with a huge management company in the US. Photo / Holly Sarah Burgess

Walking into a hip neighbourhood cafe at the quiet end of Mt Maunganui, pop sensation Georgia Lines is a burst of bright, cheerful energy. Her penchant for bold colours ensures heads turn her way and her big smile radiates warmth. She has a likeable, undeniable star power and it’s easy to understand why some of the biggest players in pop music are wanting to work with the independent artist.

The bubbly 26-year-old is a regular here and as she approaches the counter she’s greeted by the owner who gets straight to making her usual. As it’s a rare sun-drenched day we take a seat outside in the small courtyard and I wonder the best way to start the interview.

You see, Lines has a lot going on right now. She won Best Breakthrough Artist at last year’s Aotearoa Music Awards where she was also nominated for Best Pop Artist alongside our global superstars Lorde and Benee.

She’s recently back from Austin, Texas, where she performed at the opening party of the tastemaker festival South by Southwest. While there she played a string of showcase gigs that caught the attention of one of America’s biggest booking agencies, Wasserman Music. Their senior VP, Larry Webmann, was so impressed he made her an offer. The Mt Maunganui local who up until very recently supplemented her pop aspirations by teaching children piano, now shares the same US agent as Coldplay.

“It’s insane,” she grins. “It also feels weird being like, ‘I have an agent’. Go me! It’s crazy. He found Coldplay and made Coldplay into Coldplay so it’s massive. A huge, huge win for me. I love America, I really do.

“My husband’s an American citizen, we’ve got family there. But, the thing that I really love is you go there and you’re playing the game with people that are so much better than you. You level up and have to become better because those are the types of people that I’m in a room with. I have to push myself to write in a different way, or really hone in on what I’m trying to do because these people know what they’re doing. In terms of plans, we’re having those conversations at the moment. I’ve been going there to build connections and relationships with people and then coming back here. Just kind of dancing between the two.”

Lines is about to release a new album. Photo / Mikee Carpinter

On top of all that she’s just dropped her first single for the year, Monopoly, which she worked on with the same producer as Kelly Clarkson, Demi Lovato and Ellie Goulding.

In many ways, we’ve caught Lines in the eye of the storm. It’s calm now, but swirling around her are a lot of big things - about as big as you can get in the world of pop music. As she’s perched right on the cusp of potential I decide to simply ask how she’s feeling in this moment.

“I’m feeling many emotions. I’m excited but really nervous. Not nervous in the way of, ‘what am I doing?’ but in the anticipation. A nervous energy. I know a storm is coming, so what do I need to do to prepare for that? How do I get ready for what’s coming or what might happen? That’s my constant tension.”

That pressure is something she’s had to face directly. Music is more than her passion, it’s her life. But her devotion and drive took its toll. She found herself in a state of constant stress and felt overwhelmed by her ever-growing To Do list. The fun and release of music all but disappeared.

On one hand, her admission is surprising. Lines is great company, a self-proclaimed chatterbox with an upbeat aura who is a lot of fun to hang with. But on the other, it’s not surprising at all when you consider that she’s singlemindedly and determinedly made her success happen. There is no big label behind Georgia Lines, just her own hard work, time and effort.

In the music world the phrase “independent” is normally associated with acoustic singer/songwriters or shaggy-haired bands. Lines doesn’t just break the mould, she smashes it. Proudly independent, she’s planned, steered and overseen every aspect of her career since gaining attention as a teenager with a win at the 2014 Smokefree Rockquest.

Since then she’s released Human, her chart-topping debut EP in 2020, racked up over 3 million streams on music platforms, performed overseas regularly and launched the web series Intros, where she interviews female and non-binary artists, which has just been funded by NZ On Air for a second season.

Lines has more than 3 million streams of her music online. Photo / Holly Sarah Burgess

While she doesn’t say it directly it sounds like she may have burnt herself out.

“In Covid, there was a big shift for me, mentally,” she says. “I thought, if I don’t start to learn to enjoy the process and the journey - not just the big moments - this is gonna be really taxing and not fun. What the heck is the point? Why am I doing what I’m doing? It was a really good reset for me.”

At first, however, the pandemic’s lockdowns were incredibly frustrating. She’d successfully crowdfunded her EP and meticulously planned a full-release campaign and tour around it to take the songs to the fans who had helped her birth Human. She was devastated when it all had to be cancelled.

“I’d worked so hard on that project and I couldn’t play any shows. I couldn’t do anything,” she sighs. “It was a defining time. This feeling of working so hard and then everything not happening. It got to a point where I was expecting things to not happen or to fall apart.”

It was during those dark days that the naturally effervescent Lines had her life-changing revelation.

“I was in that headspace and thought, ‘Okay. I can’t control so many things. I can’t control people. I can’t control Covid. I can’t control whether or not I can travel,’,” she explains. “I realised I’m only in control of myself and how I’m looking after myself. There was this real mental shift of going, ‘How can I continue to enjoy and love what I do even when everything’s out of my control?’.”

This makes her sound a little like a control freak and she laughs and says that her personality skews strongly towards structure, organisation and being on top of everything.

“I’ve been like that ever since I was a kid,” she laughs, “I love a good list.”

Losing control was extremely challenging, she says, adding that the process is “continuous”.

“It’s been hard and difficult and very strange to go through. The only thing I can control is the work I put in. I can push it up to a certain point, and then I have to trust that whatever’s going to happen is going to happen. Obviously, there’s disappointment that still happens, I’m not immune to feeling upset.”

Then, with a grin, she exclaims, “I’m not a robot!” and laughs, before getting serious again and continuing.

“But it’s removed the anxiousness and the rat wheel that you hop on, to chase after something that you may never ever get.”

I ask if losing control was a relief and Lines leans back in her chair and emphatically says, “Oh, yeah,” and then I ask how so.

“It changes your relationships, your marriage… I’ve learnt the journey will probably be a constant struggle. It’s like the more I tried to control someone else or control how someone else responded, it just created more worry and anxiety and fear,” she explains. “Control is a very broad umbrella but that mindset bleeds into every area of your life. It’s not just compartmentalised to your job.”

Her breakthrough required her to flip her world upside down. First, she changed her diet and then the night owl became a morning person. Now she leaves the house before dawn to exercise, before soaking in the local hot pools.

“It makes me feel rested. I start my day early and feel like I’ve set myself up for a win,” she smiles. “That’s a routine I can control. For so many people mental health is such a massive thing. How do we look after ourselves? How do I look after myself? Part of that is eating really well, getting good sleep, exercising, getting up in the morning, seeing the sun and realising that is what’s under my control. And that makes me function so much better.”

As she talks her drastic lifestyle shakeup continues to feel bigger than just needing to take a more relaxed approach to the whims of fate. Was there a catalyst, I wonder aloud, for her lifestyle handbrake?

“I started having thyroid issues and adrenal issues, which are high stress-related,” she says. “Your body’s just not able to calm down. It was realising I’m 26 and shouldn’t be having these issues caused by high stress. I had to let go of a lot of my routine and really pivot and go, ‘Okay, this is about looking after myself. My body’s not functioning, how it should.”

Even with her health on the line, she found it difficult. She grins and admits that her initial thought after her diagnosis was that she’d just power through. I say that could have been the shock of learning what was happening to her and she says she knew she had to make big changes.

“I stopped and asked myself, ‘Why am I doing this?’,” she says. “I’m doing it because I love it and I feel this deep ache to do it. I changed perspective and let go of a bunch of stuff. I let go of expectation and I let go of what I think people expect of me.”

This new life philosophy is clearly working for Lines. Her vibe is positive, and her demeanour relaxed. Even with such massive, potentially life-changing events circling she seems light. Unburdened.

“I feel relaxed,” she smiles. “I still work my butt off but it’s the way in which I go about something. You can work hard and still have boundaries and put your work down.”

Then she says, “Going back to what you were saying, how do I feel being in the eye of the storm? I feel excited and nervous, but I feel very much cool with it. I don’t know what’s gonna happen in the next six months. I don’t know. And I’m okay with it. I feel very rested in that space.”

Then looking positively serene she says, “It’s all good. Let’s hop on, enjoy the ride and see where the road takes us.”